More on the Santos-Vinick Debate

Now that the Santos-Vinick debate has aired nation-wide on West Wing, I’ll add some highlights.

Santos’ suggestion for health care was to allow those under 65 to join Medicare, as he explained how much more cost effective care is under Medicare than under any private plan (despite Republican claims as to how inefficient the government is). When Vinick complained about socialized medicine, Santos noted this would be voluntary, questioning if anyone would sign up for an HMO if given this option. Santos pointed out that the average person given a choice of paying higher taxes for medical coverage versus paying health care premiums would mainly want to know which costs less.

While Republicans insist on letting the private sector solve the problem, despite leaving 45 million uninsured and far more under insured and with rapidly growing insurance premiums, liberals will consider government programs. Vinick tried to use liberal as a bad word, but Santos was ready for that:

“Republicans have tried to turn ‘liberal’ into a bad word,” said Santos. “Well, liberals ended slavery in this country.”

“A Republican president ended slavery,” Vinick retorted.

“Yes, a LIBERAL Republican, Senator. What happened to them?”