Progressive Wednesday

Health Care v. Who Cares?

February 4th, 2008 by Eric

Last week, after the President’s State of the Union address, there was a photo taken of Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama. She is reaching over either to shake his or Ted Kennedy’s hand. He turns away just as the picture is being taken, making it look as though he is rejecting her handshake.

But you know that already. The reason I know that you know that is because you are reading this blog which means that you are probably interested enough in world events that you turned on the tube sometime that week, and regardless of whether you were watching FOX, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, or Nickelodeon (OK, maybe not that one), you saw pundits discussing it, analyzing it, and doing whatever else they could do to it for nearly three days. It was Christmas in January for the media.

If you’re like me, you were more than a little irritated that this got so much press coverage. That 99% of voting-age Americans knew about the “handshake snub,” but hardly any could tell me about the differences in their health care plans, is enough to make me want to throw my 38″, 300-pound television through my window. But instead, I decided to even those numbers out, if only a little bit. So below are the health care plans of Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Take a minute to read them over.

But most importantly, VOTE! And when you do, base your decision on who you think has a better health care plan, who will strengthen America’s middle and lower classes, and who will improve our standing in the world. Don’t make it based on a picture of a handshake.

• Barack Obama’s Health Care Plan
• Hillary Clinton’s Health Care Plan

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This pretty much sums up how I feel about the whole thing.