Something remarkable — and good — has happened in the health care debate: Almost everyone agrees that all Americans need to have insurance coverage. The debate now — and it will be furious — is over how to bring that about.
Two leading Democratic presidential candidates — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (New York) and former Sen. John Edwards (North Carolina) — advocate a government mandate requiring all Americans to have insurance coverage, though Sen. Barack Obama (Illinois) does not.
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