Medicare Part E - "Everybody"

The President yesterday morning admitted on national television that he lost control of the message with health care. It's time to reboot -- and use a very, very, very simple message so all Americans can understand it.

Let's use Medicare, which nearly every American understands. Just create "Medicare Part E" where the "E" represents "everybody." Just let any citizen in the US buy into Medicare.

It would be so easy. No need 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 the President is 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.
Thus, Medicare Part E would be revenue neutral!

To make it available to people of low income, Congress could 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.

This blows up all the rumors about death panels and grandma and everything else: everybody knows what Medicare is. Those who scorn it can go with United Healthcare and it's $100 million/year CEO. Those who like Medicare can buy into Part E. Simplicity itself.

Of course, we'd like a few fixes, like letting negotiate drug prices, and fill some of the other 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." This creates Part E.

And if this fails -- if the Congress can't get out from under their corporate overlords -- at the very least pass the Kucinich amendment that will allow individual states to create their own single-payer systems, as was done in Canada a generation ago.

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Comments

[amt77]

Thanks Thom ,for putting words to what I have LONG thought should be done about Health Care in this country. I come from a family that carries a genetic illness and I watched my mother get jerked around by the private insurers, end up on Medicaid and the other fun financial stuff. Additionally, I was licensed to sell health insurance and it was so discouraging to meet all the people who were seeking insurance but couldn't get it or it was outrageously priced and ALL of this was back in the early 90's. Simplicity is definitely a requirement that gets overlooked, but I think it's critical. I don't like the idea of setting up a whole new entity for the Public Option even tho I support it over leaving everything in the hands of the insurers. For one thing it's an easy target for the right. Anyway, I sent this link to the White House and if we don't get what we want this time - we have to keep at it!
As you like to point out Thom, even FDR wasn't the FDR we know, until about his 3rd year. I'm sure it's a tight rope, trying to balance all the problems and factions, we are, after all in unprecedented turmoil on many fronts!

[Wayne Walker]

The golden rule - Keep It Simple Stupid! This is exactly what should be done. Why create a whole new bureaucratic mess when the infrastructure already exists? I question whether the current bill would really add 53,000+ employees on the Federal payroll, as has been quoted, but if it added half as many, it would be a concern. I would hope that creating Medicare-E would drastically reduce this number.

Creating Medicare-E would also increase the impetus to fix some of the problems with Medicare.

[Dem02020]

Of course the simplest and easiest way to insure the fifty million Americans who are presently uninsured is to enroll them in the Public Health Insurance plan we already have up and running, Medicare.

Medicare is already staffed and has offices throughout the United States and has its claims and billing processes already established and worked by people who are experienced in what it is they are doing (versus whatever maiden voyage could be expected of a ship named "Public Option", and who knows how poorly designed and built that ship would be).

This is not controversial to a great majority of Americans (or even to a majority of Congress I suspect), and is what they call in business a 'turn-key solution', where you take an already up and running process and use it to solve your problem (by simply 'turning the key' on the already working process in order to start it up).

I want to add, that among the fifty million uninsured Americans, many are healthy and need no medical attention presently or for the foreseeable future, but they go without health insurance because of the money it saves them.

These Americans are mostly young and employed, but are still apprehensive about being uninsured, and would love to have something like Medicare at affordable rates, and they would enroll if given the chance, and their premiums would probably float the whole Medicare expansion, seeing as they maybe make up the great super-majority of uninsured Americans.

[oceanlady]

Thom, I completely agree, as I did when you first talked about this on your radio program a month or so ago. The problem is, the message is NOT getting where it needs to go. I certainly don't know how to do that, and that's what needs to happen. There needs to be a national stage talking about this! What about Bernie Sanders? Can't he take this up and start screaming it from the rafters?

I'm so disappointed in how this entire health care debate/debacle is going. I see the Dems trying out new sound bytes like, "well...we don't NEED a public option for it to work..." or floating the "trigger" idea. All of it means no public option is going to happen, and they already know it. We are just being introduced to the idea slowly.

As a family of three that has been paying $845 a month for insurance since my husband was laid off last year, I feel pretty strongly about this.

This madness has to stop, but you know what? It won't. Not even under Obama. He's only one man, and the system is already running rough shot over him. I went from being involved in politics and excited for our nations future, and in six short months I'm back to wondering why I even cared. The system sucks, and the system is in control. Money wins every time. I should have been a lobbyist.

[Binglow]

This makes too much sense! LOL Please make your plan available to the President.

[Bernique]

I wish President Obama had read your piece yesterday, Thom. He might have thrown away the long speech, which to me, perpetuates the ugly status quo, with a few cosmetic tweaks, and risen to FDR status by day's end.

But of course he didn't. His corporate overlords wouldn't let him. Sigh.

[Guitarsandmore]

Keep it simple is a good strong message Thom. It removes all of the FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) and replaces it with the familiar, the known, and what we know works. Great post, Thom.

[Ankhst]

mmmmmm FUD ;-)

but more seriously, how about a TV station to play Thom's posts on loop (to hypnotic/serene graphics) -- since he's always quick to the point, they'd repeat so many times per day that even
Faux News zombies could absorb it. Just a few frequency-seeking remote controls, to
surreptitiously change the channel from Fox...

[Guitarsandmore]

I would like to see Thom Hartmann replace morning joe on MSNBC. MSNBC has a pretty good line up except for Joe Scarborough. Thom Hartmann's insight would be much appreciated in that time slot.

[BarryS]

Kucinich is the only grownup in the Congress.

[ihavenobias]

Brilliant Thom!