Would it be wrong to suggest that the only way to “fix” Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) would be to eliminate him, in the same manner that he’s proposing to “fix” Medicare?
Of course, Rep. Ryan’s proposal to phase out Medicare in favor of a much cheaper voucher program that would place seniors at the mercy of private insurers isn’t about saving Medicare at all. It’s about killing it.
Medicare is a federally-backed health insurance program for seniors. Why seniors? Because seniors as a group are just too sick for the private health care insurance sector to adequately provide coverage for. To rein in costs you can reduce benefits that the program provides or place more cost containment measures in place. Real pain is involved in both. But that’s a legitimate area for debate. Medicare is a long term budget problem, unlike Social Security which isn’t.
Or you can decide just to abolish the program altogether. Just eliminate Medicare in its entirety. This is what Rep. Ryan (R-WI) calls “fixing” Medicare, i.e., getting rid of it. Getting rid of it means abolishing the program and pushing seniors back into the private health insurance system and providing a subsidy to help pay the costs of your average 75 year old’s health care. If costs go up? Well, start saving now.
I’ve paid into Medicare and Social Security my entire adult life. Even when I didn’t earn enough money to pay much income tax, I always paid that 15.3% FICA tax right off the top, before deductions. And while it was sometimes a hardship, I always knew that eventually I’d qualify for affordable health care… if I managed to live that long.
And now Rep. Ryan says to me and every other American under the age of 55, “fuck you” to your dreams of economic and health care security. Unless you have the personal wealth to cover every contingency, you must live in fear your entire life, not just of your own mortality, but of the illness that will eventually drain your bank account to pay the obscene bonuses of insurance company CEOs.
Well, if that’s what Rep. Ryan calls saving Medicare, I suppose he would have no objection to people threatening to save him too?
Basically, Ryan and his ilk want to steal the money we’ve been paying in for health care and income during our retirement years and give it away to the rich so they can export the capital overseas and further weaken America.
Period.
@1,
Pretty much, yes.
@1 & 2,
EXACTLY yes, because along with killing medicare, the repub plan ALSO lowers the corporate tax rate and the tax rate on the wealthiest Americans from 35% to 25%.
Think about it… they actually had the gall to say that the health care bill would be a threat to Medicare. It was a great rallying cry at the rallies. “Don’t touch my Medicare!”
Now that the smoke has cleared they propose gutting medicare at a level the health bill didn’t even come close to achieving.
A recession is a GOP wet dream. Why? Because they can use the economic downturn to kill programs they don’t like.
“Planned Parenthood may be good and all, but in these economic times we must make tough choices.”
If you want to kill a program, then have some balls and just say you don’t like the program. Don’t do this whole budgeting gimmick to mask your true intentions.
@1
please stop hurting me w/ your undeniable truths. thank you.
Well, if they tracked down this money (from an article by David Wood):
At least 91 contractors holding contracts worth $270 billion were the subjects of civil fraud judgments — and in some cases criminal fraud convictions as well, many of which resulted in fines, suspensions or debarments. Even so, Defense Department contracting officers still assigned $4.9 billion worth of work with these companies after the fraud was uncovered, the report said.
We wouldn’t have to look in the couch cushions for spare change.
Wait, would those of us under 55 still have to pay that 15% FICA for the rest of our working lives until the rest of the current recipients die…i.e. pay for a benefit we’ve been flat out told we won’t receive? ‘Cause that would be one of the few things that would make this appalling idiocy even worse…
Well, that’s the whole Republican schtick, Goldy. “Fuck you, you worthless piece-of-shit,” they say in so many words, “I got mine. Now you get yours.”
Then it’s off to a $200 lunch.
@7 or they could just end the Two Wars of Republican Adventure in Iraq and Afghanistan that serve only to provide cheap resources to Red China and Russia at American expense of Taxes, Tears, and Troopers.
Is Wisconsin being exposed to some kind of chemical poisoning that’s killing brain cells? Because it seems to be the source of brain dead politicians.
@8,
Duh.
Of course we’ll still have to pay it, and I’ll be really, truly shocked if we didn’t have to continue to pay it long after Medicare is “phased” out. Republicans love sticking it to the poor and middle class.
