I think this issue is 100% rhetoric.  Of course no one is going to attempt a fundamental reform of the health care system without taking into account some sort of input from the business community, from the insurance industry.  It's all just signaling as far as how much importance you'd give to their views relative to what the other candidates would do, but it doesn't actually MEAN anything.

The old Edwards circa a couple months ago was right on the merits, the new Edwards is just posturing.

This is just another episode of the strong of his latest flip flop.

According to politico:

Edwards to take matching funds for primary

CNN has the scoop, with a video interview.

Edwards is portraying it as a principled decision, denying it has anything to do with slow fundraising, and calling on his rivals to join him. And this can be a powerful part of his case about not being in the pocket of political donors.

But as with many of his stances: Will voters believe it's a matter of principle when it's adopted midway through an election campaign, and when convenience and principle seem to line up so neatly?

Edwards has taken a lot of criticism in the press today on a similar theme for drawing a sharp distinction between himself and Hillary on combat missions in Iraq, when he seemed to back combat missions in Iraq a couple of weeks ago. The press is likely, I'd guess, to harp on the fact that so many of his sharply-defined, and defining, positions, from support for universal health-care to opposition to the war, are new, adopted during the off-season or during the campaign.

And Edwards will have go find a way around the media filter for a message that voters will like.

This guy and his wife have ZERO principal and credibility.

You are nit-picking. What he said last night he has said a hundred times.

Jonathan, your diary starts off with what I think is a correct observation: namely, John Edwards is trying to get the MSM to cover the differences between himself and the other candidates on universal health care. In general, Edwards has stepped up his efforts to get the MSM to cover the DIFFERENCES between the candidates on all the issues.

For what it is worth, the voters SHOULD be apprised of these differences before they vote. I would hope we can agree that the MSM has done an abysmal job of reporting the policy differences between the candidates. For example, over the last seven months, what percentage of the electorate do you suppose heard from the MSM that Edwards had a universal health care plan on the table, but Clinton did not? I am guessing that this fact was reported in less than 1% of the MSM stories over the last seven months.  

As I said in an earlier thread...now that all three candidates have proposed universal health care plans, the terms of the health care debate will necessarily shift to:

a) Whose plan is the best?  
b) Which of the three candidates has the best approach to ensuring that universal health care will actually be passed in 2009?  
c) Which of the three candidates is the least likely to compromise with their veto power and bully pulpit, such that the universal health care legislation that finally passes is what the people and principle demand, rather than what lobbyists and wiggle room allow?

The debate on the first question has yet to really be joined. But on the second and third question...

History will show that Edwards was the first top tier candidate for President of the United States to throw down the gauntlet, to really address, to tackle head on, questions "b" and "c."  

In a speech given on September 17, 2007, before the Laborers Leadership Convention in Chicago, Edwards explained to the nation his proposal for ensuring that universal health care will be passed in 2009:

on the first day of my administration, I will submit legislation that ends health care coverage for the president, all members of Congress, and all senior political appointees in both branches of government on July 20th, 2009 - unless we have passed universal health care reform.

I have noticed that partisans from other campaigns have criticized Edwards for being so bold as to offer an actual approach to ensuring passage in 2009. But the irony is that this single Edwards proposal is perhaps the greatest game changer in the whole universal health care debate.  

Yes, Congress would have to pass such legislation, and Edwards would then sign it, but think about Edwards' approach here. If Edwards becomes the nominee, it is virtually assured that every Democrat running for Congress will adopt Edwards' position.  Universal health care passage by July of 2009 would become the de facto position of the Democratic Party.

Still a naysayer?  For you naysayers...even if you assume that a handful of Democrats running for Congress would be shy about explicitly promising this when they run in 2008, if Edwards explicitly and repeatedly tells the voters that this is what he, and the country will do if he is elected, and he wins the election of 2008, it is highly unlikely that Congress will be able to resist his explicit mandate. If the American people want universal health care in 2009, they will get it.

