On Monday, the George Washington School of Medicine burst with excitement as students and community members braved the wind and rain to see Elizabeth Edwards speak about young people and health care policy in the upcoming election. Ezra Klein—journalist for the American Prospect, acclaimed blogger, and self-taught health care expert—played the role of moderator, keeping the audience laughing and informed on the broader picture while Edwards detailed her plan for the next President. The two played off each other well, critiquing both sides of the health care debate in a conversation that emphasized the importance of health care reform to the future of our country.

The discussion began with an outline of both John McCain and Barack Obama’s plans for healthcare—and Edwards made it clear that she was not satisfied with either one.

Under According to John McCain’s plan, regulated competition makes healthcare affordable for all Americans and gives citizens the right to choose their own health plan. McCain’s system, Edwards said, relies too heavily on the ‘free market,’ which she worries has not been effective with today’s insurance companies. In McCain’s competitive model, Edwards worries, health care providers will flock to the states with the least amount of regulations and leave out essential vaccines and procedures in their policies because of costs. “Today, only 21 states require maternity care for women,” she bemoaned alongside her other criticisms of health care agencies that don’t provide HPV vaccines or diabetes screenings.

Additionally, Edwards believes that most Americans (herself included) are unequipped to make informed decisions on their health care programs and would make decisions, not based on quality, but instead based on pricing and advertising tricks. Edwards criticized a system that appeals to the “law of the lender… not of the borrower.” Still, she applauded McCain’s leadership in drafting the ‘Patients Bill of Rights’ with her husband, John Edwards, and Senator Ted Kennedy—a bill to protect the rights of Americans from predatory health insurance companies.

Edwards seemed to agree a bit more with Senator Obama’s health care plan, though she did not fully endorse it either. Although Obama’s plan affords universal health care for all children, Edwards doesn’t think it is enough. Obama’s plan for American adults is also based in the competitive market—though he includes health care subsidies for qualified adults—and Edwards worries that he continues to treat health care as a commodity instead of a right.

Unlike both Barack Obama and John McCain, Edwards believes that the government has a moral obligation to provide all Americans with health care. While any abrupt transition to government care could do more harm than good, Edwards believes that the government should slowly phase in government programs and phase out privatized health providers. Ezra Klein calls this a “soft transition.” Eventually, Edwards believes, Americans will gravitate to the government plans because the overhead is smaller and people get the same quality care for less money.

Edwards then outlined the logic for her universal plan—as you spread the risk over a larger group, each person pays less. Right now, everyone pays as if they are ‘high risk’—including young people who don’t regularly need healthcare—and those who actually are ‘high risk’ (patients with cancer or diabetes, etc) have trouble accessing health care at all. With a government plan, everyone would pay the same and the risk is spread amongst both ‘high risk’ and ‘low risk’ patients.

Ultimately, Edwards says that policy-makers have been short sighted, “We’ve been really stupid with our health care dollars,” she regrets. Klein agreed, stating statistics about the money lost in employing the huge bureaucracies that manage healthcare agencies.

Discussions about health care as it relates to young people and directed at young people are rare, and we were thrilled to have Edwards address a room full of young professionals about this important issue. Young adults are not an invincible population – they are consumers of health care who have the same unfortunate experiences as adults: being denied coverage for pre-existing conditions, struggling to receive comprehensive coverage and to cover the rising costs of health care. Young people have the capacity to make a real difference on this issue by holding their leaders accountable and educating themselves and others about the crisis at hand.  Edwards successfully enlightened and inspired the crowd of mostly young adults to become more knowledgeable about this issue and to focus their passion and energy on health care reform.  

Check out coverage of the event in the Washington Post, on ABC News and on Gawker.