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Howard Dean: I Love This Compromise, Which I Thought Up, Because it Empowers Bureaucracy & Leads to Single-Payer

Are There 60 Senate Votes for Government-Run Care?

By: Brian Faughnan (Diary)  |  December 10th, 2009 at 09:30 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

While others have reported that a bipartisan group of Senators arrived at the current Senate compromise all on their own, Howard Dean says that’s not true. It seems that he’s responsible for the proposal currently being considered in the Senate.

Former Governor Howard Dean helped broker a health care compromise that Senate Democratic leaders say could move the bill forward.

Dean’s proposal is designed to satisfy both supporters and opponents of a “public option” health plan.

VPR’s Bob Kinzel reports.

(Kinzel) While the vast majority of Democrats support the public option, all the Republicans and a few Democrats do not, and this group has threatened to filibuster the bill if the public option is part of the final package.  And it appeared very unlikely that Democratic leaders could find the 60 votes that are needed to break a filibuster.

So Dean outlined a compromise plan to Senate Majority leader Harry Reid as a way to break the deadlock.

Dean has been extremely critical of the path that Senate Democrats were going down. It wasn’t long ago that he was saying that no bill was better than the one Democrats were preparing to pass. Now suddenly he believes the Senate has hit on a formulation that he likes – one that he’s even taking credit for. Why does he like it so much?

The compromise includes a plan that Dean proposed during his 2004 presidential campaign: allowing people between ages of 55 and 65 to buy into Medicare.

(Dean) “There’s no point in reinventing a program if you already have all the infrastructure that can set it up. What they’ve done is allow people who are over 55, instead of over 65, buy into Medicare. So that’s a big step forward and it does two things. First of all, of course, it allows more people to get in the government single payer if they want to. And, secondly, it uses a bureaucracy, which makes much more sense than even what’s in the House bill.”

The reason Dean likes this compromise – the reason he proposed this compromise – is that he would rather have the government bureaucracy in charge of people’s health care plans than private insurance companies. That’s one point of view. Some may agree with it; others not. But it seems the real value of this proposal to Dean is that it ‘moves the ball’ toward a single-payer health care system.
Dean has long been a proponent of a single-payer, government-run system. It should come as no surprise that the plan he proposed is one intended to move in that direction. It’s also why Congressman Anthony Weiner likes it and why  liberal blogger Chris Bower likes it. Others – including health care wonk Mort Kondracke and the editorial page of the Washington Post – also see this as a move toward single-payer care.
The fact that Harry Reid is now taking ideas from Howard Dean ought to show how desperate he has gotten. The only way he can hope to pass the plan is to ram it through the Senate before too many people realize that it’s designed to lead to government-run care. It may cost Blanche Lincoln and Mary Landrieu their seats, but at least it will stealthily get the Democrast the enormous expansion of government they’re craving.
Cross-posted to TheConservatives.com
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  • bobojake

    They were a bunch of sheep with the ACORN-obama-dodd-schummmmmmer-reid-pelosi-frank-deadfish-waters housing scandal that raped the taxpayers. Everyone of them promoted and even cohercedFORCING) banks to loan money to unqualified people then turned and run and blamed it on the banks. This foney fraudulent reidgate-obamagate that will cost over $300 Trillion by the time it is instigated will raise taxes , reduce the healthcare we receive(IN FACT DESTROY THE BEST HEALTHCARE IN THE WORLD) and where will all these incompetent be. poof poof blaming it on somebody else that it destroyed the United States of America. Sorry OBAMA AND YOU DEMOCRATS ARE THE AXIS OF INCOMPETENTS AND WE WILL THROW YOU OUT IN 2010 AND YOU WILL GO DOWN IN HISTORY FOR WHAT YOU ARE traitors to AMERICA GREATNESS..

  • 10ksnooker

    yeeeeeaaaaaarrrrr hhhh

    Bankruptcy.

  • johnt

    will be kind enough to manage the whole mess. Another aspect of compromise.
    Personnel Management, does that tell you what your status will be, who will run the show, the real nature of compromise & the public option ?
    Little liberals everywhere must be squirming in delight.

  • sarge324

    liberals like dean want the single payer.they know that it will ruin us put they dont care.mr dean get out of public life.you have a mental problem.get that fixed.

  • fedup1776

    I don’t think so. Church just played a speech given by the late great(ha,ha) Ted Kennedy from 2005 where he stated his dream was to see a single payer system. To accomplish that he advocated medicare to start at the age of 55 years. If they get this through there will be nothing to stop them from continuing to lower the age restriction,soon becoming single payer. I’m sure Dean would like to take credit for this(he’s an idiot) but surely after the fact all the praise will go to Teddy. Pelosie will make sure of that. The man will get his wish from the grave. Question: If this were to be signed into law by our wonderful president(pun intended) could this legislation be brought before the supreme court? Sounds unconstitunial to me. The Govt. does not have the right to make a person participate or force a fine or jail time on anyone. Guess I’ll take the jail time. I’m fedup with thier crap!!!!!!!!

  • tskier

    “Remember:
    The issue is never the issue.
    The issue is control.”