One Important Question in the Blossoming Health Care Debate

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Universal health care is already shaping up to be a central theme of the 2008 presidential campaign, with Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards all strongly in favor.

Here’s my question. If

(1) Obama, Clinton, and Edwards are prepared to stand by their pledges to provide health care for all Americans, and

(2) Congressional democrats are prepared to stand by their pledges for a balanced budget, then

(3) Are the aforementioned candidates prepared to raise taxes?

Edwards is on the record with a response, and I respect it. “Edwards: Universal Health Care Trumps Balanced Budget.” Barack and Hillary, what say you?

Update: More evidence that Edwards has taken the lead on this from Ezra Klein. Worth checking out; the man speaks honestly and openly about the tough choices America will have to make when setting its priorities for the next presidential term.

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We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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