And maybe all this will serve as evidence to those idiots who think there’s no difference between Democrats and Republicans.
@12
there’s a difference between democrats & republicans. pace. both have the same economic & foreign agendas. admittedly, there is the occasional human/civil rights issue where the democrats differ. but those are increasingly rare.
@4:
But that’s part of the entire GOP game-plan. They CAN’T say “I hate (fill in the blank of appropriate entitlement program), because it goes against the grain of my ‘small gubamint/every man for himself’ philosophy”, because they KNOW there are enough old, ostensibly middle-class voters out there who like/need/want/depend on these entitlement programs, and who tend to vote conservative/GOP anyway. BUT, in a recession, they can totally use the tried-and-true “normally, I’d be all in favor of (insert name of entitlement program), but in these tough economic times, difficult choices must be made!”
It’s a total win-win for them: they get to gut as many “social(ist) programs” as they can, while at the same time the very people who benefit from those programs will go along with it, because, you know, in tough times we ALL have to make sacrifices and what-not, right?
And FWIW, I personally might even be willing to go along with SOME downward adjustment to these programs, IF every single solitary elected official at the municipal, county, state and federal level were to make exactly the same sacrifice the rest of us are being asked to make.
I’m not holding my breath on that, however…
It’s not just a rich/poor thing, it’s generational too.
Only the Baby Boomers could figure out a way to pay for their own generation’s retirement in luxury by deconstructing & devouring the very system that made their own educations, advancement, health, long life and security possible; ensuring that nothing will be left for anyone that might ever come after them.
Quick question for you Goldy:
The Ryan plan would increase the Medicare credit by “GDP +1%” per year. Do you know when the last time in history medical costs actually rose at (or less than) a rate of GDP +1% per year?
(I’m guessing maybe… the late 60’s perhaps?)
I hate to say this, but I almost kinda want the Republicans to privitize this, just to show how disasterous it would be. How quickly voters would turn on Republicans, which would allow Democrats and Independants to scrap the entire plan and replace it with single payer for all.
Sure, nobody wants people dying just to prove a point, but some of those people would rather die, thinking a switch to socialized health care is the first step to turning into Nazi Germany.
I think it’s a good move. It will finally get us off our asses to push for single payer, once and for all.
He’s a genius in insulating all the boomers though. Those hippy freaks have always gotten the spoils and those of us coming behind, the shaft.
On the other side of the equation, they are also waging a war against employee pensions. So not only will there not be any Social Security or Medicare waiting for retired workers, there won’t be any private funds waiting either.
@12 – Rep Ryan is Obama’s favorite Republican, he has praised Ryan and his “ideas” over and over again. The President is just waiting to see how much screaming results and how it plays in the Washington Post editorial page before he endorses a version of Ryan’s plan.
Obama <3s Ryan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBT5wnDK7…
He never actually says what POLICIES he disagrees with Ryan on and totally accepts Ryan’s premise. His problem is that Republicans scared seniors and used too much partisanship in discourse. Obama doesn’t like the Republicans being mean to him.
The problem with Ryan’s proposal, which I’m sure he knows perfectly well, is that Medicare ALREADY doesn’t cover the cost — many seniors “covered” by Medicare can’t find a doctor anywhere, because the reimbursement rates are so low. So seniors end up with no coverage at all — better head to the emergency room.
With Ryan’s voucher proposal, the voucher rates are already set well below the necessary rate, so the same problem exists — no one will take them.
Ryan’s proposal is essentially NO COVERAGE. Which means Medicare expenditures will plummet — hey, victory! Old people don’t vote, do they? Hmm, there may be a flaw in his plan. But I think he’s counting on continuing to misdirect senior rage in idiot teabagger directions.
@16:
Well, whadda ya know, the CBO already answered my question… in 2008!
From http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/89xx/doc8948/… page #3:
kmq1 @4, you nailed it.
What strikes me about Ryan’s Medicare privatization proposal is the sheer political gall of it:
1. As Dan Savage posted yesterday and folks like Ezra Klein have been pointing out, it’s essentially replacing Medicare with Obamacare.