Lastly, on the issue of compromising, and settling for "a watered-down, sausage universal health care", Edwards has again laid down the gauntlet in that same speech:

I will not compromise on universal health care - not on coverage, not on quality, not on cost. I'll fight for it with everything I've got.  ... There are four principles that have to be met: it must be truly universal. Anyone who has health care must be able to keep it, but they should pay less for it. Anyone who doesn't have health care must get it, with help if they can't afford it. Doctors and patients, not insurance companies and HMOs, must have control of health care decisions.

It's going to take some time, and probably some expensive polling by Clinton and Obama to fish out the voters, (to determine if the MSM has reached them about Edwards' positions), but I predict that both Obama and Clinton will again follow Edwards' lead, and substantially adopt John Edwards' positions on questions "b" and "c."

As for the notion that Edwards has changed his opinion regarding the grip that the insurance industry and the drug companies have over our elected officials, I do not see that at all. (Of course, when he was in the Senate, Edwards saw that death grip when he and Ted Kennedy sought to pass the Patients Bill of Rights. And the netroots certainly witnessed the drug companies essentially writing the new Medicare drug benefit, and Congress dutifully passing it.)

Your diary comes very close to confusing readers when it mixes up the players involved, mentions different sounding notes, then sub rosa, hints at a substantive change in Edwards' position. Look, passage of universal health care will involve at least the following players: the electorate, Democrats, Republicans, House, Senate, President, big business, small business, labor, patients, doctors, nurses, lawyers, researchers, hospitals, AND drum roll please...insurance companies and drug companies.

One can say that we need to work very closely with the first 15 players...to them, you can say "we need to bring everyone to the table." This is what I believe Edwards was saying in his colloquial response to your question in February which casually mentioned "both (sic) corporations and labor and healthcare groups and doctors."

But, had you asked Edwards in February specifically about insurance companies and drug companies, he would undoubtedly (and logically) have indicated that they would fight his universal health care plan with all the power they wield. In fact, conventional wisdom would suggest that these last two players stand a pretty good chance of killing universal health care in 2009...just as they did in 1992.

To better understand this, look into the details of the Edwards, Clinton and Obama plans. Notice those unprecedented restrictions on insurance companies? How are they going to pass all those restrictions on insurance companies?! How? How?! Good luck!

I am sure that Clinton and Obama do not want to talk about this.  Heck, I'll bet the MSM doesn't want to talk about the "how." But, the only way I can see passing all those restrictions on insurance companies is (hopefully) getting an explicit mandate from the electorate to make it happen.  You must ask for, and receive, a mandate from the electorate to explicitly take on the insurance and drug companies...otherwise...you will lose.

Once again, you have to credit Edwards with leading on this particular issue.  

It's like Biden said last night, Hillary Clinton's plan will face enormous opposition in the Congress mainly because she is the one proposing it. That makes her proposal a non-starter to begin with.

care is the one constant in Edwards approach to health care.

I attended the California Democratic Convention, as a Richardson supporter.  On April 29, 2007, Edwards spoke of how his health care plan was likely to evolve into a single payer solution.  Another commentator wrote:

While Clinton and Obama both called for universal health care, said Edwards, "it's not enough to say you'll do it without creating a specific plan." He suggested requiring every employer to provide health care or else create a fund - and give Americans free choices on what health care system to get. "And [this may very well] end up being single-payer," he said. Edwards said his plan will cost $90-120 billion a year, "and I can pay for it by getting rid of George Bush's tax cut."

A Rolling Stone profile on Edwards in August contains:

Edwards is also careful to temper his progressivism with more centrist positions. Speaking to Rolling Stone, Edwards refused to rule out recommitting U.S. forces to Iraq to halt a genocide, and he even demonized single-payer health care: "Do you think the American people want the same people who responded to Hurricane Katrina to run their health-care system?" On The Tonight Show, Edwards also played it down the center, soft-pedaling global warming and trumpeting his anti-poverty credentials.