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October 8, 2008

Obama: Healthcare “A Right for Every American”
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In one substantive moment, an audience member asked the candidates if
they believe that healthcare should be a commodity sold by the
for-profit insurance industry. Both Obama and Mc Cain avoided answering
the question directly. In a follow-up, moderator Tom Brokaw of NBC News
asked if they believe healthcare is a right, a responsibility or a
privilege. While Mc Cain answered he sees it as a responsibility, Obama
said healthcare is a right.

Sen. Barack Obama: “I think it should be a right for every American. In
a country as wealthy as ours, for us to have people who are going
bankrupt because they can’t pay their medical bills—for my mother to die
of cancer at the age of fifty-three and have to spend the last months of
her life in a hospital room arguing with insurance companies because
they’re saying that this may be a preexisting condition and they don’t
have to pay her treatment, there’s something fundamentally wrong about
that.”

Obama has endorsed a mandate-style approach to healthcare, instead of
the single-payer model favored by a majority of Americans.



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