Rep. Grayson Introduces Bill to Allow Anyone to Buy Into Medicare at Cost

I'm no Democrat but Grayson is a pimp. His best work is keeping the fed's feet to the fire along with Ron Paul.

Originally posted by TheOneElectric
The bill is like it is today because the insurance companies planned and executed their goals. They gathered ignorant people to go protest and produce anger. They flooded the republican offices with money so that no was the only thing republicans were allowed to say. After pandering to the republicans and altering the bill in the favor of the republicans and lobbyists hundreds of times, the bill then became a document which sells the american public to the insurance companies.
Shame on you for doing that on ATS of all places.

ATSers: DENY ignorance. The ONe: tell me exactly where my facts are wrong.
--In nearly every phase of the debate last year until hours before the vote, there was "no bill" to debate.
--Despite the President saying 100s of times, "my bill would", the President has yet to ever put forward his own bill.
--Negotiations have beeen done in secret by the Dem majority in charge, which went as far as to change the locks on the committee doors so that GOP could not participate.
--The votes for the current Senate and House bills were done as we know with many members saying they had no time "to read the legislation".
--NONETHLESS, it is a fact that you deny that both the Senate and House bills that were passed were products of the Dem majority. At the time that both bills passed last year, the Dems had a SUPER MAJORITY. Now they only have a simple majority. They also contol the WH.

This actually doesn't sound to bad, but what scares me is when they add a bunch of other stuff onto a bill that they don't tell you about. Like they tell you what doctors to see, what drugs you must take, if you don't follow everything your doctor tells you the coverage is over etc... Long as they keep it plain and simple, it might be a good idea.

Any health care bill has to be passed before April, why? because in April the financial committee is going to meet to enact an old bill to stop the increasing deficit and that bill will make the health care bill a bill unable to be enacted as the health care bill will be considered another burden to the deficit and debt.

We need to abolish Medicare for everyone, simple. When we do this we should also allow people to pay out of pocket for their health care, not be mandated to buy from insurance companies. We need to make it like it use to be back before Medicare/Medicaid.We need to give vouchers for the young and the old and have charity hospitals for the poor.



[edit on 3/11/10 by Misoir]

reply to post by patent98310


Good idea. Is Rep Grayson eligible to run for President?

reply to post by patent98310


Patent, Thank you. I favor debating individual aspects of possible reform.
While this sounds like a great fast fix, I bvelieve there may be some problems:

--Medicare is a federal program. Increasing Medicare participation increases entitlements, which are the major contributor to federal deficits.

--As Medicare is a fed govt program, it represents the back door to nationalized health care. Having this option would present an attractive incentive for companies to possibly "dump" their private insurance programs to force their employees onto the Medicare option.

--Medicare is not an efficient program. Accord to at least one report I found, Medicare costs have increased MORE than private insurance costs:

"The results are clear: Since 1970 — even without the prescription drug benefit — Medicare's costs have risen 34% more, per patient, than the combined costs of all health care in America apart from Medicare and Medicaid, the vast majority of which is purchased through the private sector."
"Public Option To Cut Health Costs? Medicare's Record Says Dream On"
06-19-09, Investors.com
www.investors.com...

Originally posted by whatwasthat
reply to post by patent98310

 

Good idea. Is Rep Grayson eligible to run for President?

Yes he is. I highly doubt he would run in 2012 though. Keep your eyes peeled for 2016.

I don't know if this is exactly how I'd handle the issue, but he's a lot closer to being on the right track than the rest of the Democratic party seems to be. His plan is simple, effective and to the point without all manner of unconstitutional mandates or invasions of privacy.

Turn it into a catastrophic care insurance program that doesn't kick in until costs hit $5,000-$10,000 and I could probably support it.

Originally posted by ExPostFacto
A reasonable solution...there is the public option that should be. Yes, it will destroy private enterprise insurance companies. However, Health Care really needs to be at cost anyway. Make it Not For Profit.

So my friend, you think what the govt gives away is "free"?
No, govt programs are paid for by taxpayers or financed with interest via federal deficits.
And usually at more cost than the same thing done by the private sector.
Very well understood fact of life.
For e.g., lets take the "cash for clunkers" program, shall we?
"Benefit to individuals" = $4,000 per car
"Cost to taxpayers" = $24,000 per car

So the govt takes "no profit", making you happy. But the govt middleman cost was a cool $20 k. Know any private for-profit companies making that kinda markup?

