Instead, let’s start saying “Medicare for Everyone.”  Everyone already knows what Medicare is, and as it seems, everyone seems to like it.

We should, in all likelihood, just open up the rolls of Medicare to everyone.  If there are still deficiencies in coverage, then we could have supplemental policies, much like they do in France, and here already in the United States.  There would still be a private insurance industry that way, but they would be largely de-fanged.

What are the benefits?  Well, it seems likely that costs would go down, as Medicare payments are a known quantity.  Payment to doctors and hospitals would become much more streamlined, as there wouldn’t need to be huge staffs of people who’s job was to deal with the balky insurance companies, saving money.  The uninsured wouldn’t need to visit Emergency Rooms for non-emergencies, another savings.  And I’m sure there are probably lots of other ways that the system would become less expensive, too.

Why can’t we do this?

The GOP doesn’t have much sense of humor – they can dish it out, but they can’t take it. So the false outrage of the Republicans over Representative Alan Grayson’s (D-FL) recent floor speech where he said “The Republicans have a back up plan in case you do get sick … This is what the Republicans want you to do. If you get sick America, the Republican health care plan is this: Die quickly!”

Meanwhile, although the public option amendment was voted down in the Senate Finance Committee, momentum is still building for it outside the beltway, as people realize more and more how important this fight is for universal health care.

Call and write your Congressional Representatives in the House and Senate today and urge them to support the public option!

And Clinton inadvertently sent the bloggers a very different message. Lane Hudson interrupted his speech to challenge him on the unconscionable “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays in the military. Clinton’s famed temper flared as he defended himself:

“You wanna talk about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” I’ll tell you exactly what happened. You couldn’t deliver me any support in the Congress and they voted by a veto-proof majority in both houses against my attempt to let gays serve in the military, and the media supported them. They raised all kinds of devilment. And all most of you did was to attack me instead of getting some support in the congress. Now, that’s the truth.

“Well, not quite, since many of the bloggers in the audience were teenagers or younger when this debate took place. But the former president provided clear strategic insight for the current moment. We don’t want a former President Obama to say, a decade from now, that the reason we didn’t get a public option was that we “couldn’t deliver” any support for him in the Congress. It’s time to deliver that support.

So no surrender; no retreat. Don’t start embracing “half a loaf,” or thumb-sucking about the reasons for the demise of the public option. Real reform has the support in the country, the Democratic Party, the House of Representatives and the White House. It has support of a majority of Democrats in the Senate. Now it is time to deliver the president the votes he needs for the public option he favors. Full court press on the handful of Democrats that are standing in the way, and then real pressure on the two or three Republicans who have yet to surrender to the obstructionist extremes of their party.

Pull out the stops. Do whatever you can think about doing to weigh in at this time – and then enlist your friends to join you. We are very close. We don’t have to overcome a presidential veto, or the opposition of the congressional leadership. All we need to do is to get Democrats and a couple Republicans to commit to giving the president a majority vote on this critical reform, and then get 50 members of the Senate to join the majority of the House in supporting it. Forget the naysayers. This is in reach. Let’s make it happen.

via Robert L. Borosage: Health Care: Let the Majority Be Heard.

Barney Frank (D-MA) displays the proper attitude when dealing with the teabaggers – contempt and scorn.

Seriously, it’s about time the Democrats in Congress stood up and called these idiots out for what they are: contemptible and vile.

This is horrible service and a terrible way to treat one’s constituents.

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Do we share a common philosophy of the Republican Party? Of course.

John McCain voted with George W. Bush’s philosophy “90 percent of the time.”   He said so himself.  Isn’t a maverick supposed to go his own way?

Do we need more commonality with the last 8 years?

John McCain thinks that the health of the mother is meaningless.

Based upon his Congressional record, here’s what a John McCain women’s health clinic would look like:

That’s right:

• No prescription birth control
• Abstinence-only Sex Education
• No Abortion

These views are extreme and far outside the mainstream thought on this important issue.  But that’s the Maverick McCain for you.

Achieving Senator McCain’s vision would radically transform the U.S. health insurance system. His plan would alter the nature, source, and financing of coverage for the nearly 160 million Americans who now receive health insurance through their employers. We estimate that twenty million Americans–about one in every eight people with job-based coverage–would lose their current coverage as a result of the change in the tax treatment of coverage. Initially, this loss of job-based coverage would be offset by an increase in coverage in the nongroup market (although not necessarily for the same individuals). Within five years, however, the net effect of the plan is expected to be a net reduction in coverage relative to what would have been observed if the tax treatment of employer-sponsored coverage remains as it is now. The decline of job-based coverage would force millions of Americans into the weakest segment of the private insurance system–the nongroup market–where cost sharing is high and covered services are limited. Senator McCain’s proposal to deregulate this market would mean that people in it would lose protections they now have. These changes would diminish the security of coverage for most Americans, especially those who are not–or someday will not be–in perfect health.

As has been said in plenty of places online and off, after seeing the disaster in de-regulating the banking industry, do we really want to de-regulate the healthcare system?

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition,
as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation. Consumer-friendly
insurance policies will be more available and affordable when there is greater competition among insurers on a level playing field. You should be able to buy your insurance from any willing provider—the state bureaucracies are no better than national ones. Nationwide insurance markets that ensure broad and vigorous competition will wring out excess costs, overhead, and
bloated executive compensation.

I wonder if he really believes this crap?  As recent events have shown, the past ten years haven’t been so hot after all in the banking industry.  And get a load of that last sentence – does he really believe that about the banking industry?  Have bloated executive compensation packages become smaller in the past decade?

In the McCainniverse, the rich continue to get richer and the rest of us continue to lose our shirts.