Cenk Uygur (HuffPo): Radical New Idea: Medicare Buy-In for Everyone

[OneGrassRoot]

Cenk Uygur @ Huffington Post
Posted: December 18, 2009 03:58 AM

You only need 51 senators to pass a bill through reconciliation. But theoretically the main problem with reconciliation is that it can only be used for legislation that affects the budget. So, a public option or Medicare buy-in would definitely affect the budget, but getting rid of insurance practices like barring people for pre-existing conditions or denying them care through rescission could not be handled through reconciliation.

So, if you just want one bill you can't go through reconciliation because you can't keep many of the important elements of health care reform. That's conventional wisdom. But here is a radical new idea - how about we just do Medicare buy-in for anyone who wants it and not bother to pass any regulations about pre-existing conditions or rescission or anything else.

But what about all of the people on private health insurance who are getting screwed by those companies? Well, I guess they'd have to buy in to Medicare, wouldn't they? And if the private insurance companies lost enough customers, my guess is they would all of a sudden see the wisdom in actually providing better insurance. I believe they call that competition.

Medicare does not engage in any of the abuses that we are trying to address with this bill anyway. They don't turn people away. They actually treat you if you're sick. They don't take 20% of your money as profit for their executives and shareholders. It's a policy that a lot of people might feel very comfortable going with.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/radical-new-idea-medicare_b_396749.html

[BzaDem]

1. That would only work if you could get 60 Senators to waive the byrd rule to ban discrimination

on the basis of pre-existing conditions.

If you can't do that, a Medicare buy-in wouldn't work. Private insurers would continue to dump customers with pre-existing conditions onto Medicare, forcing Medicare premiums into the mid thousands. The last remaining healthy people who bought into Medicare would then jump to private insurers, who would offer plans that were much less than Medicare. The result is a Medicare buy-in pool composed entirely of people with pre-existing conditions, which would bump up premiums even more (maybe to the high thousands).

I don't understand how otherwise knowledgeable people like Cenk can't grasp the idea of adverse selection. Even some people here who want to kill the bill understand that idea.

[OneGrassRoot]

2. I personally appreciate trying to think outside the box...

I appreciate THINKING over ranting at this point. :)

Maybe something previously considered impossible, as far as a Senate rule, can indeed be changed.

:hi:

[BzaDem]

3. Well the point is if the filibuster could be changed, then we wouldn't need to use reconciliation.

The Byrd rule is meant to make reconciliation almost impossible to pass substantive legislation other than tax cuts/increases or spending cuts/increases. Changing the Byrd rule would be basically the same thing as changing the filibuster.

The point is that even if Reid went all nuclear on the Republicans and demanded a majority vote to kill the filibuster, there wouldn't even be 50 votes in the Senate to trash a tradition (however horrible it is) that has been in place for a century.

The point is that we need 60 votes if anything is going to work.

[OneGrassRoot]

4. Thanks for all the information you provide! :) n/t

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. That's if you didn't subsidize the Medicare patients with money from a tax increase

It would be radical; and I suspect the Democratic politicians would turn it down, because of the size of tax increase it would need, even though it would, in the long term, decrease the total amount of money people had to spend on healthcare, by eventually removing the for-profit insurers (when they find they can't compete and make a profit any more).

[OneGrassRoot]

5. kicking for DUers to perhaps have radical, helpful "aha" moments. :) n/t