Well I don't know too much about the "bloated bill o' health" floating around but this seems to be a reasonable idea. Mind you I've lived with taxpayer funded healthcare all my life so I don't know what it's like for my neighbours to the South but the poster who said nothing is free is correct and our governments for the last eight years have done a bang up job ruining our care but then the insurance companies here are little more than parasites sucking enough blood to gorge on but not enough to kill the host, so I would rather the government deal with it- we can vote them out.
The insurance companies, where I live, are best at taking our money and then denying coverage.

Either way I really wonder, how much of a chance just Grayson have pushing his plan any further?

Cheers

reply to post by octotom


finance.yahoo.com...

Octotom, You are definitely not ignorant, the difficulty in making sense out of what comes out of Congress in the form of proposals is they are almost always attempting to hide the real objective.

Look at the link I attached and scroll down to jog number 6, Actuary.
Actuary Science is a real discipline mastered by so few people that we mere mortals are not aware that it is the basis of the insurance industry

Rep Grayson is using words that have specific meaning to the small group of people who use actuary science to set rates for insurance.

This is the best proposal on the issue since medicare was founded!

Grayson for President, if he can get a vote on his proposal.

Originally posted by endisnighe
reply to post by TheOneElectric

 

Who wrote the Obamacare bill?

Please explain your comment.

Did you just say that the Republicans wrote the bill in its current form?

If you did, go peddle your propaganda elsewhere!

The bill you refer to as "Obamacare" highlighted a need for a public option or a public pool people with no insurance or people who were unsatisfied with their current provider could buy into. Those who couldn't afford it would have been given subsidies to be able to afford buying in. The insurance companies via their proxies in congress *republicans and "blue dogs"* declawed the bill and left it how it is. All was done in order to get a filibuster-proof vote, a move that supposed to have attracted republican support in the Senate yet it never did. So in a sense, YES the current bill in the Senate is a reflection of Health insurance companies/Republican and big business interests. It's not propaganda unless you choose to see it as such.

Originally posted by whatwasthat
Is Rep Grayson eligible to run for President?

Alan Grayson 2012

He [Obama] believes that the most important thing he can do for this country is to bring us together, heal the divide, and get past the bitter partisanship that he says has crippled Washington.

I disagree. I believe what our country needs most right now is to defeat the evil that has permeated our political and economic system once and for all.
...
What do we have to gain by Alan Grayson running? At the very least, an incredible amount of pressure on Obama to stop pandering to the criminal thugs in the GOP and come back to his base.

He's got my vote! I love this man.

reply to post by pumpkinorange


Thanks for pointing that out, i'll have to do some research. Still I think Grayson did good by simplifying the whole public option while the democrats and republicans are bickering and playing dirty to defeat or pass the health care bill.

nice try populist democrats! if they REALLY wanted to pass it, they would have done so a year ago. this is just a stunt to energize their "base".

they still have large majorities in both house and senate and couldn't even pass the "insurance sellout" bill (mandatory private coverage as long as you breathe).

yeah we need healthcare coverage for catastrophic conditions and preventive care which will certainly cut costs and reduce those catastrophic illnesses.

and yeah we need to make it portable so that people aren't slaves to a workplace they hate just because they can't move on because their families won't be covered.

we are the greatest nation on earth so we should be able to do that! but neither this populist bull nor the "breathing tax" are the solution...

maybe we should do something like this: if you DO get sick you should get life saving treatment (including for non-emergency) and then be required to pay into the system for a number of months/years - instead of a mandatory lifetime tax on all.

or even better have some sort of mandatory yearly physical with lots of preventive tests. if you fail to show up and get sick of something that could have been caught then you would get the treatment and be fined plus payments. if you take your physical and they find a problem, they fix it and you only have to make the regular payments without any fines since it's cheaper to treat something caught early.

oh did i mention i am a fan of obama? i just don't like this sellout!

[edit on 11-3-2010 by DarkSecret]

Originally posted by endisnighe
reply to post by TheOneElectric

 

So let me ask you again, who WROTE THIS BILL?

