By Bill Bianchi PDA Blog Contributor | PDA Illinois

No doubt Congressman Raul Grijalva (AZ-07) is a Progressive champion who is deeply committed to bringing about real reform of our nation’s health care system. But his recent statements made in an article printed at the PDA main page, Medical Security is the Name of the Game, are puzzling. He promises that he and the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) will remain committed to a ‘robust public option’ while at the same time urging PDA supporters to keep working for HR 676, Medicare for All-(Single-Payer). But the “robust public option” he refers to is hypothetical. It doesn’t exist in any legislation currently before the Congress, does it?

What does exist is the feeble public option described in House bill HR 3200. That falls far short of the robustness defined by the Congressman himself. In addition, the recently released Senate version of ‘health insurance reform’ eliminates the public option completely. Meanwhile, HR 676, the Medicare-for-All (Single-Payer) bill, which we are urged to support, is alive but in great need of the CPC’s commitment. Taking all that into consideration I’m left wondering, what exactly are Rep Grijalva and CPC committed to?

I give the Congressman credit for actually spelling out exactly what he means by “robust public option”. Few others who take that position bother to do so. In his article, Grijalva offers nine defining statements (see below), and two of them really caught my eye. He says that the CPC will remain committed to a robust public option that:
• Be made available to all individuals and employers across the nation without limitation.
Without limitation? Does that mean everyone in the country, hundreds of millions of us, could take part in the public plan? That’s a huge jump from the current legislation, HR 3200, which prescribes very limited participation in the public option. Supporters say about ten million people at most will be allowed to participate in the public option. That’s too few to affect pricing in the private insurance market and a far cry from ‘limitless participation’.

He also says that the robust public option should:
• Utilize the existing infrastructure of successful public programs, such as Medicare, in order to maintain transparency and consumer protections for administering processes, including payment systems, claims and appeals.

That’s a little murky, but it sounds like he’s saying that Medicare should run the robust public option.

When you put the two statements together, unlimited participation and run it through the Medicare structure, then it sounds an awful lot like Grijalva wants to give every one in the country the choice of being in Medicare. Now that’s Progressive! And if that’s what ‘robust’ really means, why not say it loud and clear so average Americans can understand it?

Most Americans including many activists couldn’t tell you what a ‘public option’ is robust or not. But most of us do know that Medicare is a successful public program that provides guaranteed quality medical care in a cost effective manner to 45 million Americans.

To demonstrate the strength of their commitment, perhaps Grijalva and the CPC should offer an amendment to HR 3200 inserting the robust plan as he describes it. While they are at it, forbid any public money being used to subsidize the purchase of private insurance. And if that amendment fails, their commitment should then lead them to vote against the current HR 3200 with its puny, limited public option and unlimited subsidies to private insurers.

Rep. Grijalva have no fear, Single-Payer activists will continue working for Medicare for All (Single-payer). But we need to know what does your commitment to the hypothetical robust public option mean in the real world? What do you and the rest of the CPC plan do about HR 3200 and its puny public option? Or about the likelihood of insurance reform legislation that includes no public option at all? Or about HR 676? It’s time to clarify your commitments and turn them into action.