Surprise! Max Baucus supports extending Medicare to 55-64 year olds

Regardless of the rest of the health care debate,
let's push him to support his own idea!


Note he only want to allow this while the Exchange is being setup, but perhaps he can be persuaded to make this a permanent option. This can help push the USA toward Medicare for All.

http://finance.senate.gov/healthreform2009/finalwhitepaper.pdf

"While the Exchange is being created, the Baucus plan would make health care coverage
immediately available to Americans aged 55 to 64 through a Medicare buy-in, and it would
begin to phase-out the current two-year waiting period for Medicare coverage for
individuals with disabilities"

Max's email:
http://baucus.senate.gov/contact/emailForm.cfm?subj=issue

55 is the corporate expiration date and 55+ is the age group the insurance companies are most allergic to.

It's a keeper but it needs to be extended to the uninsurable with chronic health conditions.

through their jobs. I suppose any HIR would deal with this.

I wonder if it would help with employment by letting more people retire - of course, those 401K's lost a lot of $ since their peak so a lot of people who thought they could retire may not be able to now.

I would love to move to a different occupation, but it's just not possible because of pre-existing conditions. I can't take the chance.

There are a lot of people like me who could be boosting the economy with small businesses but can't afford to leave their present jobs due to the health insurance expense.

My parents know lots of people in that age range who only work for the insurance. They have the assets and non-work income to retire, but they're waiting to get on Medicare. They'd retire instantly if Medicare was available to them now.

This report was published in Dec 08...

But I am a Canadian permanent resident. Would I qualify?

I'd have to look...how many do you need?

To qualify for Medicare, IIRC.

I guess it's back to work.

55 and older people.....

If they can afford it they won't be forced to hang around longer than they want until they retire because they are dependent on their employer paid insurance.

This is a very good thing.

Don

Although Insurance Companies charging companies more based on a higher average age of their employees is a contributing factor to age discrimination.

Also, I want to work until I'm 70 or so, I like what I do.

health issues I can't address because I just can't afford it.

are involved.

These a-holes should go without for awhile to see what it's like.

but this would be so popular, the Dems could do it without the insurance company employees (aka Republican Senators).

MANY workers aged 45-50 get "eased" out..Once you are past 50, it's almost IMPOSSIBLE to find a job that comes with benefits..

50+..... medicare buy in
birth-25..... SCHIP (would require additional funding)
26-49 with disabilities or serious chronic illness.... medicaid (would require additional funding)
26-49 who are healthy could use a nationwide "co-op" where they could self-insure for a reasonable cost, picking their care, but they would also be participation in medicare for when they get older

Make it a 10 year plan. that gives the vultures (Insurance co/big pharma/hospital-for-big-profit) plenty of time to get their affairs in order and do the shut down...maybe they could outsource themselves to India and "help" them with their health care needs :rofl:

at the end of the 10 years, EVERYONE's in medicare, and medicaid/VA goes away
VA specialized rehab centers would be the exception.

there would be NO more employer-assisted "insurance", no more "gold-plated" government plans

Once congress had to have their own kids covered with the same plan as the rest of us, you can bet the plan would be quite good.

Lobby to make it inclusive as possible.

We'll be the worst employable and insurable category now too. And many of us have been making about the threshold of payroll tax too, so that we pay the same amount of payroll tax that Bill Gates does. So we get damned in so many ways now!

w/ no health care coverage? This is bullshit!

but ANY incremental expansion of Medicare would be a HUGE step in the right direction.

It won't do much for current uninsured, but if every few years (2 or 4?) people in lower age brackets became eligible for Medicare, after a time, everyone would be covered--maybe with less fuss than we're having now.

n/t

eom

For one thing, I would be more competitive in the job marketplace, despite being in good health. Employers are skittish about taking on new employees in their 50s, primarily due to insurance company actuaries telling them not to hire older workers.

I would be free to look for work elsewhere, and that would be a very GOOD thing!

55 to go

for veterans. I served my time but my bennies were wiped out! ANY veteran should be able to get health care if they need it. That was the promise! A promise the government has broken. I never needed the VA's help so I never signed up. Now that I could use that help I'm scewn. Fukt Over, while the VA can pass out big bonus to the admins who never even served in the armed services, in most cases.

but what about the 54 year olds and the 43 year olds and the 36 year olds? Why not open it up for everyone?

It has nothing to do with current negotiations as far as I know.

I think it would be great to pressure him to follow his own reccomendations, especially since it also includes a public option, but I won't hold my breath.

The point is just as you state: to pressure him to follow his own recommendations.

I'm just hoping that if everyone reminds him of his own ideas that he may actually bring them up in his own committee.

coming out of that committee is any indication. I see no reason to get hopes up over this.

But, over an individual state going single payer, then maybe....

Unless Weiner and others can do some magic, it looks like the corporations have paid for the crappy deal we'll get. :(

I believe that one has an individual responsibility to try to change things for the better. One is also responsible to try to encourage others to change things as well. In this case it means trying to lobby Senator Baucus. All of these attempts may well be doomed for various reasons including the power of the health care lobbies, BUT to not try is to concede defeat. I for one will not.

The insurance companies have to get out of the health care business altogether and go back to what they are best at, catastrophic and life insurance. I'll bet if everyone gets health coverage security, that the insurers will make more money on those items because people will be relieved of the worry of access to health care and have the extra money in their bank accounts to buy better life insurance, car insurance, and property insurance.

