Good Doctor Dean

I just watched Howard Dean on Keith Olberman's show and was instantly reminded of why we all loved him in '04. The health care reform bill right now being tortuously hammered out in the Senate very likely will contain a Medicare "buy-in" provision. What that would amount to is an expansion of the existing Medicare program. What I'm hearing is a proposal to lower the eligible enrollment age to 55. That would provide relief for a demographic group that is considered the most difficult to insure. The beauty of this is in its simplicity. No need to create another layer of bureaucracy, and no need to wait until 2014 to enroll people. An already existing single-payer health insurance program that is very popular with the millions of people it now covers. So, you ask yourself "Why didn't someone think of this before?". Well, it turns out that someone did. In 2004, Presidential Candidate Howard Dean proposed expanding Medicare as a way of dealing with run-away health care costs and all those uninsured Americans. I didn't remember that, and I seriously doubt whether anyone else does either. But we all remember the "Dean Scream", don't we? Hell, I can even remember one of the jokes: "The cows in Iowa are scared of catching Mad Dean Disease!"

Keep up the good work MSM...