2. Notice how effortlessly the Republicans are able to pivot from being the “Don’t touch my Medicare” party to getting into the business gutting Medicare.
3. The Congressional Republicans are even accusing the AARP of all organizations of having a vested interest in the health insurance status quo, never mind that they never met a special interest they didn’t like.
4. And to top it all, isn’t this attempt to privatize Medicare nothing more than a variation on George W. Bush’s failed attempt to privatize Social Security in 2005, or are we all supposed to have amnesia about that episode?
There’s a certain cognitive dissonance the GOP expects the press and the public to swallow at their beck and call, like a magic spell. The fact that Paul Ryan and his proposal have not been laughed out of the room is a testament to their continued ability to pull off this magic trick.
The shame here is that Medicare costs do need to be brought under control. You put together the baby boomers’ dotage and our current deliberately super-expensive, inefficient medical system and you couldn’t raise taxes enough to pay for the coming entitlement tidal wave if you wanted to.
Not to pile on (Oh, why not…..) this boneheaded idea will also cause insurance premiums for working age people to absolutely skyrocket to the point where private insurance may be unsustainable. I can’t imagine the insurance, hospital, or pharmaceutical lobbies finding this to be a good idea, as it would ultimately kill their business.
Republicans are not only horrible people, they’re stupid.
@17:
Of course it will be a disaster – for everyone but the wealthy who are depending on Medicare to still be around in 20 years. And my guess would be that, if Ryan’s bill were to become law, and medical entitlements for the elderly were to be privatized, leading to inevitable profiteering by the insurance and health care industries, not only will most of those unlucky aged NOT blame the GOP for their penury or increasingly lower life-expectancies, but many will no doubt continue to insist – against all evidence to the contrary – that they’re STILL receiving “the best health care in the world”, even as they watch their whatever remains of their life savings bleed-out into nothingness, while the above-named companies reap unprecedented profits at their expense.
Because, you know, anyone can delude themselves into believing just about anything, if it fits into their already delusional world-view…
If you want to keep all of those gigantic government programs then elect Democrats who will increase taxes to pay for them. But the current crop of Democrats won’t even simply not extend tax breaks.
We’ve got to cut our losses someday. How much of the budget can we allow it to eat up before we can’t support it any longer? I’m not going to ok making those into tax cuts though – seriously, what kind of asshole is still thinking of cutting taxes? We’re losing billions annually on debt interest. Maybe fix that first.
No prompt, we don’t have to “cut our losses”. Here is Auntie Catalina’s Economy Cure.
1.) Return the upper tax rate to Eisenhower levels under the current crisis is resolved, and Kennedy era levels thereafter.
2.) Remove the Social Security contributions cap entirely. Make Warren Buffet and Bill Gates and Paris Hilton pay the same percentage of their income towards Social Security as the rest of us slobs. At the same time, decrease the percentage of the FICA tax that everyone pays.
3.) Open Medicare up to everyone.
4.) End the two wars.
5.) Institute a military draft (thus ensuring that today’s overly engaged parents all have something to get out in the street and protest about when we embark on dumb military adventures)
6.) Wind down the defense budget to the point where it is no longer the monster it is.
(This will take several years due to the nature of the Military/Welfare complex). Constitutionally mandate that, outside of Congressionally declared wars, the military budget cannot exceed the combined defense budget of all other countries in the world by one hundred percent.
7.) Constitutionally end corporate personhood.
8.) Constitutionally enact public financing of elections.
9.) Rigorously enforce the Sherman Anti-Trust act.
@28 you’ve got my vote.
oh, and for #5 remove the age limit. There was no age limit for being drafted originally.
Republican = Terrorist
@24 – this is already happening. The small company I work for can’t afford health coverage, even if they asked us to kick in some as well. Private coverage is cost prohibitive, so I was forced 4 years ago to turn my enjoyable, minimal part-time job into working 20 hours a week at a retail corporation that provides health care (at a small cost) for its “fulltime” part-time workers. I don’t have a life anymore, I work 7 days a week–all for decent, affordable health coverage that I don’t even use. I work 60-70 hours a week and it is killing me slowly. Good thing I’ll have health coverage, hmm? Except if I get sick or my body breaks down as it is doing, I’m not going to physcially be able to do my job and will be unable to afford the COBRA payments to keep it. Sadest of all is I am grateful I have 2 jobs in this economy. They can put that on my tombstone.
