Dear President Obama: A Modest Medicare Proposal

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/08/17

Dear President Obama,

I understand you're thinking of dumping your "public option" because of all the demagoguery by Sarah Palin and Dick Armey and Newt Gingrich and their crowd on right-wing radio and Fox. Fine. Good idea, in fact.

Instead, let's make it simple. Please let us buy into Medicare.

It would be so easy. You don't have to reinvent the wheel with this so-called "public option" that's a whole new program from the ground up. Medicare already exists. It works. Some people will like it, others won't - just like the Post Office versus FedEx analogy you're so comfortable with.

Just pass a simple bill - it could probably be just a few lines, like when Medicare was expanded to include disabled people - that says that any American citizen can buy into the program at a rate to be set by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) which reflects the actual cost for us to buy into it.

So it's revenue neutral!

...


You would think that something this simple, something that makes this much sense, something that would be so relatively easy to implement, something with built in cost savings so obviously built into it, and something that avoids building whole new government agencies and bureaucracies would appeal to people in Washington. You would with it would have been discussed, and that Someone would endorse an idea like this.

An idea like this wouldn't be a total solution, but we already know we won't get anything close to a total solution. This proposal looks like it is far better than anything currently being discussed, easier to implement, less expensive, and more likely to actually succeed in really, truly helping people. It's based on a program that is ALREADY helping millions of people. Really, how much better could this proposal be?

So can anyone tell me why this idea isn't on the table? Why are Health Co-ops being considered before and above expanding Medicare?

It isn't on the table because we've got DINOs running the debate.

I have wondered this many times...

I guess it's just too simple, too straight-forward, too right.

Too bad.

And in fact, that was just what was supposed to happen. Medicare was supposed to be gradually enlarged until everyone was covered.

I have no idea what happened.


K&R

:patriot:

bets off and go with Medicare which people like.

Insurance, if serious about negotiation and meeting half-way, needs to call of the dogs, Armey, and all the fear-mongering.

start cooperating. They scuttled health care reform the two previous times it came up for national debate, both times swearing and promising that they could get us to better, more fair, national access to health care voluntarily if politicians just backed off and trusted them. Both times they got their way and then did the exact opposite of what they promised. They made the health care situation worse instead of better.

This is the third time health care reform has been up for a national debate, and the third time that the insurance industry has been crying that they shouldn't have to compete with the government. This is the third time they have been swearing that they can reform private insurance with just a few small tweaks to regulations, that of course can be handled at some later time.

It is time to stop believing insurance companies. In fact, it is time to stop including them in the discussions and debates at all. It is time for our politicians to just do the right thing, and then tell the insurance companies "this is what we're doing, and you have no say in the matter."

Unfortunately, our form of government is so dependent upon private wealth, and so addicted to it, that they can't ignore any industry or any lobbyist that comes bearing checks.

They can turn away constituents. They can ignore petitions, letter writing campaigns, and marches and rallies out in the streets as "meaningless theater." But they will snap to attention the moment a corporate representative whispers a request.
:grr:

They will blast every single proposal for every single option that anyone proposes that takes any business away from private insurance.

They are in the business of maximizing their profit. They are required by law and fiduciary duty to attack every single plan that won't require that Everyone must buy high priced but useless insurance policies. Their goal is to turn everybody in the US into a customer. Nothing less is acceptable.

And because they make profits by collecting premiums but delivering no services in return, they don't want to be required to provide health care. They want the RIGHT to cancel policies at any time if it looks like you might get sick or injured and actually need to use your policy. After you have paid for it, they can't have you actually get any use from it. That cuts into their profits!

we ought to able to enroll in the state sponsored health insurance simply by enrolling. we as citizens ought to have this sort of a system but no one should be required to sit forever in a government office to determine their eligibility. affordable, for too many americans, means no money out of pocket. the buy-in has to be through the tax structure because we don't have cash to purchase insurance. currently most of those with insurance do not purchase it out of pocket. it is paid for with payroll deductions and subsidies.
it complicates the issue to act as if a public option can drive down costs unless the public option is available to all americans with no questions asked and no up-front payments required.
many job categories disappear over time and our culture expects those involved in making livings in obsolete industries to retool and find new employment. that is what many insurance workers will need to do but their jobs are what drives up the cost of medical care.

aining.

And people are going hog-wild, ape-shit for that. So you know, this should work for them too.

for those that need it, there should be a buy in. If you want it to come out of paychecks as premiums, that's fine, but until and unless we're at single payer, anyone using it should pay the premiums they can afford.

But just getting medicare expanded is a necessary first step. Then, getting it funded by taxes so that people don't have to pay for it out of pocket can happen now or later.

For poor people it would happen now, certainly. It would have to. Up to a certain threshold medicare would have to be subsidized for the poor, so it would be effectively free and paid for out of taxes. So it's just a matter of expanding the number of people covered that way.

I think once medicare is expanded Businesses would jump on the bandwagon to get medicare paid for out of taxes so that they don't have to pay for anything anymore out of payroll deductions. That would save them a huge amount of money and hassles. If business gets behind the idea of Medicare being universally paid for out of taxes then I think it really would happen.

Medicare + a reasonable margin, to begin accumulating a war chest to pay for a safety net for those unable to afford it.

I'm willing. I am more than ready to send my $500+/month to medicare in exchange for medicare coverage.

that profit is going to be raided every year and put into the general fund anyway. So the war chest isn't going to happen.

Look at the Social Security surplus. All Social Security really has is a bunch of IOUs for the money that was taken year after year by the government to fund everything else. If not for that policy of raiding social security every year republicans could never get away with their scam of claiming that social security is going broke.

In the end USGOV defaults. As much as that hurts, it's going to hurt Goldman, Chase, etc. more than me.

are going to survive any collapse. They are international banks. The benefit from close connections to the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve but they are not dependent upon the US Treasury for their survival. They would just switch everything they have into currencies other than the dollar, divest themselves of toxic US assets, and leave us, the US taxpayers, holding the toxic bag.

In the end, if the US defaults we'll all be living in a third world country, but the banks will keep making their profits. They make money in both good times and bad times no matter who gets hurt.

Other nations might end up spiraling down and following us into default. Half the industrial world might become third world nations, but the banks would still survive and thrive.