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To put it bluntly Grayson adds that there will be ""NO HIGH-RISK GROUP GHETTOS."
Finally, this plan coincides with the Senate bill/affordability bill provision of subsidies or financial help in paying the premiums for the average family of four, earning up to $88,000. a year.
As for the comparison to single payer systems; Grayson explained that the medicare buy-in provides the same services, it is merely the method of payment which differs.
When asked if he would back a bill establishing the right of individual states to create their own single-payer state-wide system; Grayson explained that the senate bill already provides for this tool.
I then asked if he would push to have "reconciliation' language placed in the upcoming budget, which would allow this to be accomplished with 51 senate votes, and the very gregarious Grayson said; "Yes."
Still worried about CBO figures and the use of these budgetary contrivances to stall real reform--I asked if the congressman would back an alternative plan to cut spending in areas such as defense, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan--and transfer those monies to domestic needs such as a single-payer system, or a more generously subsidized Medicare buy-in. Groups such as the National Priorities Project have projections which identify war spending as one of the chief drains on domestic budget problems. Grayson's response was direct;
"I've said a million times that I think the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have to end"We have to take care of ourselves, and when I say we have to take care of ourselves, I meant that our healthcare, education, roads, bridges, our human needs." "I'm not saying that we should end the war for the purpose of enacting single-payer"I think we should end the war for the purpose of eliminating the headlock that the military-industrial-complex has on America, um and meeting our human needs."
Grayson clearly views the health care divisions in our country as a national disgrace which reflects on our values as a society. This is the congressman, who stood on the House floor this past September and characterized the GOP plan in two short phrases; "first, don't get sick, and second, die quickly." Facing snarling members of congress demanding an apology for his alleged "outrageous behavior,' and his contempt of congress, Grayson gave this "apology;'
"I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven't voted sooner to end this HOLOCAUST in America."
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0909/Grayson_calls_health_care_crisis_holocaust.html
Somewhere in this healthcare debate, Congressman Alan Grayson must have been "channeling' Dr. King, who once proclaimed;
"Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane." (Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr.)
This congressman, building a coalition, a movement for healthcare justice is just beginning. Whether this medicare buy-in leads to eventual single-payer, tax-funded medical care as exists in other civilized nations remains to be seen. One things for sure, this movement is becoming a "civilized riot,' made necessary by corporate dictatorship and the politicians who act as collaborators in this growing "holocaust.' Once again, Dr. King is quoted on the nature of "riots.' "A riot is the language of the unheard." (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.) Perhaps if the public had formed riots during the first holocaust; 6 million murders could have been prevented. How many murders must occur in this "holocaust' before our politicians grow a conscience like Congressman Grayson?
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