Rep. Grayson's "Medicare You Can Buy Into Act"

Grayson we need to clone him.

He shows all Democrats what they face if they stand up for the people - that is support from all of us including Republicans and lots of campaign contributions.  

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by: Sharon Hanson @ Sat Mar 27, 2010 at 01:11:54 AM UTC

Why didn't he propose it in reconciliation?

I thought that was the only place where something like this could pass.

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by: redstateblues @ Sat Mar 27, 2010 at 16:47:23 PM UTC

Well, Grayson's been moving HR 4789 for a few weeks now

And while moving it through reconciliation would've been easier, because of the lower vote threshold, it's not the only way for it to pass.  

ad astra, per aspera // keep calm & carry on

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by: rnoboa @ Sat Mar 27, 2010 at 19:09:53 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

That was kind of my point

The same could be said of a public option. Bennet was taking a beating for proposing to pass a public health insurance option in the same procedural way that Grayson is suggesting to pass this particular legislation. The only difference is that Grayson is being hailed as a hero by the activist left, whereas Bennet is taking a beating thanks to a well-calculated political move by Romanoff, Sirota and FDL.

After seeing that there were only 41 votes, at most, for a reconciliation amendment in the Senate, he, along with many other Senators including Bernie Sanders, suggested trying to whip up more votes after the final reconciliation votes in the house. At any rate, it's going to come up for a vote. I see no more guarantee of Grayson's bill becoming law than a public option.

I was merely pointing out the inconsistency.

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by: redstateblues @ Sat Mar 27, 2010 at 23:05:48 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Silly...

Grayson isn't running against Andrew Romanoff.

My opinions here do not reflect any organization or group with which I may be affiliated.  

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by: peacemonger @ Sun Mar 28, 2010 at 02:37:13 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Making a lot out of nothing

Grayson didn't send a letter to Pelosi or Hoyer demanding a public option be put into the reconciliation bill.  Nor did he issue press releases and stump on his "leadership" for doing so.

In contrast to Bennet, Grayson actually wrote a bill and then started the harder job of gathering co-spoonsors for it.

Where is Bennet's bill?  Where are his co-sponsors?  As of today, I'm unaware he has either.  The differences there are noteworthy.

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by: WeatherDem @ Sun Mar 28, 2010 at 16:14:41 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Oh I'll have to check that out on FDL.

Someone sent me the link but it brought up the wrong video.

As far as Bennet goes, to me it seemed phony from the get go. That's why I didn't pay much attention to it.  Besides I wanted HCR to pass because I think America needs another wake up call as to what happens to us if we ignore the power of special interests - that is we ignore reality.  We all need to be more involved. I think this legislation will do that because when people realize how it is going to drive us to pay higher and higher premiums to the health insurance companies we will get that having a company make profits off the sick and needy is not the way to go.  

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by: Sharon Hanson @ Sun Mar 28, 2010 at 16:32:59 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I imagine for the same reason nobody else did

Democratic leadership exerted a lot of pressure to keep a public option or Medicare buy-in off the table in the past couple of months.

As rnoboa points out, reconciliation wasn't the only method to pass this, just the one with the lowest vote threshold - hence activists' support of taking that path.

Grayson's effort avoids a lot of problems with the entire debacle that started with health care reform and ended with tweaking our broken health insurance system.  If it gathers some steam, it would be more difficult for the Cons to vilify.  "Medicare buy-in" is simple to present and explain.  The details and program explanations aren't necessary to a public that doesn't care about them.  No reasonable person could claim that buying into the system would take it away from current subscribers.  And so on.

The key is it's actually been proposed.  That's a good first step.

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by: WeatherDem @ Sat Mar 27, 2010 at 21:25:17 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I agree

Actually, I think that Grayson's plan would be far more likely to pass in reconciliation because a Medicare buy-in would directly relate to budgetary matters, whereas the deficit neutral public option would not. I also think it would be much easier to implement, and it would be much better than the fairly weak public option that had no chance of passing in the Senate people have been so up in arms about.

I just think that, given the similar legislative approach Grayson has taken, and Bennet and the Dem Senators have chosen to take, the brouhaha over Bennet "killing" the public option was nothing more than a political stunt.  

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by: redstateblues @ Sat Mar 27, 2010 at 23:09:31 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Agree with your

first point.

Disagree with your second.  Bennet opened up the door with his letter.  As much as public option supporters got kicked around in the past year, questioning where the effort to introduce a public option as an amendment was seems to me to have been a natural occurrence.

Both efforts were definitely motivated politically.  As to whether either was more of a stunt or grandstanding than the other is obviously pretty subjective.

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by: WeatherDem @ Sun Mar 28, 2010 at 16:20:19 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

But Bennet never said he would introduce an amendment

I think maybe where we're separating is whether or not you think that it's a semantic trick. I think Bennet wasn't expecting the Democratic leadership to go the no amendments route, and at any rate, the letter failed to get the names signed on.

Also, I might add, the medicare buy-in plan was not nearly as controversial as the public option. Bennet took a huge risk just to circulate the letter and try to revive it.

At any rate, it's really nice to blog with you WD. I've always been a big fan.

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by: redstateblues @ Tue Mar 30, 2010 at 02:16:51 AM UTC

[ Parent ]