Ted Kennedy: Subsidized, Mandated Private Insurance == "a partnership between the administration"...

[Oregone]

"a partnership between the administration and the private health insurance industry. For the private industry, the administration plan offers a windfall of billions of dollars annually. The windfall is not entirely a surplus, since elements of Administration's proposal appear to have originated in the insurance industry itself"

He always told it like it is. Single-Payer should be the only "option" anyone is talking about. I wish we could honor the memory of this man, and all he has done for this country, with a Single-Payer bill. He led the fight early on for *real* health care reform, and I hope there are some who can pick up the torch to honor him.

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Damn it. I hit unrec by accident. I am so sorry! *hugs*

[Hello_Kitty]

2. I rec'd it! I've done the same thing before. eom

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. Thanks! :^) I feel a little better now.

[The Magistrate]

3. Hear Hear, Sir!

[rudy23]

4. I bet this gets a bunch of intentional unrec's, too. I rec'd it.

This point should be driven home.

[Oregone]

7. Thats ok, because Im being slightly dishonest

He was originally talking about a grade-A, first-class dickhead, whose most articulate statements consisted of slandering ethnicities and hippies. When the plan was dressed back up a few decades later in some shiny wrapping, presented by a brilliant politician, even Kennedy probably drank the Kool-Aid. To each their own.

But that aside, despite where the political deck chairs are arranged now and who is running the theatre stage, the policy should be judged on its own (and also in the context of alternatives like Single-Payer). Its much more difficult to see the charade now, since *we* are the one's running it, but we can draw strength from past experience and one of the greatest leaders of our time.

[ProSense]

8. "He was originally talking about a grade-A, first-class dickhead"

"even Kennedy probably drank the Kool-Aid."

Idiot.

[Oregone]

11. Why?

Why am I an idiot.

Many liberals, Kennedy included, despised Nixon's plan. He offered a single-payer type plan in response.

Many liberals swallowed this version of subsidized, mandated private insurance reform, hook, line, and sinker.

The main difference is the packaging and politicking from now and then. Lets judge policy at its face value. We can use Kennedy's past words and actions to help us do that.

[bvar22]

18. Today's "Centrist" Democrats.....

...Pushing Republican Policy.

[Oregone]

21. Republican policy?

Or the policy of the private insurance industry?

Or hell, is there really a difference? :)

[flpoljunkie]

10. You are, of course, speaking of Richard Nixon.

[Laelth]

5. Hear, hear!

Let's not settle for a bail-out of the health insurance cabal. Let's insist on the eradication of it.

:dem:

-Laelth

[xchrom]

9. ...

:applause:

[SemiCharmedQuark]

12. This is Kennedy talking about Nixon's healthcare plan.

I don't think Kennedy would agree with "single payer or nothing". I could be wrong, but I don't think so.

[Oregone]

13. Yes, subsidized, mandated private insurance.

The current reform just uses the "public option" as a dressing/garnish to hide the Nixon salad beneath it.

To be honest, I think this didn't even originate with Nixon. It came out of the health insurance industry back in 1940s to boost their enrollment rates.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

14. Kennedy was not arguing "single payer or nothing" though.

[Oregone]

16. He was arguing *this* approach wouldn't control costs and would just boost private insurers profits

...with tax payer money.



Now, as for his alternative, it was a single-payer type system that was presented directly in response to Nixon's reform.

[flpoljunkie]

24. Senator Kennedy writes about single payer in 'The Cause of My Life' in Newsweek

Some years later, I decided the time was right to renew the quest for universal and affordable coverage. When I first introduced the bill in 1970, I didn't expect an easy victory (although I never suspected that it would take this long). I eventually came to believe that we'd have to give up on the ideal of a government-run, single-payer system if we wanted to get universal care. Some of my allies called me a sellout because I was willing to compromise. Even so, we almost had a plan that President Richard Nixon was willing to sign in 1974—but that chance was lost as the Watergate storm swept Washington and the country, and swept Nixon out of the White House. I tried to negotiate an agreement with President Carter but became frustrated when he decided that he'd rather take a piecemeal approach. I ran against Carter, a sitting president from my own party, in large part because of this disagreement. Health reform became central to my 1980 presidential campaign: I argued then that the issue wasn't just coverage but also out-of-control costs that would ultimately break both family and federal budgets, and increasingly burden the national economy. I even predicted, optimistically, that the business community, largely opposed to reform, would come around to supporting it.

That didn't happen as soon as I thought it would. When Bill Clinton returned to the issue in the first years of his presidency, I fought the battle in Congress. We lost to a virtually united front of corporations, insurance companies, and other interest groups. The Clinton proposal never even came to a vote. But we didn't just walk away and do nothing—even though Republicans were again in control of Congress. We returned to a step-by-step approach. With Sen. Nancy Landon Kassebaum of Kansas, the daughter of the 1936 Republican presidential nominee, I crafted a law to make health insurance more portable for those who change or lose jobs. It didn't do enough to fully guarantee that, but we made progress. I worked with my friend Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the Republican chair of our committee, to enact CHIP, the Children's Health Insurance Program; today it covers more than 7 million children from low-income families, although too many of them could soon lose coverage as impoverished state governments cut their contributions.

more...

http://www.newsweek.com/id/207406/output/print

[Oregone]

25. Yeah, Ive read that.

"I eventually came to believe that we'd have to give up on the ideal of a government-run, single-payer system if we wanted to get universal care."

I think thats what old people do :( On the other hand, he also goes on to talk against the "incremental" approach in that same interview.

"Incremental measures won't suffice anymore. We need to succeed where Teddy Roosevelt and all others since have failed. The conditions now are better than ever."

But anyway, Ill defer to what he spent a huge portion of his life and energy on before the road blocks (single-payer). As he said, he almost got it through if it wasn't for Watergate.

My bottom line point though (no matter what sense of idealism he gave up through his experience in legislating), he saw clearly then that *this* model of mandated and subsidized private insurance was a handout to the insurers. Being "pragmatic" doesn't suddenly make that permissible.

[ProSense]

15. "The current reform just uses the "public option" as a dressing/garnish"

You asked a question in response to my comment above.

That's why: this is simply your attempt to distort public option with your single payer or nothing BS.

[Oregone]

17. I don't need to distort the "public option" at all. The CBO already scored as quite anemic

So, this is Nixon's reform with 10 million people estimated to be covered, in a decade, by a public insurer. Big.fucking.deal. Its a shiny trinket to hide an inappropriate "solution" to the health care crisis.


And I really don't have a "single-payer or nothing" mentality. As for things I would consider acceptable though, subsidized, private mandated insurance is not one of them.

[ProSense]

19. The HELP bill is Kennedy's bill

and your attempt to equate it to Nixon's is idiotic.

[Oregone]

20. Mandated and subsidized private insurance was Nixon's plan

And Kennedy clearly spoke his thoughts on that model then (as well as offered a single-payer solution in response).

Now, if they are going to go with mandated and subsidized private insurance now, Ill let the comparisons speak for themselves.

BTW, you have little to add to the conversation. If anything is somewhat critical of your dogmatic faith in all which the Democrats produce, you will bark and snap back like a rabid puppy who ate his mom. Down boy. Go find another stick to fetch. You are a predicable as a broken record.

[ProSense]

22. "You are a predicable as a broken record." And you're as dishonest as the RW

When faced with facts, your response is to simply repeat your distortion more loudly. You admit to being less than honest with this post. You had to because most people wouldn't buy your distortion otherwise. When faced with facts about the public option in the HELP bill, Kennedy's bill, your response is distortion.

[Oregone]

23. Woof