I'll give an honest answer if interested?

The bill was written primarily by Democrats, BUT portions of it were co-sponsored by GOP.

The Dems involved GOP in the process and gave them OVER-SIZED input in order to garner bipartisan support.

For example the clause in the Healthcare Bill that the GOP said represented a "Death Panel" was Co-Sponsored by..

Rep. Charles Boustany [R-LA7]
Rep. Geoff Davis [R-KY4]
www.govtrack.us...

And then the GOP immediately declared it as "Death Panels"

For example the bill includes an amendment restricting federal funds from being used in any way to fund abotrtions...This amendment was written and sponsored by GOP...and PASSED. It is part of the bill, yet the GOP continues to claim this bill will fund abortions?? Get it.

www.govtrack.us...

Furthermore the bill has been referred to various comittees where the GOP has had opportunity and great leeway to effect the bill...

House Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on
House Education and Labor, Subcommittee on
House Ways and Means, Subcommittee on
House Oversight and Government Reform, Subcommittee on
House Budget, Subcommittee on
House Rules, Subcommittee on
House Natural Resources, Subcommittee on
House Judiciary, Subcommittee on

Take a look at the link and do some math adding up how many Republicans are on these comittees...

www.govtrack.us...

bills included numerous GOP amendments,

bills included numerous GOP amendments, reflected bipartisan meetings
Senate bills had numerous GOP amendments and reflected bipartisan meetings. According to a HELP Committee document about bipartisan aspects of the health reform bill the committee passed July 15, the final bill included "161 Republican amendments," including "several amendments from Senators [Mike] Enzi [R-WY], [Tom] Coburn [R-OK], [Pat] Roberts [R-KS] and others [that] make certain that nothing in the legislation will allow for rationing of care," and reflected the efforts of "six bipartisan working groups" that "met a combined 72 times" in 2009 as well as "30 bipartisan hearings on health care reform" since 2007, half of which were held in 2009 [HELP Committee document, 7/09]. And according to the Senate Finance Committee's document detailing the amendments to the Chairman's Mark considered, at least 13 amendments sponsored by one or more Republican senators were included in the bill.

mediamatters.org...

SO you can say in the most simplistic of terms that the bill was "written by Democrats"...but after 161 GOP Amendments and a half-dozen committee meetings all aimed at giving the GOP a say in the bill...

How much of the sprawling text in this bill that they rail about actually was written by GOP? Seriously? 161 Amendments?

reply to post by SaturnFX


SaturnFX, You raise good issues. I suspect you are not in the group of people who have made personal decisions about medicare for themselves yet. Those of us who were born during WWII or earlier have been reminded that medicare is available at the best rate when we become eligible based on our birth-date. Enrollment is open during a time window and if you wait for a problem to show up before you sign up the cost will be reflected in your rate. If you drop out and want back in later for a recurring problem that will also be reflected in your monthly rate.

The medicare system has been up and running for decades, opening the field of of those who can enroll is the proposal. Setting rates to reflect costs for those who decide to delay a decision to participate is already in place and takes into consideration the examples of adjusting the fees to those who want to roll the dice on their individual situation.

reply to post by vor78


vor78,

You are quite close to being in a position of unqualified support for the proposal by Rep Grayson.

A person enrolled in medicare Part A and Part B would pay 100% of the first thousand dollars of the cost of a procedure that required
a short say and treatment by doctors. The treated person would also pay 20% of the rest of the bills. If the bills total $20,000 the
person receiving treatment would pay about $5000.00

The monthly cost for medicare part A and part B is $96.40 per month.
Millions of people pay this rate and have it deducted from their SSI benefit.

The blizzard of other information has to due with the sales of additional coverage and I agree with your notion that it should not be a part of a government program.

The potential for abuse is created when the premium covers 100%
of the cost. Just observe how some folks act when they go to lunch at one of those " all you can eat flat price" buffets and it is easy to see why understand the wisdom of not having a government insurance that is 100% covered payment.

To put it in simple terms. I don't want the government to run health care. Name one program that the government has run successfully. Have you seen how vets are cared for? It would be very similar.
Medicare and medicare are both operating at a huge deficit. We are in enough financial difficulty to last the next three generations, or even to go bankrupt next week.
Enough already!