Dean: Senate Health Care Compromise a "Positive Step"

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/12/09/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5948676.shtml

December 9, 2009 7:42 AM

The new health care compromise hammered out among Senate Democrats isn't perfect but it represents a "positive step forward," former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean said on CBS' "The Early Show" Wednesday.

Liberals appear ready to drop their demands for a public option in order to assuage moderate Democrats and get the 60 votes needed to avoid a Republican filibuster. The revamped legislation would reportedly set up a private insurance plan overseen by the same government agency that controls lawmakers' insurance. It would also expand Medicare, lowering the qualifying age from 65 to 55.

Dean, who previously chaired the Democratic National Committee, said Medicare expansion "makes a lot of sense because you don't have to reinvent another bureaucracy to do it."

CBSNews.com Special Report: Health Care Reform

"This is what should have been done in the first place," he told "Early Show" co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez, who noted that Dean had insisted in August that reform must include a public option.

Dean said the compromise solution still represents "real reform."

"Whatever we call it is irrelevant. Is it going to work? Yes, it is."

[madfloridian]

1. Later in the day yesterday he expressed some misgivings over parts.

I am reserving judgment and not saying too much right now because I don't trust the media's coverage.

[NNN0LHI]

2. Got a quote?

[madfloridian]

5. Here is one.

"Dean also confirmed various details about the deal that he’d learned in direct converstaions with Senators involved in the dicussions — detail that news orgs had mostly attributed to anonymous sources. Dean’s general support for the bill could give it a boost among progressives who say it falls short of real reform.

Some detail from Dean:

* In one provision that liberals will dislike, Dean said he’d been told that the Medicare buy-in for people 55-64 would not have subsidies, potentially making the buy in unaffordable for many intended recipients. Dean said that if this isn’t fixed in conference negotiations, it could be a deal-breaker.

“That’s a huge problem that may tip this into being not real reform,” Dean said.

* Dean confirmed what I reported here yesterday: The Medicare buy-in will be available as early as 2010, a provision he hailed for substantive and political reasons. “They’re making government-run single payer available to people under 65,” he said. “That’s a step in the right direction.”

Dean added, however, that it was unclear as of yet whether the early buy-in applied to all those without insurance or just those at high-risk (I was told yesterday that the latter was true). He said that if it’s high-risk only, that could also be a provision that falls short of real reform, and noted that the early buy-in would have to be made available to everybody."

http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/health-care/howard-dean-senate-health-care-deal-contains-real-reform/

[NNN0LHI]

12. That is a story using anonymous sources and I gave his direct quotes

>>>Dean also confirmed various details about the deal that he’d learned in direct converstaions with Senators involved in the dicussions — detail that news orgs had mostly attributed to anonymous sources. Dean’s general support for the bill could give it a boost among progressives who say it falls short of real reform.<<<

Who am I supposed to believe? Direct quotes of Dean or the anonymous sources you present?

Don

[madfloridian]

14. What an outrageous statement you made.

How very silly to say that.

[Davis_X_Machina]

3. Sellout. Bought by Big Pharma and the insurance lobby.

I thought I'd get that in first, and maybe kill the thread in the cradle; ;-)

[madfloridian]

7. He goes under the bus with almost everyone else.

:shrug:

[Davis_X_Machina]

8. The bus is now in the air, wheels spinning...

...and unable to get traction, held aloft by the sheer volume of people thrown under it.

[derby378]

4. I can appreciate the part about not creating another bureaucracy...

...but the long and short of it is that if you're under 55 years old, you've just been screwed over.

[Cleita]

6. I think both he and Bernie Sanders see the Medicare lowering of age as

a kind of single payer universal health care Trojan Horse that will eventually get it past the cyclopean walls of Troy (Congress) who refuse to give up Helen (the for profit health care industry) who caused the war to begin with. Well we all know how the Trojan War ended. Unfortunately Helen, the cause of it all, survived, returned to Sparta as its Queen until she died of natural causes. Achilles and Agamemnon, the generals (maybe Bernie and Howard) died as a result of the war and Odysseus (the gang of ten), the architect of the scheme, had to wander for ten years before finally getting home. I always found the Trojan War to be a great allegory for any kind of struggle. If you identify the principles of the struggle in terms of the heroes and other notables in the saga, you come to some uncomfortable answers.

[DJ13]

9. 10 steps backwards, so lets cheer 1 tiny step forwards

Go team!

[Deep13]

10. 55 to 65 IF they can afford it.

Sorry if this doesn't seem like a knock out of the park.

[AndyA]

11. Nothing I've heard so far gets me too excited.

I just think at this point they're desperate to say they passed health care reform. So what if it only helps 100 people, or could help millions if they could afford the $800/month premiums. (Pulled that figure out of the air, I haven't heard any exact figures, although I did hear that for a family of 4 making $66,000/year, the premiums would come to 10 percent of their income.)

We've all heard the story of the little girl and the snake, and that's exactly what this is. The trouble makers should have been shut out from the very beginning, and they could have started with Max Baucus.

[yurbud]

13. they don't need to avoid a republican filibuster--just make them do an old fashioned real one

and further dig their own grave.