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Obama Touts Health Care Plan

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By MIKE GLOVER, The Associated Press

Published: November 25, 2007

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa - Democrat Barack Obama, seeking distance from his leading rivals, touted his health care expansion package as doing more to cut costs and deal with the root problems facing consumers "than any other proposal in this race."

The Illinois senator's two main rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination - New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards - have offered universal health care plans, while his stops short of mandating that everyone have health insurance. Obama routinely describes his rivals' plans as similar in thrust, but he began sharpening those differences as he opened his latest campaign swing Saturday.

"Cost is the number one reason that 47 million Americans do not have health insurance and thousands more are edging toward bankruptcy every day," Obama said at a town hall-style meeting of about 350 people. "That is wrong, and it's why my plan does more to cut the cost of health insurance than any other proposal in this race."

Obama sought to distance requirements in his rivals' plans that consumers buy health insurance, saying that thinking is misplaced.

"What I have said repeatedly is that the reason people don't have health insurance is not because they don't want it, it's because they can't afford it," Obama said.

Although Obama conceded plans for the leading rivals are similar, he said the insurance mandate is a key difference.

"It's unfortunate that Senator Obama didn't have the courage to produce a universal health care plan and instead wrote a plan that leaves 15 million Americans without coverage," Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee said. "That is unacceptable."

Edwards spokesman Dan Leistikow also noted that Obama's plan would leave millions uninsured. "Without primary or preventive care, they would continue to rely on the emergency room, driving up premiums for everyone," he said. "Senator Edwards' plan covers every man, woman and child in America, and cuts the costs for families and businesses."

Obama and Clinton both were campaigning in the heavily Republican western portion of Iowa on Saturday.

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