Drop This "Public Option" Crap - Just Let Me Buy Into Medicare!

I am sick and tired of all this "public option" crap. PLEASE! I'm an informed person who follows the news and I still don't quite get it. It is too complicated.

JUST LET ME BUY INTO MEDICARE! Why is that so hard?

Why am I prevented by law from just being allowed to buy into Medicare for some formula of cost plus?

Think about it. This would not cost the government anything. In fact, by adding maybe 10% above the cost they would come out ahead. In fact, it would help the system a great deal because anyone who buys in is younger than the people in the system now, so generally would be less costly.

This would add no government bureaucracy. The system is already set up to handle millions of people. All of the "new customer" intake procedures are already there. All of the systems for paying the doctors is already there.

Why am I prevented by law from just buying into Medicare? What is the logic of that? Except to keep a "market" alive -- people for insurance companies to feed off of.

Drop all of this "public option" nonsense. Drop all of this stuff about regulating insurance companies. You don't need a 1000-page bill. Let them do what they want to do, and let me or my company just buy into Medicare if I don't like what the insurance companies are doing. Sheesh. How hard is that to understand?

Everyone who does like the insurance companies, fine, let them pretend they have insurance -- until they get sick.

OPEN UP MEDICARE! It is so simple.

Follow Dave Johnson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/dcjohnson

Comments

[beartrack]

First of all let's get to the fact of the matter. It is "health insurance" reform that is needed to stop these criminal activities of the industry. While a strong public option would be helpful, single payer is the answer. It would dramatically cut costs for businesses, deal with the pre-existing condition issues, and permit movement to another job or area if that was best. It would cut the overhead and excessive greed of the "for profit" industry. Socialism ? Sounds like a good business practice to me. Isn't that the American way ?

[Sunshine1970]

Great idea. Why hasn't anyone mentioned this before? I'd sign up in a millisecond.

[nicole473]

It's been discussed quite a lot, both here and elsewhere, throughout the HCR battle. It's unlikely to happen this year.

[iblogleft]

Listen Dave. I am with you, but my felling is the old folks own Medicare, and they will kill anyone that wants to have a slice.

"Medicare is ours", is a common theme. "We deserve more than everyone else" is another. Even with the best intentions, and a promise not to lower standards, senility will own the conversation. You wanna step on that pressure plate? Not I.

I can hear the GOP and the DINOs now; "They want to take control of your Medicare, flood it with new patients and lower your benefits, so they can have what you worked your whole life for."

I call it Public Profit Option so we can have a Medicare like system, without stepping on grandmas frail brain.

[BusGreg]

We'd be spending LESS if all were covered under one single Medicare plan if it is done right, then we are spending now on keeping all the for profit companies in business. There is power in numbers and with one plan covering all and run non profit, we'd all be winners. Well except for the aforementioned proffiteers who get rich at the expense and SUFFERING of their customers.
""""I can hear the GOP and the DINOs now; "They want to take control of your Medicare, flood it with new patients and lower your benefits, so they can have what you worked your whole life for.""""""­"
Government IS running Medicare.
And if the government can't run Health care, why are the one's who can easily afford Cigna or Aetna's for profit plans going to the Bethesda Naval Medical Center for melanoma surgery , Sen McCain, or how about that by-pass and other surgeries Mr Roy Blunt and Mitch McConnell had at that government place you don't trust? And no, it is not about whether you earned it, you certainly have. It is about the hippocracy.

[nicole473]

Good post.

[oldwhitewomantoo]

Sounds like a plan to me!

[Spoons]

Doesn't the first amendment guarantee our right to peacefully assemble (join into groups for health care protection or whatever)?

Shouldn't it then be unconstitutional for Medicare to discriminate against young people based on age?

[BusGreg]

Here is the insanity of the current system.
Let's say I fall and break my leg during the week end. I go to doctor Todd, he sets my leg and for profit health insurance pays Doc Todd.
Let's see what happens when I break the same leg at work. I go to Doc Todd, he sets my leg and Worker's Comp pays Doc Todd. In the States where I lived and worked, Worker's Comp is for profit insurance.
Now, since I am disabled, if I break my leg, doc Todd sets it and Medicare foots the bill, which I have been paying into through the portion of FICA - I believe it is 2.9% and matched by the employer - and have the monthly premium deducted from Social Security.
Why in blazes do we have to support three different systems to pay a doctor bill????
Medicare, the best coverage in the aforementioned example is the best in service, coverage and uses only 4% of the premiums and tax contributions on administration. I would call that efficient.
For profit insurers spend 20% to 30% of all premiums on obscene CEO compensation, administration, advertising and LOBBYING.
Eliminate the need to purchase for profit health insurance, and add a small tax to cover those not currently covered in lieu of the hundreds of $$$$ out of pocket monthly and you have Medicare for all.

[ebro1]

It makes absolute sense, so I'm sure some White House staffer, or Blue Dog Democrat can find a way to make it "impossible" to pass.

[airtyme]

Sarah Palin takes it to Obama again. Somehow, I believe he will fail to rise to the challenge again.

“Instead of poll-driven “solutions,” let’s talk about real health-care reform” ~ Sarah Palin

http://politicalintegritynow.com/2009/09/sarah-palin-instead-of-poll-driven-solutions-lets-talk-about-real-health-care-reform/

[BusGreg]

I wonder who put those words into the former half term governor's mouth. This is way too well written to come from her own hand, even though it is a load of that smelly substance which exits the northern end of south facing bull, wink , wink
Universal health care is the only reform that will work.

[arjuna3guna]

THATS IT !!!

UREKA !!!

It should have been the battle cry from the start. Is it too late for something as intelligent as this to happen?

If it did happen the Dems would controll the political landscape over the next twenty years.

Are they even aware of that? Are they that isolated?

Of course for this to work over the longhaul, many other reforms would need to take place.

Baseball bats need to be taken to the naughty pharmasutical industries.

Doctors need to work in groups and be on salary as they do at the Mayo clinic.

The education system for prospective MDs needs to become more open with large grants to
help the poor student.

I get all my stuff from NPR and Bill Moyers,

Have a happy day!!

[BusGreg]

I am sure they are aware of it. Unfortunately too many are in the pockets of for profit insurers. Those Blue Cross / Blue Shield Democrats!

[anachoret]

I like the sound of it.

[noneIn2008]

I can not tell you how many Dr. offices we've gone to with our grandmother only to get, "sorry we are not accepting any more medicare patients". I guess it is a solution?

[oberon123]

You sir are a liar and you know it. I doubt you even have a grandma.

[LeftRight]

To be fair, that's not entirely false. There are many doctors in my area who are refusing to take more medicare patients than they must. The same holds true for those who are on medicaid due to being too poor.

[BusGreg]

I am disabled and on Medicare and have NEVER been denied treatment or coverage. That only happened when I was still able to work and covered under For Profit Insurance. Quit the idiotic fearmongering, you are embarrassing yourself!

[LeftRight]

And the solution to that is to remove all the "reforms" that the Republicans have done to Medicare, not scrap the whole program...

[ruffmama]

sounds good to me!