If Grayson's 64 co-sponsors for a Medicare Buy In were SERIOUS, & not just seeking POLITICAL COVER :

[Faryn Balyncd]

...They would make it a PRECONDITION for passing HCR.


:kick:


Grayson's Medicare Buy In bill, if Democrats are to be taken at their word, should be a no-brainer:

The Senate was ON THE VERGE OF PASSING HRC that INCLUDED a Medicare Buy In until the Administration pressured Reid to bow to Lieberman's threats to deny HCR its 60th vote. . . . And now 51 Senators now say they will SUPPORT A PUBLIC OPTION in RECONCILIATION, if the House acts first.

Yet on the same day this tally grows to 51, Nancy Pelosi pronounces the "Public Option" dead.






If Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats were SERIOUS about a "Public Option", or a Medicare Buy In, they would force the hand of the 58 Senators who, before pressure from Lieberman and the White House, were on the verge of passing HCR WITH A MEDICARE BUY IN, and compel51 Senators who say they will now support a public option in reconciliation to turn their words into votes.





The Washington reality is that without making Grayson's Medicare Buy In a PRECONDITION to passing HCR, it's chances of passage is zero. And, as such, it becomes (not unlike support for a nebulous "public option") little more than POLITICAL COVER, a symbolic crumb to the base, while spineless Democratic politicians do the filthy work of passing a lobbyist written, no-pubic-option MANDATE.





Glenn Greenwald was right: The Democratic scam of passing off a lobbyist-written no-public-plan mandate cynically labeled as "reform", while pretending to support a public plan only if it has no chance of passage, is becoming transparent.

The ruinous price we will pay for ignoring the will of Americans is equally clear:

65% to 72% of voters favor a "public plan like Medicare" available to Americans under 65, while 20% to 26% oppose.

But only 34% of voters believe the current no-public-option plan is "better than passing nothing".

Even Scott Brown voters favor a Public Option. 82% of 2008 Obama voters who voted for Brown, favor a Public Option. Yet each of these voters (out of disgust, a sense of betrayal, or desperation) voted for a Senate candidate who vowed to kill the current bill).

It's not too late to avoid running over this cliff, but it appears that this is the course the administration chose when it made its closed door deal with the for-profit hospital industry.


And it appears that not only Reid, but Pelosi as well, lacks the will to correct the administration's fatally compromised approach.





:kick:



"If Barack Obama’s bill gets changed to exclude the public entities, it is not health insurance reform…it rises and falls on whether the public is allowed to choose Medicare if they’re under 65 or not. If they are allowed to choose Medicare as an option, this bill will be real health care reform...."

- Howard Dean