Dean on health care: "Settle For What We Can Get"

[ProSense]

Dean To Dems: Give Up On Comprehensive Health Care Reform For Now, Settle For What We Can Get

Former DNC chair Howard Dean, long a fierce proponent of comprehensive health care reform that includes a public health insurance option, said on MSNBC moments ago that the Democrats can't get comprehensive health care reform now and should just settle for something smaller.

"You can't pass the Senate bill in the House, according to the speaker, and we have to respect her desires," Dean said. "So pass something through reconciliation. It doesn't have to be big and complicated. And it shouldn't be. We're not going to get the comprehensive health care bill that we had hoped we were gonna get."

So what can Democrats get? Expansion of Medicaid, a Medicare add-on and a "good, steady down payment" on a health care system that "everyone understands," Dean said.

"The alternative is to give up on health care reform," Dean said.

Just do "something simple," Dean suggested, and expand programs we already have.

"Come back and do comprehensive reform later," he said.

Here's the video:

more

Really dumb advice.

[cliffordu]

1. I dunno - Dean hasn't been wrong very often, has he???

[ShortnFiery]

2. You can tell that with all these WEALTHY people giving us advice, they don't understand

the trials and tribulations of those of us living from paycheck to paycheck. :eyes:

Dr. Dean, you of all people should know FIRST, DO NO HARM?!?

Better NOTHING than a MANDATE and PREMIUMS that we must go into bankruptcy to afford.

[cali]

7. I guess it's difficult for you to read through that deep red haze of hate and fury

you cultivate.

you're like some bizarrely programmed little robot that just keeps spewing the same message of hate, hate, hate.

[ShortnFiery]

27. dupe

[ShortnFiery]

28. and you're just plain rude ... to many.

I'd rather have my MO than yours. ;)

[kenny blankenship]

14. I don't think Dean is advocating anything w/ a mandate in it- THAT's what they can't get thru House

for a good reason: they're horrible and terrifically unpopular.

Dean has been consistent in saying that without a public option there is no possible justification for mandates - it's just a corporate welfare giveaway.

What they could get is a couple of regulatory restrictions on the behavior of insurance companies and separately an expansion of Medicare. They could pass those alone -ditching any pretense that they're passing "comprehensive" reform- with a promise to come back to full HCR later. And in that way they might hope to save face with the public.

[Sebastian Doyle]

3. DLC'ers just can't let go of their pathological hatred of true leadership

As usual, Howard Dean is right. Expand what we already have (Medicare & Medicaid). Pull the plug on what has failed (enabling corporatism).

[depakid]

5. Use insurance abuses and REAL reforms thereof as a wedge issue

Put the onus of association with those groups and their practices back onto Republicans.

See how that flies in next years' elections.

[regnaD kciN]

4. So, now Dean's going to be the Evil Corporatist Traitor...?

:popcorn:

[berni_mccoy]

6. Pop some for me will ya?

:popcorn:

[Sebastian Doyle]

11. No, he's going to be exactly the opposite

By expanding Medicare and Medicaid, you take power AWAY from the criminal insurance industry. If you expanded Medicare to EVERYBODY, there would be no criminal insurance industry.

[madfloridian]

8. He said the same on BBC. He is right. Don't throw millions...

at useless reform..do something simpler now rather than sell out to insurance companies. Video

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x425835

[ProSense]

9. Settle is good? Oh come on, this is stupid advice.

The unions have much better solutions:

Leading Health Care Group To Democrats: Get It Done. Now!

A Path Forward: It's Time to Pass Health Insurance Reform

[madfloridian]

10. I think you are misinterpreting what he is saying.

[ProSense]

12. No, I'm not. n/t

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ibegurpard]

16. No

these would necessitate passage of the Senate Health Insurance Corporation Codification Act.
that bill needs to die.
I'm much more comfortable with these ideas.

[ProSense]

17. Yeah, let's leave the rest of the system intact

Ridiculous.

[ibegurpard]

20. More ridiculous than codifying the current system?

with vague promises of fixing it down the line?
Because that's what your Senate bill would have done (with precious few crumbs thrown in).

[ProSense]

22. Keeping the status quo is not an option. If that's the proposal,

it's ridiculous.

[ibegurpard]

24. The Senate bill is the status quo. Codified.

[ProSense]

25. No, it isn't. n/t

[WyldRogue]

31. Settling was good....

...for you when Obama took HCR, turned it into HIR and put mandates on it... hypocrisy ProSense

[nevergiveup]

15. Everyone is shooting in the dark.

No one has a clue what to do and working together in unity to achieve common goals is out of the question. Democrats would have a food fight even if they were starving. I love Howard but he has been all over the place on Health Care Reform. It really is depressing.

[frazzled]

18. Bad idea, Howard (though it may be what we get)

Fiddling around with expanding Medicaid a bit to allow a few more poorest of the poor in (although it does help a few people) and letting a few more people qualify to buy into Medicare at the other end (good for the people who are close to retirement age and can afford what will be a hefty premium) fails to do the following:

(1) Provide relief for any of the millions of middle-age (or younger), middle-class Americans who cannot (a) obtain insurance because of pre-existing conditions or (b) afford it, without subsidies.
(2) Do anything to regulate the out-of-control insurance and delivery industry that is taking bigger and bigger chunks out of our pockets every year
(3) Achieve anything that even approaches universal coverage.

As Ezra Klein says of this option (out of the other options available at this moment): "As a negotiating strategy, this is a bit like rejecting a job because it pays too little and instead taking a worse job that pays less." Even the Senate bill is WAY more progressive than this.

[ProSense]

19. Exactly, n/t

[Codeine]

21. And DU will turn on their hero like rabid dogs!

Watch the Dean avatars disappear like the morning fog.

[Edweird]

23. I'll 'settle' for stopping it for now. Give Obama some time to think things through after Tues.

[lumberjack_jeff]

26. Dumb? Not really.

Opening Medicaid up to anyone who wants it would be a great move, and it is very simple. It also, if I understand the rules correctly, would fit within reconciliation.

Bill #2 would be to end preexisting conditions exclusions. Make the Senate Republicans vote against that.

[Uncle Joe]

29. I believe this would be a good strategy, so long as more comprehensive HCR comes back immediately

after the 2010 elections.

The Democratic Candidates should run on the issue of giving health care freedom to the American People and let the Republicans defend the for profit "health" insurance and Big Pharma corporations.

Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Prosense.

[WyldRogue]

30. Exactly!!

Really dumb advice. Obama followed the EXACT same advice (settled allll the way down to MANDATED coverage) but I guess you missed that apparently.

I held such high hopes on Obama doing the right thing but all I've gotten in return is BS, Spin, Denials...essentially Repub policies.

[Uncle Joe]

32. The difference being Obama settled for what he could get through the Senate, Dean is talking about

settling for what can be gotten through reconciliation in agreement with the House, mandated purchasing of for profit "health" insurance coverage will not apply, and if they're smart nor should the taxing of health care benefits.

[EmeraldCityGrl]

33. This is sound advice. Dean is suggesting we get a foot in the door...

If the mandate and premiums are to much to bare for many people,

the system will fail and we'll all be in the same boat. If they can eliminate

preexisting condition clause, do away with caps it will help those that

currently have shitty insurance.

Three years is a enough time to fine tune this and craft it into something we all can live with.