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Pressed by a Democratic colleague about his opposition to a public health insurance option in the face of his support for Medicare, a government-run insurance program for older Americans, Sen. Chuck Grassley said the difference is Medicare is part of America’s “social fabric.”
U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (Photo: Lauren Victoria Burke/WDCPIX.com)
During Tuesday’s debate over an amendment to the Senate Finance Committee’s health care reform legislation that would create a public option, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer asked Grassley why he supports a government option for the elderly but not for the general population.
Grassley responded that while it is not perfect, Medicare and Social Security are part of the “social fabric of America” because “there are private health-insurance plans and retirement plans that are connected with Medicare and Social Security.”
Grassley’s answer led to a contentious back-and-forth with Schumer.
Schumer: All of the horrors of a government-run plan that you elicited in reference to Sen. [Jay] Rockefeller’s amendment; you’re supportive of Medicare. I just don’t understand the difference. A government plan, per se, if Medicare is good and part of the social fabric and we should keep it, that’s a government-run plan. The main knock you’ve made on Sen. Rockefeller’s amendment… is it is government run. Medicare is government run and most people like it very much.
Grassley: And it will lead to a single-payer [insurance system], and that denies the American people choice. What you forget in this whole process is that people are going to be in the public plan, no choice of their own. They are going to be forced in to it by small business shutting down their plans.
Schumer then pressed Grassley on his support of private competition with Medicare, called Medicare Advantage. The New York Democrat said if Grassley’s position on health reform legislation were applied to Medicare, he would essentially be arguing, “we shouldn’t have Medicare at all. Just have the private companies compete, and that is not what people want.”
A visibly frustrated Grassley said the government is not a fair competitor.
“It’s not even a competitor,” he said. “It’s a predator.”
Ultimately, the Rockefeller amendment, along with a similar one proposed by Schumer, was defeated.
Below is a video of the debate between Schumer and Grassley, via Think Progress:
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