Why Didn't Ted Kennedy Propose Medicare For All last year?

[berni_mccoy]

Over the years, Ted Kennedy would draft a bill that was basically, Medicare for All. The most recent draft of this bill was back in Oct. 2007 (see: http://web.archive.org/web/20071019061413/http://kennedy.senate.gov/newsroom/press_release.cfm?id=B30A5C7B-35AC-4CC9-8192-1B1E50FC8356 ) (note: I had to use the wayback machine to show this release as Sen. Kennedy's site is no longer active at senate.gov).

Many here at DU propose we demand Medicare for All. I have even proposed this in the past (see: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6397655 ). With such a seemingly simple solution at hand, why wasn't this solution pursued? Some extremists here propose it was some evil backroom insurance deal. Others say Obama didn't fight hard enough. While anything is possible, I believe there is a much simpler answer to this question, and Ted Kennedy knew it: The Senate Democrats don't support it. Don't believe it? Then check this out: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7618125

We find out today that we can't scrape up 50 Dems to go along with Biden to support a Public Option. Amazing interview nyceve from dkos had with Cong. Van Hollen at the link above. The video is telling. There are not 50 Democratic Senators who will vote for a public option. No matter how much we write them and tell them they will lose our support, it isn't going to happen. If you watch the following videos nyceve posted, you'll learn that even the constituents can't change their minds. Do you think Obama can? If they are told straight to their face that Democrats are going to stay home on election night 2010, they look back and say, essentially, I don't believe you and you'll be cutting off your nose if you do.

Sen. Kennedy knew this reality. If it wasn't true, the debate over the summer would have been about his Medicare for All bill. This is why the House started with the Public Option. Some say if they had, we'd be passing a Public Option now. Instead, the reality is, the House would be going back to the drawing board to create the very bill they have now. And in 6 months, that would get turned down anyway by the handful of Dems who won't support a Public Option. Right on the heals of an election.

The reality is, some compromise will come out of the House and Senate negotiations and Democrats are going to say this is the best we could do. I don't like it any more than anyone else. Neither did Ted. But that's the reality of the politics of the Senate.

[BeyondGeography]

1. Had he lived we would have had reform, IMO

and it would have looked a lot like the end product that didn't make it without him. The conservadems would have leveraged his desire to do a deal to kill the PO, the opt-out and the buy-in.

[johnaries]

2. Not just the Senate, but the House, too.

Single-payer bills have been introduced in Congress repeatedly over the past 60 years - starting with the Wagner-Murray-Dingell bill in the 1940s, and including the Kennedy-Griffiths bill of the 1970s and the Wellstone, McDermott and Russo bills of the 1990s - but none has ever reached the floor of the House or Senate.

(emphasis added)

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/08/05-8

This is just reality, folks. I would love to say it ain't true, but it is.

[Oregone]

3. Maybe he wasn't in top-notch shape last year to be proposing much of anything

Its all guesswork. What we do KNOW is he did plenty of times in the past. Hey, we even KNOW he fought vehemently against mandated & subsidized private insurance.

[mdmc]

4. ya GOT to follow the leader

[Davis_X_Machina]

5. Because he was a sellout. An insurance-company-tool.

Bought, payed for and taking his orders from Rahm, and fat envelopes from Big Pharma. In a state where medicine is a major employer, what else would you expect?

There is no alternative explanation.

Don't try and tell me otherwise. This is DU.

[Eric J in MN]

6. Until Harry Reid forces a floor vote on the public option we won't know if there are 50 or not.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen speculating that there aren't 50 isn't a definitive answer.

[stray cat]

7. Because Teddy believed politics is the art of the possible and he wanted reform not just attention