I have to correct something I said about Obama. Unlike Clinton and Edwards, his health care proposal actually doesn't require everyone to buy coverage. In that way it's not really universal health care. He's characterizing it as "virtually universal".

Basically he's saying that with his proposal, economy of scale (creating a large risk pool) will bring the costs of insurance down, and he's saying that by bringing the costs down, everyone will want to buy insurance. This sounds good, but if everyone doesn't decide to buy it, the risk pool may not be big enough to bring insurance costs down low enough for most of the currently uninsured to be able to afford it. It seems a bit circular to me. This guy thinks that Obama knows his plan won't work, but that it's not important because he knows he can't get it passed anyway...

http://www.spot-on.com/archives/holt/2007/12/president_obamas_brilliant_hea.html

Clinton's and Edwards' plans are just as bad in their own ways. If everyone is required to have insurance, how will it be enforced? And what if someone still can't afford to pay the premiums, even with their plans? What sort of penalty will they be subjected to?

Same guy as above talking about Clinton's and Edwards' kind of plans here...

http://www.spot-on.com/archives/holt/2006/04/post.html