Edwards Emerges From Her Husband's Shadow

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Elizabeth Edwards on Health Care

Moderator Ezra Klein, associate editor at the American Prospect, questioned Elizabeth Edwards about how universal health care could be cost-effective and how the presidential candidates' health care proposals stack up.

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Unlike other scorned political wives -- Hillary Clinton, Dina Matos McGreevey, Silda Wall Spitzer -- she did not appear beside her husband for the requisite televised mea culpa. She sent him out alone. She canceled an appearance at the Democratic National Convention.

"This was our private matter, and I frankly wanted it to be private because as painful as it was I did not want to have to play it out on a public stage as well," she wrote on the liberal blog Daily Kos.

A lot of supporters turned on him, but many were miffed at Elizabeth, too. She had learned of the affair in 2006, long before it became public. And yet she had hit the campaign trail on his behalf. For nearly a year, they ran as a couple, even renewing their wedding vows on their 30th anniversary in the summer of 2007.

When the scandal became public this past August, just before the convention, she made no apologies for her husband, instead encouraging all the world to watch his on-camera confession. But she also made clear she wasn't leaving.

"Although John believes he should stand alone and take the consequences of his action now, when the door closes behind him, he has his family waiting for him," she wrote at the time.

Then she disappeared, and so did he.

Now she is back in the public eye, this time alone, speaking on the issue that animates her more than any other.

"When you're young, you think you're never going to have any conditions that need any attention, you don't go to the doctor that often," she tells the crowd of mostly students. But some day, she warns, you may get sick, as she did. Then you'll have a "preexisting condition."

And if Sen. John McCain is elected president next Tuesday, good luck, she essentially says. Under McCain's health-care proposal, she argues, many employers would likely drop health insurance, prices would continue to skyrocket, insurers would replace doctors as the primary decision makers. And people like her -- and McCain -- couldn't even get insurance because of their "preexisting conditions."

She lashes McCain's running mate, too, saying Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is "not particularly well informed" about health care.

Yet she does not spare the Democratic nominee. Sen. Barack Obama, she complains, falls short on health care, too. He has not committed to covering every American.

Edwards, an accomplished lawyer who set aside her career for her husband's political aspirations, is well versed in the intricacies of the $2 trillion American health-care system. She can do the mind-numbing bit as well as any Washington wonk. Phrases such as "contracts of adhesion" and "budget-neutral" tumble off her tongue.