If Health Care Law Struck Down, House Progressives to Push Single-Payer Option

While the White House, Congressional Republicans and Mitt Romney’s Presidential Campaign have probably worked out how they are going to react to the Supreme Court ruling, expected tomorrow, on President Obama’s health care law, the House Progressive Caucus is preparing themselves as well. According to Progressive Caucus c-chair Representative Keith Ellison, they are going to start pushing a single-payer system they are going to term “Medicare For All”.

In an interview with The Huffington Post Ellison said that a single-payer, publicly funded and administered program is the easiest and cheapest way to cover all Americans. He also said that all 75 members of the Progressive Caucus had signed onto the plan.

Ellison said,

“It’s easy to see it’s a good idea. It’s the cheapest way to cover everybody.”

When asked why he thought the proposal could pass this time around, when the government run option almost sunk the President’s bill last time around, he said that the Individual Mandate was a cause that was championed by conservatives. He said that obviously their way had failed and it was time to try a progressive way.

Representative Jerrold Nadler said he was adamant about a single-payer health plan during a recent Progressive Caucus meeting.

Nadler said,

“We agreed we’re going to come out in favor of Medicare for all, in both instances [of Supreme Court rejection]. One disadvantage of saying, ‘Let’s go for single payer,’ is that by and large the American people have no idea what that means. But the advantage of saying ‘Medicare for all,’ the American people do know what that means. And it’s a very popular proposal.”

One house Democratic Aide was pretty cool to the idea that House leadership would embrace a single-payer system saying,

“I think we have to recognize the situation we’re in with House Republicans, where we can’t even get bipartisan legislation finished. We can talk about specific proposals and have discussions and have that as something to focus on or talk to constituents about as they run for reelection. It’s just not going anywhere in this Congress.”