SINCE 2004 OBAMA HAS PROPOSED SIMILAR MEASURE
Political Analysis by KJ Kaufman
(Dec. 14, 2009) — Last week, Senator Reid introduced a compromise solution for the health care legislation being debated in the Senate, stating that they would expand Medicare coverage by moving the eligibility age from 65 to 55. The compromise legislation is presently with the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) for scoring, and no Senators (including Democrats) outside of the small group of Democrats that drafted this compromise proposal have seen the details.
As I previously reported regarding the unconstitutional provisions of the health care legislation’s compulsory insurance purchases:
Should the Congress try to rectify the Constitutionality of the legislation by attempting to setup a system comparable to Medicare or Social Security Insurance, then we are looking at a government run single-payer health care system. The unfunded liability for Social Security is already in excess of $14 trillion and the unfunded liability for Medicare is over $73 trillion. Can you fathom what the unfunded liabilities for a single-payer national health care system would be?
Although I didn’t speculate about Congress expanding Medicare as one of their plans to fix the Constitutionality of the bill, it certainly is a clever plan to nudge us toward a single-payer health care system. Of course, if the mandates remain in the legislation to purchase an approved health care plan or face a tax for those under 55 years of age, then this mandate would remain unconstitutional within the compromised legislation.
But, interestingly, it would seem that this idea of expanding Medicare may not have originated with Senator Reid. It may, in fact, have been Barack Obama’s plan all along to use an expansion of Medicare to push the country toward a single-payer health care system.
In this regard, Breitbart.tv, in conjunction with its regular contributor “Naked Emperor News,” has posted a revealing video that shows Barack Obama’s plans to expand Medicare to get to a single-payer health care system. At the 34 second mark in the video from a February 2004 radio broadcast in Urban, IL, Barack Obama states the following:
At the Federal level, what I’m looking at is a very specific proposal that would provide health care coverage for all children who need it all across the United States, would allow 55 to 64 year olds to buy into the Medicare system, and I think that if we can start with children and uh those persons 55 to 64 that are most vulnerable, then we can start filling in those holes and, ultimately, I think uh move in the direction of a universal health care plan.
As recently as April of 2007 from an appearance in Portsmouth, NH (see the 17 second mark of the video), Barack Obama was recorded saying:
Uh, let’s say that we, let, let’s say that I proposed a plan that uh moved to a single-payer system. Let, let’s say Medicare-plus essentially everyone can buy into Medicare for example.
As the video points out at the beginning, Obama met with Senate Democrats on December 7, 2009, and then two days later (on December 9, 2009) Senator Reid announced his compromised solution of expanding the Medicare system.
The Breitbart.tv/Naked Emperor News video asks if this has been President Obama’s plan all along.
It would appear, however, that even if this was President Obama’s plan, not all of the Senators needed by the Democrats to pass the legislation are in agreement with this tactic.
According to the New York Times:
Mr. Lieberman told the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, to scrap the idea of expanding Medicare and abandon any new government insurance plan or lose his vote.
And later in the same article Senator Lieberman is quoted as saying: “You’ve got to take out the Medicare buy-in…”
In addition, the article provided Senator Nelson’s take on these issues:
[Senator Nelson] wanted to know the cost of the Medicare buy-in. “I am concerned that it’s the forerunner of single-payer, the ultimate single-payer plan, maybe even more directly than the public option,” he said.
It would appear whether the idea was Senator Reid’s, or whether it has been a long held belief by President Obama as one method to push through a health care plan that would eventually lead to a single-payer national health care system, this tactic may not produce the desired results as the legislation remains in jeopardy under the compromised plan. The Post & Email will continue to keep you abreast of developments as they become available.