That would remove ambiguity, or any need, should Minnesota adopt single payer, to then seek federal permits or waivers.
It is not a suggestion requiring Minnesota lawmakers or citizens to do anything, but instead it aims to give them the option, expressly, to do something sensible if it can be passed into state law.
The latest Kucinich email explains things honestly and directly:
I Will Continue To Fight For Single-Payer
Click here to view Kucinich congressional webpage and video.
Dear Friends,
Forty-seven million Americans are without health insurance. Why? Because they can't afford it.
And what's Washington's solution? Require people to buy private insurance with the government providing a subsidy to the health insurance companies.
What a pathetic state of affairs that our national government cannot respond to the needs of the people and must first respond to the needs of Wall Street and the health insurance industry and their stock prices.
I am going to continue to fight for single-payer. And I'm going to continue to try to get in the final legislation a provision which will protect the rights of states to be able to move forward with single-payer health care plans of their own.
It is time that we broke the chains, which the health insurance companies have on our political process. It's time that we have a government that we can call our own. And it's time that Congress respond to the needs of the American people first, and recognize that health care is a basic right in a democratic society.
Thank you.
If you are at all curious, I urge going to the website, exploring a bit, and if you'd like, watching the video. I am already supportive of the effort and need no further convincing. I hope that the Minnesota DFL delegation in both federal houses has the sense to support this express optional reform of pending federal proposals.
The Kucinich safeguard for states wanting to experiment with single payer is narrow in scope, whereas other opt-out seekers are overbroad in their intent to further weaken federal revisioning beyond the existing weak and flawed proposals that survived the ravages of the GOP, the health-industrial complex, and Blue Dogs.
It would be revenue neutral to the overall federal fiscal situation arising under pending proposals, since it would only allow state opt-out if single payer were adopted (obviating the need for federal funding for subsidized access to private plans in states moving to single payer) --- and would not allow opt-out simply to avoid inclusion in the federal provisions but without any alternative state safety net system or provisions to protect the multitude of current citizens lacking coverage.
It is not opt-out for nothing. Nor opt-out for the status quo. Nor opt-out to fiscally hurt a federal plan out of spite. If Minnesota were to opt out of new federal mandates to establish single payer it could be with Medicare for senior citizens qualifying for it, and with Medicare like provisions managed in-state for younger citizens, or it could be fashioned without some of the undesirable things in Medicare reimbursement schemes that do not sufficiently emphasize preventative medicine and cure vs. ongoing costly treatment protocols. Incentives could be put in place to curb inefficient cost inflation in ways suggested by Sixth District congressional candidate Maureen Reed and other expert and well intentioned healthcare insiders. Cost containment reform, and coverage extension reform are matters that can be separately addressed, better than the federal mess now pending where everything is mixed together in the way Kucinich describes, as welfare for the already highly profitable health insurance industry but with a cursory hat-tip to cost containment.
_______UPDATE________
For those interested in history of the "Kucinich Amendment," see Brad Blog, 7/19/2009; 10/30/2009; and 11/8/2009. It was at the time of the middle item that I came to view Pelosi as likely being part of a mere revision, rather than being truly committed to a reform. Indeed, when the entire thing started with nationwide single payer off the table, the planets could be seen as not aligned as well as they might have been. It was a downhill process into the muck and mire, from the start onward as time elapsed. Taking single payer off the table was the moral equivalent of the the religious doctrine of original sin. As yet, none of the key sinners has asked for or sought absolution.