I'm the fortunate recipient of single-payer government-run healthcare, because I'm on Social Security Disability. Although I've had trouble locating a psychiatrist who accepts Medicare patients (in Texas, notorious for it's lousy health care stats), that difficulty led me to a county program that will assist me by providing psychiatric care, assistance with medication costs, support groups for learning to manage bi-polar disorder, and up to the minute information about advances in treatment.
In other words, I'm one of the lucky ones, and my status as a Medicare patient allowed my to jump the line and get an appointment within one month instead of having to wait until January 2010.
Medicare isn't perfect, but it beats the hell out of private plans run by for-profit insurance companies.
I was musing this morning after reading about the far right crazies disrupting Town Halls, and wondering if a Public Option is the best we can hope for. I think it may not be.
Why not a buy-in program? If you're dropped by your insurance company, you can buy in to Medicare. If your premiums have gone up by more than 10% in the last 5 years, you can buy in to Medicare. If you are refused treatment, if your legitimate claims are being denied, if you are denied due to pre-existing conditions, you can buy in to Medicare. If you're not insured at all, you can buy into Medicare, and premiums can be subsidized if money is the issue.
If you are running a small business and can't afford to insure yourself, your family, or your employees, you can buy in to Medicare. If you change jobs and your COBRA plan exceeds what you were paying for insurance by more than 20%, you can buy in to Medicare. (This would be what you yourself were charged, not the total amount you and your employer were paying.)
This kind of plan would move us closer to a single-payer plan that will reduce the total cost of health care, provide coverage for all Americans, bring money into the Medicare system, and immediately penalize the worst excesses of for-profit insurance companies.
Expanding Medicare would also provide jobs for people who might lose them if for-profit companies begin to try to improve their bottom-line by firing employees and forcing those who are left to work harder, put in longer (unpaid) hours, and live in fear because their job security is so tenuous.
I'm sure that these changes would need to be phased in, but since reform under current Bills being considered by Congress will not be immediate anyway, what do we have to lose?
Ultimately, a government-run single-payer plan will be the best of all public options, and the Republicans/ insurance companies/ultra conservatives will run into a major wall if they start fussing about Medicare or trying to repeal the program. Even the RW crazies disrupting Town Hall meetings are not willing to give up their government-run Medicare coverage, and using Medicare as the obvious alternative for the uninsured and uninsurable will be much harder to oppose.
Pairing this proposal with the Co-op/Free Market proposal favored by conservatives would force them into either revealing that they oppose reform altogether, or into having to explain to their constituents why they are now opposing the plan they proposed in the first place.
I further believe that Americans who are paying high premiums in the much vaunted free market will begin demanding access to an affordable single-payer option, and that larger companies will grouse about being forced to pay higher premiums to for-profit companies - it's hard to be enthusiastic about the wonders of the free market when you're faced with undeniable evidence that you're putting billions of dollars into the pockets of CEOs and overpaid top executives. And quite frankly, I don't care much about the stockholders who are profiting from a system built on greed. Let them pull out and invest in green businesses.
Given the apparent success of the stimulus program they opposed so fiercely, and the obvious success of Cash for Clunkers, any further proof that Republicans (and Blue Dogs) are not only the Parties of No, they are clearly only interested in promoting a status quo that is not working for Main Street. This will hurt them, and that's a good thing.
Just a thought from Texas, home of 100+ temperatures, which may have fried my brain.