LiveStrong Presidential Forum- The Democrats

I just got done watching the two hour long LiveStrong Presidential Forum over at MSNBC.COM. I jotted down some notes. The Republicans will have their own separate forum tomorrow, each of the candidates who participated was given three minutes for opening comments and then sat down with Lance Armstrong and Chris Mathews to answer questions. While I am not an expert in politics by any means, cancer research and health care are primary concerns of mine. These issues will definitely impact how I vote. This is what I gleaned from this forum and I welcome your thoughts. To me politics is about discussion, I believe that we all want the same end result, world peace, no poverty, etc. How we achieve this is up for discussion, at least to me, but if you do not like to discuss politics I wont be mad if you take a pass on commenting today.

Senator Hilary Clinton, John Edwards, Governor Bill Richardson, and Congressman Dennis Kucinich were the participants.

The topic of Universal Health care was prevalent throughout the entire discussion. Each of the candidates are in favor of universal health care, of access to health coverage to all Americans. Their individual definition of what this really means to them differs greatly and was very difficult to pin down in some cases, this is what I learned.

Senator Clinton: Wants to work within the system we already have by implementing regulation of the HMO's, drug companies etc, these regulation would ensure that every American has health insurance, no one is denied based on pre-existing conditions, that all health coverage provides screening and preventative medicine. Her concern is that we keep the high standard of medicine that the rich people in our country currently enjoy but pass along this to the rest of our citizens as well.

John Edwards: Does not want to work with the HMO's, Lobbyists, drug companies wants govt to be separate watchdog over these companies who are the enemy and the reason our health care system is in crisis. He wants to give every American the choice between their current health care provider and govt insurance. The govt insurance would be paid for by getting rid of the tax cuts enacted by the Bush admin, he calls the govt insurance Medicare plus.

Bill Richardson: His ideas on universal health care were hard for me to pin down, his main theme was preventative medicine, personal accountability, healthier lifestyles, junk food in school, mandatory PE, smoking bans etc. His plans seems similar to Senator Clinton in working with insurance companies to give access to preventative medicine to everyone in the country. He was quite vague on this issue.

Dennis Kucinich: Not at all vague. His plan is no more for profit medicine in America at all. Completely eliminate health insurance industry, all monies for health care goes to medicine and none to doctors. We all pay into a national plan, plus what the govt currently give will be enough to give great medicine to everyone. No paperwork, no worries, doctors decide what medicine and treatments patients should receive and the government pays for it out of the big ole pot. The amount of money all collected together that we as Americans pay out toward health care and health insurance is enough to give the best care available to every American. He did not have an answer for the concern that this will diminish the competition aspect of our health care system which currently results in the best medicine in the world, if only for the rich.

The next big topic was research: Senator Clinton wants to double the budget for research, John Edwards wants to pay whatever it takes to find a cure even if it is billions of dollars - he feels that spending the money on cancer research now will save us money in the long run, Governor Richardson wants to increase the research budget by 206%, and Dennis Kucinich was incredibly vague in this answer. They were all in favor of stem cell research, Senator Clinton mentioned "ethical stem cell research", Edwards was pointedly asked if he supported creating embryos for the sole purpose of research and he said, he needed to hear more but his initial response was no. None of the others was asked about stem cell research specifically although they all made a point of mentioning that they favored it. Both Edwards and Clinton spoke about clinical trials, both want more people to have access to being able to have access to experimental drugs and treatments if the patients have informed consent. Leaving more consent in the hands of the patient and doctors.

The war. Each candidate talked about how the war was sucking up our budget and needed to be ended and those monies needed to be spent at home on things like universal health care, this was a very standard response.

Both Senator Clinton and John Edwards favor electronic medical records, none of the others were asked or spoke of this topic. Senator Clinton feels that not only would this help people like those displaced by Katrina but also would help in selecting patients for clinical trials based on their patient history and not based on who you know.

Some memorable moments were when Clinton said she wanted to end Bushes war on Science and enable the scientific community to reclaim their voice. Edwards said that every American needs to have the same access to quality health coverage that his wife has had. Richardson said, no one in his family has ever had cancer due to their healthy lifestyle choices and he wants that for the rest of the country (OK can you tell he rubs me the wrong way, I never said this was going to be unbiased reporting). Kucinich said he was a Vegan, the diet has a strong bearing on the our health and the way we feel, that he is 60 and his wife is 39 or 29 I forget and you do the math, then he held up his two fingers in the peace sign. He feels that food needs to be better labeled, that all the other candidates are in the pockets of big industry but not him, no pesticides, no genetic engineer food, no HMO's he says he wont take their money and he is all about us and not them.

I am still voting for Senator Clinton, but Edwards and Kucinich now have more of my attention. I believe that taking on the insurance industry in a frontal war like assault of Kucinich and Edwards in Naive. First, they have a lot of power and taking all that money away from all those really rich people would be a long and hard battle. Regulating them would have immediate consequences to the people who are in need of better health services. Slowly improving the system we have in my opinion would be the most savvy approach toward improving health care in America.

Don't miss tomorrows Republican LiveStrong Forum which can be seen at MSNBC.com live at 10AM central time.