No Govt. Insurance? Fine, try this-

Dear President Obama,

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,

Thom Hartmann
See original website

Important enough to try

A few weeks ago a very dear reader gave me a hug and shared with me how much she enjoyed my column. Then she told me how much she approved of many of the views I share in it, because they sound almost Republican.

Well, first I’d like to think I know my readers and how far I can push you. Second, I’ve always thought of myself as a moderate anyway, fiscally conservative, opposed to reckless spending and fat Federal deficits, but progressive on issues of social justice and equality. Be that as it may, I hope you’ll forgive me if I lean just a little to the left this issue.

Health insurance is a great concern that has been troubling me for some time. Boyer Valley we have to pay 100% of our own family health insurance. They give us an offset that singles don’t receive, but I still end up paying close to $4,000 a year for it, that’s $495 out of each monthly pay check. That’s around 7% of our pay. Like everybody else, Uncle Sam is already taking almost 30%.

What is most discouraging- even frightening for me personally- is that our family insurance rate is going up 33%, so that $495 a month will be edging up toward $660 a month.

I’d like to see the state take on public school teacher’s health insurance. State and County employees get a much better deal. There’s power in numbers. Any employer with less than 200 employees is going to have a hard time finding more affordable rates. It’s no wonder small school districts are constantly shopping for new insurers. Sometimes they’re like credit card companies; the first year they offer a good deal, but the next year they raise their rates 18% and then 33% the next year, and so on.

Surely the State of Iowa could handle helping its teachers with a tiny sin tax, like one more cent on gambling or alcohol or cigarettes. Most states put the majority of their proceeds from lottery ticket sales into education.

Mind you, I’m overjoyed to have what I have. While Lutheran High School paid for all but our $5 co-pays out in L.A. working with a massive HMO was a nightmare. Every time we went to the doctor we waited for hours to get in, we felt like numbers instead of people, and we rarely got to see the same doctor twice.

I also know that a lot of people, like farmers, are self-insured and pay a lot more than we teachers have to. As a matter of fact more than 40 million Americans are uninsured. Better than half of them have full time jobs. A quarter of those uninsured are under 65.

So, as a registered Democrat in Iowa, I’ve been interested in some of what House Minority Leader, Missouri Congressman Richard Gebhardt has been proposing.

Dick Gebhardt claims he can provide healthcare to all of us. He thinks that a place to start is that everyone should be covered through their jobs. If we elect him President in 2004, he plans on a tax credit for employers to expand health insurance, making coverage more affordable.

He says we can take advantage of the existing system of health insurance financing. By reforming the way things already work, instead of re-inventing the wheel, Gebhardt doesn’t see it as making things harder for either employers or employees.

In theory, this could even stimulate the economy, by creating jobs in health care and, presumably increasing worker productivity (because we’ll all be healthier.)

The Gebhardt plan would also expand access to Medicare for uninsured 55 and 64year olds and extend State Child Health Insurance Program coverage to parents of kids already covered.

Gebhardt’s plan seems a lot more grounded in reality than what we’ve heard from Teddy Kennedy or Hillary Clinton. Is it possible to provide quality health care to every American? Well, ask yourself if it’s possible to eradicate SARS, AIDS, or cancer, or to stop terrorism. Maybe, maybe not, but isn’t it important enough to try?
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