UPDATED BELOW with Video of Obama's interview with Breck
per DemocracyNow
I don't know if the FCC can handle this kind of awesomeness on the intertubes.
Amy Goodman AND Alan Grayson:
With the Democrat-led push for healthcare reform in its final stages, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) introduces "The Public Option Act," a measure that would allow people under sixty-five to buy into Medicare. The bill has attracted fifty co-sponsors. Grayson joins us to discuss the measure and healthcare reform overall, his own family’s experience with private insurance companies and more.
Watch the interview yourself on the DN website (transcript on the same page)
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Oh, and $10 says Rep Grayson posts a diary this afternoon.
It sounds like something Howard Dean has proposed before. Dean has previously made the argument that Dems should allow people under 65 years of age to buy into Medicare and have this expansion go into effect ASAP so the American people will have something in their hands. Dean figures that once more of the public has Medicare, all the fears and rumors by the Republicans will die away.
teaser excerpt:
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Congress member Grayson, welcome to Democracy Now!, still speaking to us from the nation’s capital. Can you start off by explaining your bill that you’ve introduced, and then where you stand on, well, the whole healthcare reform bill that is being pushed through now?
REP. ALAN GRAYSON: I’ve introduced a simple three-and-a-half-page bill that opens up Medicare to anybody who wants it. If you want it and you pay for it, it’s yours. It’s that simple. It’s open to everybody under the age of sixty-five, whether or not you’re handicapped. And you pay the same amount as other people your age would pay.
And the reason to do this is because we need a public option. We need an option that doesn’t involve putting us at the tender mercies of insurance companies, particularly if there’s a mandate to do so. A lot of people feel that there is a fundamental conflict of interest between themselves and private insurance companies. The private insurance companies make money by denying you the care that you need to be healthy, and sometimes to stay alive. And a lot of people are just sick of it.
So the way to get beyond that is to open up Medicare, which is now available to only one-eighth of the population, to anybody who’s willing to pay for it. And it makes perfect sense when you think about it. I mean, we don’t say the federal highways are only open to senior citizens. And the Medicare provider network is an enormously valuable, expensive thing that we’ve created with federal tax dollars that ought to be open to everyone, not just seniors.
AMY GOODMAN: And how does this fit into the major piece of legislation that will or—I don’t know would even pass—won’t be voted on by the House?
REP. ALAN GRAYSON: My hope was that we would vote not only on the Senate bill, which doesn’t have a public option, not only on the reconciliation amendment, which probably will not have a public option, but that we’d also vote on this, that there’d be three votes instead of two votes. And if we voted on this and we passed it, then it would be presented to the Senate and subject to reconciliation in the Senate, so that we could end up with a public option.
AMY GOODMAN: Now?
REP. ALAN GRAYSON: Now.
That was pretty slick framing, eh? Public highway system? He knows his framing. Good to have him on our side.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Not one to shy away from politically taboo areas, Amy asked Rep Grayson about Israel's UN Security Council-violating expansion of settlements.
Prof. Juan Cole had this very informative post yesterday on the issue of territory.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Unrelatedly, Fox will be broadcasting an interview with Pres. Obama this evening at 6. He's talking with some guy with a toupee.
The CSM is reporting that the topic will be healthcare and Obama will be sitting across a mannequin named Bret Baier.
warning: Breck will make you want to harm your computer monitor. Breck repeatedly interrupts Obama and is overall very obnoxious. typical narcissistic frat-boy behavior.
part 1
part 2
part 3