Public Option By Another Name

There is no question in my mind that Medicare expansion will be a lot easier.The term “Public Option” was too easy to attack as “government getting into healthcare”. Medicare is a proven system and we don’t have to tell the Teabaggers that the government has a little something to do with it.From the start, the logical reform was to expand Medicare and make it better. This is starting to feel pretty good.

I’m just worried about cost containment and kneejerk reactions from Senate member to dismember the thing before we get the real numbers. Also, didn’t the Medicaid number (133% of poverty) remain the same?

I don’t care what its called. I just care if it gets the job done. I would say that most Americans, including the ones who claim to be against it, don’t even know what the “Public Option” meant anyway. If this compromise gets the same job done with simply a different title name, I don’t see the problem.A lot more people know what medicare and medicade is.

If we have the age 55 Medicare buy-in, the medicaid expansion, and being able to buy into the OPM insurance policies, then that might be better than the crapola trigger co-op public option that we could have been stuck with. Let’s see the CBO score.

I agree with Kos on the way this has gone. 2010 is going to be a bloodletting for Democrats, and frankly – I don’t care. There’s only one party and that is the corporate party.http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/12/9/812139/-Idiocy

Bob, the left is furious at being “sold out.” How, exactly, they are being “sold out” with an expansion of Medicare and federal health plans is beyond me.

Being 55 yrs young, this sounds good. So, what is the buy in percentage exactly?

“And this doesn’t even count future expansions.”There is no guarantee of future expansions.

m4rk0, Medicare and Social Security didn’t start out as they are today. No, there’s no “guarantee” of expansions — and if the GOP retakes Congress, you won’t get them.

Greg Sargent’s take on Chris Bowers

Beyond the policy arguments for the public option, it’s worth adding that people lamenting the whittling away of it have also been waging a death struggle over its fate for symbolic and meta-political reasons. They wanted to break the hold that “government-is-bad fundamentalism,” as Paul Krugman put it, has on our discourse, in order to recast ambitious liberal government activism as a boon to the quality of life of the middle class.That’s understandable, but the concessions to liberals in the current compromise could also start rewriting the relationship Americans have with government along the lines reformers hope for — albeit not as dramatically as a clean victory on the public option would have.

There seems to be alot of rules and regs for us 55+ people. Just how poor do we have to be? How sick do we have to be? How long do we have had to be without insurance to be eligible? What exactly is “eligible”? How many people will this cover? 9 million? What about folks under 55? The working poor? How long do we have had to be unemployed to be “eligible”? Are we unemployed automatically “eligible”? How do we sign up? Here in VA one has to be pretty much dirt poor, homeless to get Medicare. I know I can’t afford $700 a month for Medicare-how much are the subsidiaries?2011? 2014? Thousands will have died by the time these years roll around.Lots of questions that we need answered before we go patting the democrats on the back for this marvelous healthcare reform.And when the American people see just how bad they’ve been screwed-ie mandates-democrats will be out of the majority. Rethugs and the ins. companies will be sitting back, smoking cigars, drinking whiskey and congratulating themselves on their big win.

Bob, if I may ask, how will this help you? How will it help Lee? I only ask because I’m still confused as to how someone who is younger and is working and earning what I assume is not close to the federal poverty line will be able to afford mandated, private insurance. I get the theory that the percentage of each premium dollar spent on care is increased, and that helps keep costs low. I get that the exchange should provide competition that will help keep prices low. But the talk of a privately owned, not-for-profit regulated by the fed doesn’t instill the same optimism the public option does.I also realize other countries use a similar model, and it works, but I guess I just don’t quite grasp how it will work here. My fear is that American businesses and leaders are just too greedy and too crooked to really allow prices to go lower at this point and then stay low.

Well said, camel54.

Matt said:

No, there’s no “guarantee” of expansions — and if the GOP retakes Congress, you won’t get them.

Not only will we not get them, Matt, but if the GOP retakes Congress, things will probably go backwards.

A fantastic response pulled from HuffPoThe Social Security Act was passed by Congress as part of the New Deal and signed by Roosevelt on August 14, 1935. Most women and minorities were excluded from the benefits. Jobs that were not covered by the act included workers in agricultural, domestic service, government employees, and many teachers, nurses, hospital employees, librarians, and social workers. The act also denied coverage to individuals who worked intermittently.__1950 inclusion of domestic labor, household employees working at least two days a week for the same person were added in, along with nonprofit workers and the self-employed.__1954 Hotel workers, laundry workers, all agricultural workers, and state and local government employees were added in.__ 1956 Disability benefits were added__1961 Retirement at age 62 was extended to men.__1962 Benefits of covered women could be collected by dependent husbands, widowers, and children.—1965 MEDICARE was added.__1972 The bill also set up a cost of living adjustment (COLA) to take effect in 1975.__1977-1990’s Amendments regarding the indexing of payments and dealing with the Trust Fund were enacted.I wonder how many of us would have deserted the Democrats in 1935 because the Social Security bill was too weak.

A fantastic response from HuffPo:The Social Security Act was passed by Congress as part of the New Deal and signed by Roosevelt on August 14, 1935. Most women and minorities were excluded from the benefits. Jobs that were not covered by the act included workers in agricultural, domestic service, government employees, and many teachers, nurses, hospital employees, librarians, and social workers. The act also denied coverage to individuals who worked intermittently.__1950 inclusion of domestic labor, household employees working at least two days a week for the same person were added in, along with nonprofit workers and the self-employed.__1954 Hotel workers, laundry workers, all agricultural workers, and state and local government employees were added in.__ 1956 Disability benefits were added__1961 Retirement at age 62 was extended to men.__1962 Benefits of covered women could be collected by dependent husbands, widowers, and children.—1965 MEDICARE was added.__1972 The bill also set up a cost of living adjustment (COLA) to take effect in 1975.__1977-1990’s Amendments regarding the indexing of payments and dealing with the Trust Fund were enacted.I wonder how many of us would have deserted the Democrats in 1935 because the Social Security bill was too weak.

thanks staci

good one staci, I copied it and pasted on another thread.

Camel,It doesn’t help. And of course costs are going to rise.Honestly, my personal plan is to make enough money so it’s not an issue for me or my family. I’m not counting on any politician to help me.And Bob is nuts – nuts, I say! – if he thinks this is a path to Single Payer. If that’s so, then Medicare is already a path to single payer. Gee! We’ve had the path forver. But no….entrenching (entrench! huzzah!) the private insurance industry isn’t a path to anywhere.

At this point I really am just trying to understand what is being put forward in this compromise–another in a long series of them made by only our side. Howard Dean likes it, and I have to admit that holds some weight with me. Still, my gut tells me it’s no good. And honestly, this creates a larger problem for me and that is the notion of democrats being leaders. The one lesson I’ve really learned this year is that apparently democrats are simply not fit to lead after all. Even though I don’t buy into their supermajority since the Dem party is such a disparate group of primadonnas, but the fact that republicans can control the debate, control the language, and still control the actual legislation even though they are a superminority with almost no public support just proves democratic incompetence.The good news is that my job making software to help provide services for the un and under insured appears to be safe at the moment.

“If that’s so, then Medicare is already a path to single payer. Gee! We’ve had the path forver.”Lee, did you not see Staci’s post? We haven’t had it “forver”, we’ve had it since ’65 (’35 if you count Social Security as the first steps on that path).But we’re all really, really grateful for all that YOU’ve done, Lee. All that constructive work of yours has really made a difference.Look – either you can encourage the progressives in their efforts (as Bob does) or you can attack everyone for not making enough of an effort (as Lee does). Which do you suppose will work better?