Ted Kennedy Introduced Medicare For All Every Session of the Senate He Served In

[berni_mccoy]

I guess that makes him a big bad socialist boogey man like Bernie.



The attacks here on candidates who support M4A are simply crazy.

It's not a new idea and it's been promoted by leading members of the Democratic Party for decades now.

[oregonjen]

1. Yep. The attacks and vitriol are astounding.

[Sparkly]

2. Hillary Clinton was on it in 1993.

[lunasun]

15. +1

[IronLionZion]

3. Truman was on it in the 40s

Rumor has it, Johnson actually got a single payer plan passed for elderly people.

Sounds like America has a proud history of socialism

[Tom Rinaldo]

4. Well yeah, sure, but I'm confident in all of those sessions, even those under Republican control

Ted believed he has the votes to pass it when he introduced it, but, you know, stuff must have come up. Ted would never go tilting at windmills, would he?

[George II]

5. If Ted Kennedy, who was a member of a party that held roughly half the seats....

...in the House and Senate (give or take some election by election) couldn't get it passed, how is someone who wasn't a member of either party for decades going to get it passed, particularly since he has has no power to introduce legislation and has no vote in either chamber?

[Tom Rinaldo]

8. Maybe he won't. But if he/we can move the ball forward, he/we should

Because you will never reach the goal without moving the ball forward when you can. Basic Soccer. Even if in the short run it is only helping to acclimate the public to the concept and its potential advantages. Meanwhile Bernie will never replace what we do have with anything that isn't better. THAT would be the Republican playbook. Sanders voted FOR Obamacare even without a Public Option in it, because he recognized it clearly was an improvement over what we had before it.

[Mike 03]

6. You're addressing a lot of people who do want M4A but our argument is how can he get it

passed, and your OP and the responses saying "People have been trying since the 40s" don't exactly instill great confidence.

How is the fact that people have been trying for eighty years to get this done and can't a rational argument for Bernie?

[HarlanPepper]

7. Are you still supporting Warren?

[gibraltar72]

9. How dare they act like Democrats. Harrumph.

[frazzled]

10. His plan didn't include abolishing private insurance

though it did regulate it.

Details of the Medicare for All Act
The Medicare for All Act would gradually expand healthcare coverage to cover all citizens and documented residents in the country. Benefits under the program would be phased in by age under this schedule:

First 5 years: covers legal residents under age 20 and over age 55;
Next 5 years: covers under age 30 and over age 45;
11th year: covers all citizens and legal residents.

The program would be nationally financed through a 7% employer payroll tax and a 1.7% employee payroll tax. All eligible residents would have the choice of enrolling in a national, public health plan based on Medicare, or in a federally-approved private health plan. No premiums would be charged in either case, but the public program would have cost sharing - reduced or eliminated for low-income people - as determined by the Secretary of Health & Human Services. Private insurers would have to contract with the federal government and meet national standards to offer coverage, in the same way as the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP). Licensed private insurers would then be paid by the federal government on a per capita basis for each enrolled individual, risk adjusted depending on the health status of the individual. Private insurers would have to offer benefits and cost-sharing no worse than plans offered through the FEHBP.

Hospitals, doctors, and other providers would be paid by the public program using a similar fee schedule and payment methodology as Medicare, while private insurers would determine their own payment methodology with providers.

Existing public health insurance programs such as Medicaid, SCHIP, the Veterans Administration, and the Indian Health Services would be preserved, but would become secondary payers, while the new national health plan would act as the primary payer.

[berni_mccoy]

11. It would effectively do that.

[Jose Garcia]

12. Jimmy Carter Blames Ted Kennedy For Killing Earlier Health Overhaul

Remember that ancient Latin line that in translation means "Speak no ill of the dead?" Well, former President Jimmy Carter is having none of it, especially when it comes to his departed, one-time political nemesis, the late Sen. Ted Kennedy.

Carter told CBS News' Lesley Stahl in a 60 Minutes interview scheduled for broadcast Sunday that Kennedy did what he could to derail his health care overhaul plan because the late senator wanted to deny Carter that victory.

CBS News is promoting the segment by releasing some juicy tidbits. An excerpt from the CBS News web site:

"The fact is that we would have had comprehensive health care now, had it not been for Ted Kennedy's deliberately blocking the legislation that I proposed," he tells Stahl. "It was his fault. Ted Kennedy killed the bill," says Carter. And Kennedy, who then ran against the president for the democratic presidential nomination, did it out of spite says Carter. "He did not want to see me have a major success in that realm of life," he tells Stahl.

More: https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2010/09/16/129913094/jimmy-carter-blames-ted-kennedy-for-killing-earlier-health-overhaul

[berni_mccoy]

13. They also had a grudge

Kinda like Biden and Hillary supporters do with Bernie

[lunasun]

14. More concern than the big tax break to wealthy or last military increase .Post after post against it

here @ du
The United States is the only one of the 33 developed countries that doesn't have universal health care but free stuff is the talking point here and in msm
I read the push goes back over 100 yrs ago to progressive reformers supporting teddy roosevelt
This would be around the time UK and the rest of Europe was moving toward reforms