Rep. Alan Grayson’s “Medicare You Can Buy Into Act” Attracts 50 Co-Sponsors

AMY GOODMAN: Florida Congress member Alan Grayson speaking on the House floor last week. His bill has since attracted fifty co-sponsors.

Congress member Grayson joins us now from Washington, DC. He’s a freshman Congress member, and he’s no stranger to controversy. In October, he came under heavy criticism from Republicans after he said on the House floor that the Republicans’ healthcare plan involved wanting people to, quote, “die quickly.” He also established the website namesofthedead.com, honoring those who’ve lost their lives because they were uninsured. This past weekend, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin traveled to Grayson’s Florida district and urged voters at a Republican fundraiser to oust Grayson in November.

Well, Congress member Grayson, welcome to Democracy Now!, still speaking to us from the nation’s capital. Can you start off by explaining your bill that you’ve introduced, and then where you stand on, well, the whole healthcare reform bill that is being pushed through now?

REP. ALAN GRAYSON: I’ve introduced a simple three-and-a-half-page bill that opens up Medicare to anybody who wants it. If you want it and you pay for it, it’s yours. It’s that simple. It’s open to everybody under the age of sixty-five, whether or not you’re handicapped. And you pay the same amount as other people your age would pay.

And the reason to do this is because we need a public option. We need an option that doesn’t involve putting us at the tender mercies of insurance companies, particularly if there’s a mandate to do so. A lot of people feel that there is a fundamental conflict of interest between themselves and private insurance companies. The private insurance companies make money by denying you the care that you need to be healthy, and sometimes to stay alive. And a lot of people are just sick of it.

So the way to get beyond that is to open up Medicare, which is now available to only one-eighth of the population, to anybody who’s willing to pay for it. And it makes perfect sense when you think about it. I mean, we don’t say the federal highways are only open to senior citizens. And the Medicare provider network is an enormously valuable, expensive thing that we’ve created with federal tax dollars that ought to be open to everyone, not just seniors.

AMY GOODMAN: And how does this fit into the major piece of legislation that will or—I don’t know would even pass—won’t be voted on by the House?

REP. ALAN GRAYSON: My hope was that we would vote not only on the Senate bill, which doesn’t have a public option, not only on the reconciliation amendment, which probably will not have a public option, but that we’d also vote on this, that there’d be three votes instead of two votes. And if we voted on this and we passed it, then it would be presented to the Senate and subject to reconciliation in the Senate, so that we could end up with a public option.

AMY GOODMAN: Now?

REP. ALAN GRAYSON: Now.

AMY GOODMAN: Right, but now?

REP. ALAN GRAYSON: And if not, then it’s something to build for in the future.

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