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eridani

(51,907 posts)
Tue Jan 26, 2016, 07:49 AM Jan 2016

How and Why Medicare for All Is a Realistic Goal

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/01/25/how-and-why-medicare-all-realistic-goal

Those two expansions -- lowering the Medicare age and adding children -- would have been easy to explain and popular. They constitute excellent policy, and would have been easily understood by the electorate. A newly-elected Clinton administration, laser-focused on an incremental expansion of Medicare, would have had an excellent chance of success. President Obama could have built on that success, proposing lowering the Medicare age further, raising the Medikids age, and allowing those with pre-existing conditions and others to buy into Medicare at a reasonable price. Eventually, more and more people would have opted in, getting us ever closer to the goal of Medicare for All.

This strategy is still likely to work. It is completely compatible with Obamacare. Medicare is popular among conservatives and liberals alike. Many seniors, who have been a growing part of the Republican base, are hanging on until they reach their 65th birthdays. A Medicare expansion, polls show, is overwhelmingly popular, just as Social Security expansion is. As part of the expansion effort, a new push for a public option, in the form of a Medicare buy-in, would help reach the ultimate goal.

An incremental approach only works if one has a vision of where the incremental steps are leading. In a campaign, candidates present the ultimate goals, not a blueprint for incremental change. But to attack the ultimate goal as unrealistic, when incremental steps can get you there, is a disservice. It is a disservice to all of the millions of Americans who believe that high quality, affordable health care should be a right, not a privilege. It is a disservice to all those who want a more efficient health care system in order to have resources to spend on other pressing domestic needs. It is a disservice to those who see that a more efficient health care system will allow more compensation to be paid in the form of cash wages, as opposed to health insurance.

Claiming that such a noble, important and popular goal -- Medicare for all -- is unrealistic does not show pragmatism. Rather, it shows a lack of imagination.
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How and Why Medicare for All Is a Realistic Goal (Original Post) eridani Jan 2016 OP
I've always been puzzled about why this supposedly is a bad idea. Vinca Jan 2016 #1
81% of Dems and 58% of the general public favor it n/t eridani Jan 2016 #2

Vinca

(51,587 posts)
1. I've always been puzzled about why this supposedly is a bad idea.
Tue Jan 26, 2016, 08:24 AM
Jan 2016

It would consolidate lots of different agencies of government and reduce the need for a stable of insurance form clerks in hospitals and doctor's offices. The savings would be significant and everyone would be covered. Big insurance can still wet its beak by selling super duper, extra-special-coverage policies for people who can't possibly endure a day in a semi-private room among the masses. Imagine . . . the guy behind the sandwich counter who has suspected he might have hepatitis for the past couple of months would have seen a doctor and been diagnosed and treated.

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