Thought about Medicare expansion

[DanTex]

So thanks to Lieberman, there's no Medicare expansion in the bill. For some, that's reason enough to advocate voting the bill down and starting over.

I disagree. First, the political reality is that voting the bill down will not lead to starting over. It will lead to no healthcare reform for the foreseeable future. Moreover, I think that the future passage of Medicare expansion or a public option is not any less likely to occur if the current bill passes. In fact, part of me thinks that it would be easier to pass Medicare expansion on its own, rather than as part of the current HCR bill.

The right has been relatively successful in scaring people with the death panel talking points. As a result, the "health care reform bill" does not poll very well. This is partly because the contents of the bill are not clear even to people who follow politics closely, much less to the general public. On the other hand, Medicare expansion as a standalone idea has overwhelming support. You'd think this would mean that adding Medicare expansion to HCR would make it easier to get it passed, but in the crazy math of senate votes, it doesn't work that way. Republicans have decided to unanimously oppose HCR no matter what, so the only opinions that matter at the moment are those of Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson. Sad but true.

Nevertheless, some time down the road, if the Dems still control congress, I think that a bill that did nothing but expand Medicare could have a decent chance of passing. Because it would a lot harder to hide behind false rhetoric when what's on the table is a straightforward Medicare opt-in. So I propose bringing up the Medicare opt-in on its own, maybe even next year. At the very least, it would force all of the Republicans plus Joe Lieberman to explicitly vote against something that a clear majority of Americans support.

Of course, maybe I'm totally wrong about this. But I don't see any clear reason why the Dems can't/won't bring up Medicare expansion as its own bill.



PS I understand that there are other legitimate reasons to oppose the bill (e.g. abortion restrictions). In my opinion the bill is better than the status quo, but that's certainly debatable, and I'm not trying to say that everyone who opposes the bill is wrong. This post is just about the Medicare opt-in.