I was never a Republican, but I kept an open mind. Now, I hate them with every fiber of my being. It is clear they are out to destroy this country, even as they sing out they are protecting it. I will drag myself to every election until the day I die and never ever vote Republican.
Remember all of the enraged screaming during the election campaign about the looming spectre of “death panels” that apparently exist as an integral part of the health care system in Canada. ::casts a puzzled look around me:: Nah, they must have been talking about some other Canada.
Well, with this proposal, the U.S will have achieved its own privately self-administered death panels. Seniors who can not afford to pay for their cure or care may just decide to off themselves, rather than face a personally humiliating and painfully lingering decline.
Something to look forward to, huh?
The Republicans are looking to roll the working class back to 1929, and the great recession is just an excuse. It’s hard to believe anyone in Washington cares about debts and deficits with 3 wars running.
@31, and, if you DO get sick, really sick and not just a hangnail or something, your so-called health coverage won’t cover you. You’ll have to give up everything you have and declare bankruptcy. That’s the fun part, these days: NOBODY has health insurance, even the people who are sure they do, until the bills start coming.
@28 Cat, you have my vote as well. Too bad that they would take you out before the election.
Thank You Will and Wisepunk. Be assured I have no interest in politics. I am happy as a Beaon Hill Housewife and Municipal Electric Hostess.
@36: quel dommage, Catalina. Your prescriptions are just what the overworked medicare-accepting doctor ordered.
Truly, I could look at that Ryan “deficit reduction” proposal with a straight (albeit angry) face if it didn’t include so many outrageous tax cuts.
@34,
Exactly.
In fact, the only people who are ‘covered’ (in any sense of the term) are those in poverty who go to the emergency room for every ache and pain. Since they’re so poor, they’ll easily qualify for charity to pay their expenses (or they’ll just never receive a bill because they have no mailing address).
Those who have insurance; however, will be destroyed by deductibles, co-pays, and yearly/lifetime caps. They will be wiped, legally wiped out, out by the very system they pay into… exactly as described in the fine print of their insurance brochures.
The health insurance industry is an abject failure. The only reason it still has ANY supporters at all is because the tragedies don’t strike everyone, just the unlucky few, and the pain is focused solely on them. If the costs were truly spread around, if it were like buying gasoline, where everyone felt the pain equally, we would have had single payer decades ago.
Unless you have the personal wealth to cover every contingency, you must live in fear your entire life, not just of your own mortality, but of the illness that will eventually drain your bank account to pay the obscene bonuses of insurance company CEOs.
I’m 41–the above is what I always assumed to be the case.
@39: You have no anger about paying into a system you won’t benefit from?
I don’t think this has to be the worst thing in the world – a little bit of tweaking and its really the best we can do.
The problem is we’ve spent a couple of decades living outside of our means as a country. If we do not find a way to spend our money more wisely, we will take a deeper plunge. Ration health care a little bit and people will be forced to make better choices about their health and their health care. So much money is wasted on tests that aren’t necessary, and end-of-life care that postpones the inevitable. A good doctor will have to consider the resources available to a patient when making these decisions.
I think that the tax reductions for corporations and high-earners are the only eggregious and backwards aspects of this budget from what little I understand of it.
SOMETHING has to be done with Medicare/Medicaid, and it was going to involve reduction of services no matter what. How have you people have convinced yourselves otherwise?
How very docile of you, 41. You get an A+ for regurgitation of talking points. Did your father write them out for you, r did you just copy and paste them from some Republican website?
@41: I agree with a lot of what you say in theory, but isn’t the idea of rationing healthcare what got Democrats accused of creating “death panels?” Another flaw is that due to the current legal system/litigious culture, providers end up practicing “defensive medicine” and doing every possible test and providing care well past the point of rationality to avoid being sued when someone very sick or very ill dies naturally. We need torte reform and an increase in preventative care if we are going to find any way to keep costs under control.
