A Brief Look at Chris Dodd's Healthcare Plan

Presidential candidate U.S. Senator Chris Dodd for the first time unveiled his plan to give everyone in America universal health care coverage earlier this year at a kitchen table in Marion, Iowa. Dodd plans to go on a kitchen table tour through Iowa and New Hampshire visiting individual homes and having question and answer sessions with small groups of people.

Dodd's first such gathering from Marion was broadcast on a rather innovative idea called Dodd TV where people can follow the Senator's travels live through his website chrisdodd.com. To be more specific about the health care plan itself the thing that it seems to have that should be most appealing to voters is its flexibility.

Dodd does not make the mistake of making people dump their existing plan in order to adopt this one. The last thing the people want when it comes to health care is the federal government bossing them around. Another highlight of the plan is that it truly deals with pre-existing conditions.

All candidates contend that they want to offer more choices and to make insurance companies play in a more free market competition oriented system where the insurance companies actually have to compete for patients. This would be interesting to see how a candidate like Dodd would be able to work his way through the Congress as his plan gets scrutinized by different interest groups.

The plan will be similar to that of the same plan that all federal employees get. Individuals and employers will pay into what Dodd calls a Universal Health mart at their own discretion He came out swinging against the health care plans of Senator Barack Obama and former Senator John Edwards claiming that the Obama plan did not deal with prevention and that the Edwards plan did not match the specific needs and grant each region the specific tools that they need to succeed in this area.