I agree that Medicare for All is the best of the solutions that have been proposed in Congress that has some support.

I know that you are trying very hard to lobby for this (based on your response to another post I made). I am trying as well, and encourage everyone to do so.

But if Medicare for All fails, I want something that will help people NOW. Therefore, I want to get as much as is possible NOW. For example, people will die or suffer needlessly, as they are doing if they can't get insurance because of pre-existing conditions. Period. That has to end now, and it appears that the political will is there to do it. I am all for doing it. But it has be affordable, otherwise it is useless. That's why I offered up the possibility of tight caps on premiums for extensive basic insurance in several other threads (one of which you responded to). I think strong regulation might be a way to accomplish this and save lives now. No one is yet offering strong enough regulation in the currently proposed legislation.

Is any of this as good as single-payer? Of course not, but will it help people and this country? Yes.

Will the incremental change proposed in this OP create the ideal solution. NO. But even one person 55-64 gets needed care otherwise denied, I will be gratified. But will I be satisfied? Of course not.

Then there's the debate what is the best way to get single-payer eventually if it can not be obtained now. I suspect that incremental change in the right direction can point the way, if it is seen to work. Obviously, A weak public option covering almost no one will be counterproductive. Regional co-ops= much worse. But any significant improvement that works, like extending Medicare to 55-64 year olds will help make Medicare for All a reality.

Finally, there is an opposing movement to create Medicare for None. That is the conservative's notion of privatizing Medicare and giving it over to the private insurers. If health care reform fails now, there is a some chance that some future government will make this disastrous change, based on the erroneous but widely help "principle" that the free market is superior. It is my belief that the greater number of success stories involving government programs in health care, the greater the chance that the opposing movement fails, and that Medicare for All (or something similar) becomes a reality.

the Tom Daschle argument that single payer universal health care is the best system but it won't work for us. Once you convince everyone that it's not possible then go to the next thing, a public government run option. Uh, that's not good because the insurance companies can't compete and will go out of business, so you need something different like coops. Oops, we are back where we started from. No health care reform presently being talked by our lawmakers going to make any difference in anyone's lives except that it will give the health care insurance companies 40,000 new customers paid for by the tax payers, yet there will still be high deductibles and you will still have to pay for your health care. Do not tell me there won't be high deductibles because the only health insurance reform being talked about is not being able to deny pre-existing conditions for coverage. That's it! Some reform! And this is what you will get if you don't up the ante. Demand single payer, then settle for public option but if you aren't making the demand, they will keep lowering the bar. Nothing has been agreed on and nothing has been signed so this is the only chance we have to get something worthwhile, but we can't lower the bar.

You say that I am " you are buying into the Tom Daschle argument that single payer universal health care is the best system but it won't work for us."
Where did I say that? I didn't. To make this clear, I believe that single payer is the best system and that it WOULD work for us. That was basically stated in my first response to you.

The rest of your post rambles on based on a series of false premises. The biggest of these is that "once you convince everyone it's not possible then go on to the next thing...." Did I say the public option was the "next best thing"? Tell me where? You are basically arguing inside your own head with your own straw man arguments.

Let me simplify this for you, as it may help you understand some of the tactics being used to achieve single-payer. First, I do not want to convince everyone that it's not possible to achieve single payer. You just made that up in order to construct your argument.

In fact I and many others believe it will be possible to achieve single-payer in the near future, if the proper groundwork is laid, but I am not sure that it will make it during this year. Based on various threads here, and blogs, I think the doubt about single-payer making it this year is commonplace. You certainly give the impression in other threads that you have doubts about it happening. But should having doubts that it will be achieved, mean that we stop advocating for it? Of course not. Does having doubts mean it won't be achieved. Of course not. In fact, in all my correspondence with Congress, I first advocate for single-payer and I recommend that everyone do the same.

The point of my post is that while advocating for the strongest position, it is unwise this late in the process (and don't kid yourself it is late, when all kind of alternatives and amendments are being considered), not to promote ideas that could help lead to single-payer in case it not be achieved this year. The idea of extending Medicare to others will help and that is the topic of the OP. Does it weaken one's advocacy for single-payer to promote solutions that one believes will help bring it into existence a little later, should the current effort fail? I think not. I think it is prudent strategy to getting what is needed.

Cradle to grave. No age exceptions.

No public option under that name, but slowly extend Medicare's starting age down to about ten seconds after birth.

I don't care what he calls it as long as he ends up voting for it when the Senate is ready to do so.

I really have to think about this. It's very clever of Baucus, who is now struggling with his own reputation at stake.

Dropping Medicare down to 55 where workers begin being put out to pasture, downward taking on those with more "pre-existing conditions", downward to those fretting about losing their nest egg of 25 years of working...it's very clever.

But...

it says "while the exchage is being setup" and again, know Baucus and what a purchased politician he is, this could be a real fool's trap.

And it would end any hope for a Republican resurgence in 2010 or 2012.
There are alot of people between 55 and 65 and they vote!

Why should a person on a fixed income have to dig deep into his or her own pockets to get the bifocals or trifocals he or she needs? It makes no sense to deny vision benefits to Medicare recipients when seniors and people with disabilities have to pony up their cash to line the pockets of Big Pharma, thanks to Bush and the Congressional repunks of 2005.