From Josh’s blog: " First, there are lots and lots of Democrats who either are stating vague opposition or are not saying where they stand at all." WTF? What is going on? And don’t say “spineless Democrats.” They KNOW that there is no reason on earth–moral, political, self-interested, etc.–not to stand up forcefully for Medicare. Right?
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The question isn’t is this going to be disastrous for millions of Americans it is how many of those millions are non-voters and Trump supporters who deserve it.
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“…Medicare reform…”
Kind of like John Wayne Gacy “reformed” all those kids in the crawlspace.
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Paul Ryan’s plan is to phase out Medicare and replace it with subsidies for private insurance.
It sounds like they are going to replace Medicare with Obamacare!
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These guys are evil, not stupid. It’s a “phase out” precisely so that there are no immediate effects and the only people who will be fucked int he ass by it won’t find out for 10 years how deep the fucking is.
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Well, by golly Trump voters, most of you who are either on or shortly going to be on Medicare; you really screwed the pooch on this one. What ever made you think that a one percenter would ever care about your petty little problems? But,by all means, go vent on Facebook about how you want your country back.
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Would like to see this headline on the front page of Thanksgiving morning papers: GOP to Phase Out Medicare. Would be a great discussion item at dinner that day.
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Oh, they’ll design it so that the current crop of old people aren’t affected. It’s their children who are fucked.
And of course, the press will swoon over that dreamy, soserious Paul Ryan, and there will be the usual gaslighting of Dems – “We don’t want to cut it, that’s Democratic crazy talk! We just want to ‘modernize’ it because the ACA bankrupted it.” Get ready.
I’m actually kind of glad they’re overreaching right from the get-go. As disorganized and incompetent as they are, I bet they fuck it all up and beat a hasty retreat, just like they did in Dubya’s second term, having irrevocably poisoned Uncle Don’s populist well. But who knows? Maybe this time they’ll finally kick that football and they can move on to eliminating Social Security.
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This is the thing to stop it dead in its tracks! Use the phony hand-wringing over Obamacare to save Medicare. It’d be brilliant if it wasn’t worth banging your head against a wall over…
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only if you think a $5000 voucher to purchase insurance is going to cover you in either case…
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They won’t phrase it that way. More like: Republicans, Democrats differ over future over Medicare.
See? Nice and aseptic. The. Everyone can go to Fox News and learn why the D’s suck and they should vote Republican. Done.
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This is disastrous for people like me who are not yet at retirement age, and our spouses and kids, and especially disastrous for those people like me who could never buy insurance without the force of law. The private market laughed at me when I was young and pretty healthy, because cancer treatments left me with a lot of ticking time bombs that are now starting to go off decades later. Medicare needs changes, no enormous system like that ever doesn’t, but it has been the backstop.
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I thought about this and I’m not entirely convinced it’ll be a gradual phase out. That would make the most sense but I’m looking at it like this:
the entire point of this horror is to funnel maximum tax breaks to the 1% that will take us right back to the Gilded Age. I don’t see how they can achieve the immediate gratification from the ultra wealthy if it’s in 10 years. I think they might go for a basic “smash and grab” and enact it much sooner than that.
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I’m hoping that the Democrats are going to organize a strong, group opposition to changes to Medicare with vicious ads and wide publicity. (I can dream, can’t I?)
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It’ll be OK …
GOP will replace it with a “bite you in the ass” plan —
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Pretty soon, they’ll be whining that they want their Medicare back!
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Right. And no insurance company wants to cover seniors. They are the sickest most expensive patients to cover. A $5000 voucher will not be enough, and seniors will be expected to make up the difference.
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This was inevitable.
Since they have decided to scrap Obamacare, but keep the “good parts,” like not allowing insurance companies to consider pre-existiing conditions, that will drive the insurance companies into a death spiral. Rates will have to go up for self insurance to the point where no one can afford it. The only ones who will be insured are those on company plans.
However, in order to forestall an insurance meltdown, the Republicans have decided to throw everyone, including senior citizens, onto the private market. In this way, they think they will shore up the insurance companies and save their asses.
However, even with “vouchers” the cost of private insurance will be so high that the majority of seniors and the poor will simply have to forgo it. And when they get sick, they go to the emergency room, which cannot legally deny them care and they will run up huge bills that no one will pay, leaving the medical community in a fiscal world of hurt. You will see a lot of hospitals, especially in rural areas closing because they don’t have the money to keep operating.
In their zeal to kill of Obamacare, they have opened a can of whoop ass on the rest of us.
But they don’t care, the government will always pay for THEIR care.
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In the past, the “only for people under 55 has not worked” when it came to Social Security. Turns out Seniors care about more than just themselves.
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