Dr. Dean on Reconciliation: "(Medicare Buy-In/Public Option) Should Be Done. It's Smart Politics."

Run time: 05:53 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzwEe_me0bA   Posted on YouTube: March 10, 2010 By YouTube Member: firedoglake Views on YouTube: 160   Posted on DU: March 10, 2010 By DU Member: Hissyspit Views on DU: 676

 
MSNBC The Rachel Maddow Show - 9 March 2010: Dr. Dean on Reconciliation - It should include Medicare buy-in or Restore House Version; IndMandate unnecessary.

CHRISTOPHER HAYES: "Among those protesting today was a doctor from Vermont, who also happens to be the former chairman of the Democratic Party."

HOWARD DEAN (VIDEO): "This is a vote about one thing. Are you for the insurance companies, or are you for the American people? The Republicans are for the insurance companies. Let's have a vote right now and see. ... We need a final vote. The President is right. We deserve, the American people deserve a final vote. Let's see who we stand with here."

HAYES: "How much blame do health insurance companies deserve for rising costs?"

DEAN: "The biggest problem with the health insurance companies is not just the contribution to rising costs, they really are a heartless industry. They really do push people of the rolls who need health care.

I heard a story yesterday -I was in New Hampshire... A lady came up to me who'd been pushed off a roll. She got sick. She got cancer. She couldn't work because she got chemotherapy and radiotherapy. And the insurance company dropped her. It's just unbelievable. And this happens again and again and again.

Today when I gave the speech at Dupont Circle to kick off the march, I held the picture of a 33-year-old who didn't get a colonscopy when he needed one and he died a year later.

This kind of stuff goes on all the time, and the health insurance industry really, they really do care more about what their quarterly earnings are, then they do about the people who they sell insurance to.

If you get sick, you've had it, 'cause they'll pull your insurance."

HAYES: "Now, all of those sort of abuses that you're talking about are exactly the kinds of things that in any version of the reform packages, in either house of Congress, are going to be ended. And yet, at the same time, the health insurance lobby claims that they're in favor of reform. We also know they've been funneling money towards anti-health reform ads, so what form of reform are they in favor of, if any?"

DEAN: "Well, the Senate bill actually treats the insurance industry better than I would. I'm not that crazy about the Senate bill, because they basically force tens of millions of Americans to buy their product. And they don't really fix the problem as well as it ought to be fixed. But there are some very good things in the Senate bill. And the House is going to go through this reconciliation process, so they can have a straight-up majority vote on this. And the House bill is fairly good. So, I'm really hoping very much that the House will fix this.

Forty Democratic Senators have now signed on to a public option. The obvious public option is to allow people that are under 65 to buy into Medicare. You've already got - everyone understands it, you've already got the system working. You could start signing people up within two months of the President signing the bill. And I'm very much hoping that that's gonna get into the reconciliation bill and we're gonna have that as part of this. If you put that in, that solves almost every problem that the insurance company can create. When people get choices, they don't have to sign up with these insurance companies anymore, then the insurance companies will have to clean up their act."

HAYES: "What's interesting is you, all those sort of movements towards maybe Medicare Buy-In or the public option... you had said earlier in December when the Senate bill was first passed, you were arguing pretty vocally and I though persuasively or strongly for Democrats to kill the Senate version of the bill. Do you still feel that way, or has something changed between now and then that even if that is the version of the bill that is the core of it, you would be willing to support it?"

DEAN: "No... well, what they've agreed to do, is that, because the Republicans have been so obstructionist and are able to now kill the bill, we don't have to live with just the Senate version of the bill. We'd pass the Senate version in the House and the Democrats in the Senate have agreed to pass something additional to that. If you could put some of the stuff that the Senate bill took out, then this would be once again a decent bill. I was very much in favor of the House bill, but not so much the Senate bill, because it really does... there's a lot of goodies in there for the insurance companies, and goodies for the insurance companies mean baddies for the American people."

HAYES: "Right, well, how optimistic, then, are you about the prospects for either Medicare Buy-In or public option in this process over the next few weeks as it plays out?"

DEAN: "Well, I still think it can be done and should be done. It's smart politics for the Democrats. One of the things, if you don't put it in there, the Democrats are going to have to explain this bill for two more election cycles. If you do put it in there, as long as it's a Medicare buy-in and that's the form of the public option they use, then the President doesn't have to explain it. The other thing, you don't really need an individual mandate. You know, we've done all of this stuff. Sixteen years ago, we did most of this stuff that's being talked about in the Senate, except, frankly, we did it a little bit better than is being proposed. And we don't have an individual mandate, but we still have 96% of all our kids under 18 with health insurance. We have a sort of a public option - we didn't call it that when we did it - but it allows you to sign your kids up for Medicaid if you make less than $66,000 bucks a year, and you pay $480 bucks a year and everybody under 18 has health insurance. You know, that works fine without an individual mandate. Is it better with an individual mandate? Yeah, a little bit, but I think that's gonna be a political problem. So there's some changes that could be made, and I think the House is going to make some changes and make it a better bill.

So I really want to see something passed. I'm tired of being pushed around by the far-right wing of the Republican Party, tired of Republican senators who put the interests of their party ahead of their country. We had a chance for bipartisanship. The President opened his hands and he got it slapped and I think it's time now to have an up-or-down vote. Let's see who is with the insurance companies and who is with the American people."

many thanks

Kicking and recommended.

glad to see Dean hitting the streets with the people. That guy is the real deal.