Finally, however, Democrats look to be stepping up to the plate to match Republicans’ fury to gut Medicare with an equal fury to save it, a position likely to have far more sway with the 84 percent of voters who oppose changes to the program. This afternoon, Nancy Pelosi drew the line in the sand the left has been clamoring for, promising “no benefit cuts.” Democrats have also enlisted Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to spread the message on Capitol Hill today that proposals within Ryan’s plan will cut the benefits of current seniors, despite the fact that full Medicare privatization only begins in 2022. For instance, by undoing the prescription doughnut-hole benefits of the Affordable Care Act, the plan would leave seniors to cover a huge tab on their medication. For the 150,000 seniors in Rhode Island, this would amount to an additional $9.5 million annually.
Democrats are also circulating disturbing projections from the Center for Economic and Policy Research that projects an adult currently between the ages of 45 and 55 will have to pay $182,000 extra for health insurance under Ryan’s plan, despite having paid into Medicare for a half decade or more. This extra burden won’t just stretch budgets. $180,000 is more than a minimum-wage earner would make in five years, let alone save. It shows once and for all that the Ryan plan doesn’t save Medicare, it ends it, and it doesn’t help the seniors of today or the next generation.(emphasis mine)
Anyone that thinks doing away w/traditional Medicare is a good thing must be either rich or uninformed in my humble yet vocal opinion. From the CEPR press release on their own report:
“The Ryan plan does nothing to control private-sector waste in health care costs,” said David Rosnick, an author of the report. “As a result of the waste in the private system, beneficiaries will end up paying substantially more for Medicare, in effect paying a hefty new tax on their health care.”
The report, “Representative Ryan’s $30 Trillion Medicare Waste Tax,” documents the potential effects of replacing Medicare with a system of vouchers or premium supports and raising the age of eligibility from 65 to 67 as suggested in the Ryan plan, which was passed by the House of Representatives with almost unanimous support from Republicans and no votes from Democrats. The authors note that each voucher under the plan will initially be worth $6,600, but would be frozen at this amount over the program’s 75-year planning window, paying less and less of a beneficiary’s health care costs over time.
In addition to comparing the costs of Medicare to the government under the current system and under the Ryan plan, the authors also show the effects of raising the age of Medicare eligibility. The paper also demonstrates that while Ryan shifts $4.9 trillion in health care costs from the government to Medicare beneficiaries, this number is dwarfed by a $34 trillion increase in overall costs to beneficiaries that is projected based on the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis.
More and more of the R's seem to be backing away from Paulie's Medicare Plan, so the D's need to make hay out of this boondoggle now and continue to use it as one of their main examples of how the R's want to 'do business' and cut entitlements, the EPA, Dept of Education and other federal departments so they can continue to provide tax breaks and/or lower the tax rate for the uber rich if they run thewhole show..aka the House, The Senate and the Oval Office.
I just want to know who the 7 assholes were that voted for it. The title of the damn plan was enough to make me gag: Moment of Truth. From The Hill:
In an 11-7 vote, President Obama's fiscal commission on Friday failed to adopt a sweeping plan for reining in the federal budget deficit.
The panel had been working since February on a plan that would cut nearly $4 trillion in deficit spending over the next nine years and reduce the federal debt to 40 percent of gross domestic product by 2035.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) had agreed to bring the deficit recommendations up for a floor vote in Congress, but only if the proposal had the support of 14 members. The commission came up three votes short.
Voting in favor of the plan were the commission’s co-chairmen Sen. Alan Simpson, former Republican senator from Wyoming, and Erskine Bowles, who served as chief of staff to President Clinton.
Among the Senate members of the panel, Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) voted “yes,” while Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) voted “no.”
From the House, Reps. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), David Camp (R-Mich.), Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) all voted against the plan. Rep. John Spratt (D-S.C.), the chairman of the House Budget Committee who lost his reelection bid in November, was the only House vote in favor.
Of the non-congressional members, David Cote, the CEO of Honeywell International, Ann Fudge, the former CEO of Young & Rubicam Brands and Alice Rivlin, the former director of the Office of Management & Budget, voted “yes.” Former Service Employees International Union president Andy Stern voted “no.”
Ah yes, the thugs that voted for the heavily flawed plan were either Blue Dogs like Conrad, Corporation heads and of course the hardcore/neocon R's on the panel. Hopefully this ends that worthless panel of backwards thinkers who were willing to fuck American's at every turn without even looking hard and long at the bloated Defense Budget...or gawd forbid...raising taxes! I like this explanation of what went wrong:
Why? Because three decades of neoliberal market ideology have persuaded Republicans and Democrats alike that government is our enemy and that the public purposes it pursues are illegitimate; and that, Q.E.D, collecting taxes to pay for such purposes is a form of theft. Americans don't just oppose high taxes (high taxes were when the rich paid 85 percent or more back in the Eisenhower era), they oppose taxation per se. In principle. Which principle? The principle that government is illegitimate, politicians are outlaws so taxes are (literally) highway robbery.
We thus frame the "hard choices" as choices between which expenditures to cut rather than between which taxes to raise. But the really hard choice is surely about whether or not we want to pay for the society we want to live in.
If you want a lifestyle that includes taking care of Veterans, the elderly, educate the masses and care for the disabled, it's going to cost money. If you want a country where the infrastructure isn't falling down around us, it costs money. And if you want to fund two friggin endless wars...yes, it costs money.
I have purchased a domain name. I have been meticulously working on a new site,Leftwing Nutjob. Please change your bookmarks people..this puppy will no longer be updated as of July 1st 2011.
