Dear President Obama

[rastaman]

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!

To make it available to people of low income, raise the rates slightly for all currently non-eligible people (like me - under 65) to cover the cost of below-200%-of-poverty people. Revenue neutral again.

Most of us will do damn near anything to get out from under the thumbs of the multi-millionaire CEOs who are running our current insurance programs. Sign me up!

This lets you blow up all the rumors about death panels and grandma and everything else: everybody knows what Medicare is. Those who scorn it can go with Blue Cross. Those who like it can buy into it. Simplicity itself.

Of course, we’d like a few fixes, like letting Medicare negotiate drug prices and filling some of the holes Republicans and AARP and the big insurance lobbyists have drilled into Medicare so people have to buy “supplemental” insurance, but that can wait for the second round. Let’s get this done first.

Simple stuff. Medicare for anybody who wants it. Private health insurance for those who don’t. Easy message. Even Max Baucus and Chuck Grassley can understand it. Sarah Palin can buy into it, or ignore it. No death panels, no granny plugs, nothing. Just a few sentences.

Replace the “you must be disabled or 65” with “here’s what it’ll cost if you want to buy in, and here’s the sliding scale of subsidies we’ll give you if you’re poor, paid for by everybody else who’s buying in.” (You could roll back the Reagan tax cuts and make it all free, but that’s another rant.)

We elected you because we expected you to have the courage of your convictions. Here’s how. Not the “single payer Medicare for all” that many of us would prefer, but a simple, “Medicare for anybody who wants to buy in.”


Respectfully,

Jamaica-Rastaman

[The Lone Bolt]

[broncofan7]

Sounds like a great program in theory--but how does the revenue neutral actually play out? Please pontificate.........

[cutthemdown]

Medicare only free for people who have 40 or more quarters of employment. So what 12 yrs or so? Or people disabled etc etc.

So for less then 40 its something like 250 a month
for less then 30 its what 500 or somethins?

I read this once so I think my numbers close but not exact.

I mean telling young people 500 a month probably won't be cheaper then private through Kaiser etc.

The first most important law is everyone has to get insurance. Like they did in Mass. Then you would really find out who can't afford it.

[cutthemdown]

cmon rasta make it work, don't just post some lame idea then not answer questions.

How do young people sign up, without all the quarters of work then they would be paying over 5 grand a yr for insurance.

[TexanBob]

Certainly a better plan than he ones the Dems are pushing - which is why it will get nowhere. "Full coverage" isn't the Dem's real objective. Full control of our lives is.

[cutthemdown]

Originally Posted by TexanBob

Certainly a better plan than he ones the Dems are pushing - which is why it will get nowhere. "Full coverage" isn't the Dem's real objective. Full control of our lives is.

yeah but like I said Medicare only free when you have 40 quarters of employment. Otherwise you pay. If people can afford 300-400 a month just go by some insurance and at least get some coverage started.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Originally Posted by TexanBob

Certainly a better plan than he ones the Dems are pushing...

And what was your boy GeeDubya's plan?

That's right - he didn't have one.

(Unless larger windfalls and greater influence for the insurance and drug industries count as a health care plan.)

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

[Rohirrim]

General Jack D. Ripper: Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk... ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake, children's ice cream.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Lord, Jack.
General Jack D. Ripper: You know when fluoridation first began?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: I... no, no. I don't, Jack.
General Jack D. Ripper: Nineteen hundred and forty-six. Nineteen forty-six, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Uh, Jack, Jack, listen, tell me, tell me, Jack. When did you first... become... well, develop this theory?
General Jack D. Ripper: Well, I, uh... I... I... first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Hmm.
General Jack D. Ripper: Yes, a uh, a profound sense of fatigue... a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I... I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Hmm.
General Jack D. Ripper: I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women uh... women sense my power and they seek the life essence. I, uh... I do not avoid women, Mandrake.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: No.
General Jack D. Ripper: But I... I do deny them my essence.