Medicare for all as an across-the-board option for all.

[countmyvote4real]

No triggers. No exceptions. No penalties. No BS.

President Obama will either be the leader he asked our children to be or he won't.

End of story,

[Tangerine LaBamba]

1. Boy, do I ever agree with you!

My dream is for President Obama to stand before Congress and tell them that is his plan, and that they will abide by it.

Then go to work to make it happen.

I wish, oh, how I wish!

It's the only fair thing to American citizens. And it's about damn time.

Let's hope together, and thank you for saying what I've been bellowing to people who keep telling me I'm nuts.

Maybe I am, but now is the time for really adventurous and daring action, and I hope Obama understands that..................

[sharesunited]

2. Take THAT Max Baucus.

[truedelphi]

3. Tomorrow could be the day that President Obama sacks his evil twin

And puts the real Obama back in charge.

Or it won't be. Let's hope the decision is in his hands and not delegated to Rahm Emmanuel!

[Davis_X_Machina]

4. HR 676 has fewer co-sponsors in this Congress (111th)...

...than in the last one (110th). It's a good idea going nowhere, and not even a passionate embrace by the President will move those numbers.

[countmyvote4real]

5. Then it is time to clean house, (Blue dogs/DINOs)

It would appear that we are fucked until we do. And that might include our not-so-fearless leader. We shall see.

[BzaDem]

7. Oh yeah. Reducing our majorities will certainly help pass HR676.

The cognitive dissonance is amazing.

:rofl:

[WI_DEM]

14. Yeah, who are all these liberals we will suddenly elect in NE, LA, AR, ND, NC, ETC...

and if we can do it why haven't we? The Dem party, unfortunately, has always been a party with diverse sections and philosophies. It is not a liberal party and never has been.

[eridani]

6. That is not what the OP proposed

S/he suggested that buy-in to Medicare be VOLUNTARY, which is an entirely different thing.

[autorank]

8. The absence of this shows that they're not serious n/t k*r

[eomer]

9. This won't work.

Would you have a pre-existing condition exclusion? I assume you wouldn't because everyone seems to be on board with eliminating the pre-existing condition exclusion.

But this combination -- letting anyone and everyone opt in to Medicare with no pre-existing condition exclusion -- will not work because it would allow people to opt out while they are well, wait until they get sick, and only then opt in. Effectively, well people could pay nothing into the system, leaving sick people to share the cost among themselves. The amount you would have to charge if the costs are split only among sick people would be too high for them to afford.

Any viable solution will have to have a mechanism for getting well people to pay their fair share. The current Medicare plan goes even further than that -- it requires people to pay in during years when they aren't even covered and they have to pay whether they want to or not. This is an essential feature of Medicare. When you make it totally optional then you will have to come up with some other mechanism for making everyone share the costs -- and I don't see what that mechanism would be.

An essential element of reform is universal participation in sharing the costs. You can't provide universal coverage or even a universal option to choose coverage without universal participation in sharing the costs.

[Vincardog]

10. If you are working and paying taxes you are already paying in to Medicare.

Or did you think the Medicare payments only started when you hit 65?

[eomer]

11. The payroll deductions that we pay now are already spoken for.

They are used to provide the current Medicare benefits for people who are beyond Medicare eligibility age. There isn't a surplus of Medicare funds that could be used to pay for a bunch of new benefits. On the contrary -- Medicare is currently predicted to run short in the not too distant future.

If we create a bunch of new Medicare benefits then we will need additional funds to go into Medicare from somewhere.

[Vincardog]

12. Need additional funds to go into Medicare? Let dim Son's tax cuts expire

Top Marginal tax rates have never been lower Plus or minus 4 points.
Their is 2 trillion there.

[eomer]

15. Sure, I'd be in favor of that.

Medicare for all. Everyone is covered. The cost is paid through a tax that has a progressive scale.

[WI_DEM]

13. Sounds good, but if we can't even get a simple public option how are we going to pass Medicare for

all?