And a single payer system. That would help too.
42 – yeah, in retrospect that really did sound like a well-tuned sound bite. I’ll take that as a compliment!
43 – thanks for the support! The thing that people need to get used to the idea of is that medicine is already rationed! We have limited doctors, devices and medications; a central reason that the costs are getting so high is that well-meaning (and of course as you mention, litigation-averse) doctors are not taking into account the economics of their recommendations – and they are too readily offering all the highest tech diagnostics and treatments.
An aside: people need to be prepared for death, and used to the idea of it.
@ 42 again – I totally agree with the single payer system. I think basic health care (2 visits annually to the dentist, primary and mental health care) needs to start being considered a basic human right. I think that the government is in the best position to provide it to everybody. I agree with the vast majority of Obama’s health care bill.
Do I still sound hopelessly Republican?
“The problem is we’ve spent a couple of decades living outside of our means as a country.”
Yes, but we can increase our public income very simply:
“1.) Return the upper tax rate to Eisenhower levels under the current crisis is resolved, and Kennedy era levels thereafter.
“2.) Remove the Social Security contributions cap entirely. Make Warren Buffet and Bill Gates and Paris Hilton pay the same percentage of their income towards Social Security as the rest of us slobs. At the same time, decrease the percentage of the FICA tax that everyone pays.
And reduce our expenditures:
“4.) End the two wars.”
This “can’t-do” attitude of your comment does not befit our great nation. Let’s get to single payer by taxing those who benefit most from living in our country, and use the proceeds to liberate our weakest fellows from medical need.
This must by why they push medical savings accounts that are tied to 401k’s. They want to run everything into wall street, and make them the sole arbiters of society. I respect his honesty, I respect that he’s putting himself out there for what he believes, but what he’s asking is for humans my father’s age to sacrifice the future they’ve already paid into because a bunch of assholes got greedy and spent money we never planned on having.
He’s also telling me that I should expect a lower quality of life after retirement, as anything the private sector has to offer can’t be better than health care till I’m dead regardless of income (which means I’m more likely to take stable jobs, and not risk starting a business because failure would not only mean I’m broke forever, but that I could expect to be treated worse at the doctors office, if I could even afford the visit). I think there’s room for debate, means testing and the like, but Ryan’s entire focus is on money he believes could be better spent if transformed into cash into old people’s hands (which has never worked in the history of money, old people will spend the money on other things, and force tax payers to pick up their tab when their sickness gets to life or death stage).
I believe budgets are moral documents, you aren’t just moving around the numbers and making them look better than last year, you’re deciding how we treat elderly citizens who have worked all their lives. I believe our elderly are worth more than putting their entire fate into the hands of the ‘free market’ (as in, forcing them to pay for every service they use, or they don’t get service, even if that service would radically enhance the time they had left), which has proven time and time again it will kill children if it means saving a few bucks. So, the same free market that decides a car crash victim has to pay for their ambulance ride is the same free market that’s going to help pay for my grandma’s eye surgeries? My grandma is flat ass broke, if it weren’t for medicare she would have never got the eye surgery that has helped keep her on the road for this many years. While not a life threatening condition, without medicare she would have not have had the money, and had to depend on someone else to go to the store for her. That’s really the future Ryan wants for me? My sister? All the kids in my college classes? To be forced to pony up money for medical treatment that would enhance our quality of life? Not because we don’t have the resources, but because freedom is more important than health? And in return for losing public health care the budget will be balanced in…30-50 years? It’s not a plan I could support if you held a gun to my head. My grandparents are too important, I’d rather live with the tax burden than force people like my grandma to be in an old folks home when she doesn’t need to be. It’s not the way I was raised, but maybe Ryan was raised by a pack of wolves, so it makes sense to him that everyone has to pay to live a decent life, or something.
Insurance companies won’t stand for this. If anything, they want the current system to stay in place and for the age to be lowered, say, to 50. That way they can push all the old/expensive people onto the government rolls and keep the young/profitable members.