Kerry's Plan for America

John Kerry for President

Download the .pdf file (1.36 M) at the above link. It's a campaign document (read: full of high sounding rhetoric), but it also has specifics:

We will also enhance the capabilities of our own intelligence services. From the failure to uncover the September 11th plot to the deeply flawed reports about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, we have experienced significant intelligence failures in recent years. It is time for serious reform. This will require the kind of leadership that the president has not provided. We will strengthen our intelligence capabilities so that we can more effectively prevent another terrorist attack by:

★ Restoring the credibility of our intelligence community by ensuring the basic integrity of the intelligence process. We will make certain that our intelligence agencies are protected from political pressures and operate in a culture of diversity of thought, dissent, and forceful challenging of assumptions,

★ Strengthening accountability and leadership by creating a true Director of National Intelligence, a cabinet-level position with the authority to manage and direct all of the components of the intelligence community, including personnel and budgets,

★ Maximizing coordination and integration by structuring the intelligence community around key threats like terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and hostile countries, so that all available resources are brought to bear on addressing the most pressing threats,

★ Transforming our intelligence services to ensure that they have sufficient personnel with the skills, languages, training, and orientation needed to meet today’s threats. We will make sure that the FBI is fully prepared to perform necessary counter-terrorism intelligence operations and strengthen our capabilities overseas, particularly our clandestine services, so that we have our own robust human intelligence network.

In other words, actually implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.

How about healthcare?

Our plan starts by providing health insurance for every child in America. Under the Kerry-Edwards plan, the federal government will pay the full costs for the 20 million children in the Medicaid program. In return, we will ask states to expand coverage to children in families with higher incomes than are currently eligible, as well as low-income adults. This plan will expand coverage to millions of people and provide much needed relief for states that are struggling under persistent growing budgetary pressures.

The plan will also simplify the health care system so we can prevent children from falling through the cracks. Right now, there are millions of kids who are eligible for federalstate health insurance programs but are not signed up. There are lots of reasons—sometimes the enrollment forms require the skills of an accountant to figure out. Some states make parents sign up every six months in person, making it virtually impossible for a parent who cannot get time off or afford to lose a whole day of work. Some parents do not even know these programs are available.

Under our plan, kids will be signed up automatically at hospitals, community health centers, and schools. And $5 billion in enrollment bonuses will be available to states as an incentive to find uninsured children and keep them covered. Children do not choose their parents. They do not choose whether to have health insurance. Children deserve a good start—with both high quality education and health care. Under our plan, every child in America will have health insurance, and every parent will have a little more peace of mind.

Every child in America covered by health insurance - that's a good start. They're also advocating opening the Congressional Medical Plan (the health plan for members of Congress) to all Americans, offering tax credits to help ease the sting of the premiums. 27 million Americans (including all children) could be covered by this plan - that's another step in the right direction.

Tell your friends and neighbors - this is the sourcebook for Kerry's positions on the issues.