• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

T R E 4 5 O N

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

White supremacy is terrorism.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

DeSantis transforms Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Republicans don’t trust women.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

He really is that stupid.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Mobile Menu

  • Winnable House Races
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • Balloon Juice 2023 Pet Calendar (coming soon)
  • COVID-19 Coronavirus
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • War in Ukraine
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • 2021-22 Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2010 / Dr. Paul

Dr. Paul

by Kay|  September 16, 20103:38 pm| 41 Comments

This post is in: Election 2010

FacebookTweetEmail

I wanted to check in on libertarian small government conservative Rand Paul now that he’s running in the general, and it’s time to drop the Tea Party nonsense and get down to the serious business of running as a garden variety hard-Right Republican.

Which is, of course, what he is:

A well-funded national business group making noise across the country has muscled its way into the Kentucky U.S. Senate race, backing tea party favorite Rand Paul with a scare-tactic ad slamming Jack Conway

In a 30-second TV commercial that began airing statewide Wednesday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce accused the Democrat of supporting Medicare cuts that would take 113,000 Kentucky seniors off the rolls by backing President Obama’s health care overhaul. It never mentions Paul’s name.
Paul announced the chamber’s endorsement during a news conference in his south-central Kentucky hometown of Bowling Green, where he lives and maintains his eye surgery practice.

The Medicare cuts Rand Paul’s backers are referring to are cuts to Medicare Advantage.
Senate Democrats somehow mustered up the courage to tell the truth about this huge taxpayer rip-off, and actually slow growth in a program that is a massive failure for taxpayers.

Essentially, it works like this: Congress allowed private HMOs to compete for Medicare patients under the rationale that they could offer better service at lower cost than the government. They couldn’t. So Republicans in Congress began boosting their payments, to the point that Medicare Advantage gets paid 114 percent what Medicare gets paid to care for a patient. That leads to some fun perks, like free gym memberships and complimentary aspirin and band-aids, which in turn leads seniors to defend the program because they like their perks. But it also means a lot of unnecessary expense for taxpayers.

Rather, economists have estimated that for every extra dollar we pay the program, 14 percent is passed on to seniors and 86 percent goes to profits or other costs. In other words, we’re getting only 14 cents of obvious value for every dollar of overpayment.

Republicans can change the label, and keep the Tea Party candidate’s names off the advertising, but it’s the same old product.

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « When a man loves a woman
Next Post: Virtually crime free »

Reader Interactions

41Comments

  1. 1.

    beltane

    September 16, 2010 at 3:42 pm

    Same old product with new and crappier packaging. Republicans fall into two camps: the perpetrators of get-rich-quick schemes and the victims of get-rich-quick schemes. They need each other, and the rest of us don’t need any of them.

  2. 2.

    gex

    September 16, 2010 at 3:43 pm

    Odd someone who would eliminate Medicare is trying to scare people that the other guy wants to make cuts to a premium service of Medicare. This *should* backfire.

    Ha. Ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Whew.

  3. 3.

    MattR

    September 16, 2010 at 3:46 pm

    @gex: And that presents the dilemma. Do you attack the lies in the advertisement (EDIT: commercial) or point out Rand’s position on Medicare?

  4. 4.

    New Yorker

    September 16, 2010 at 3:47 pm

    Let me know when there’s another “Reason” blog post about how the Tea Party is really about small government and fiscal restraint, and not just an incoherent mass of evangelical white victimhood and cultural paranoia.

  5. 5.

    beltane

    September 16, 2010 at 3:48 pm

    @gex: I’d be happy living in a world where only Republican voters have to bear the consequences of their stupidity. Let the government keep its hands out of their Medicare, let the FDIC stop insuring their bank accounts. Let them simmer in their thin libertarian gruel for all I care.

  6. 6.

    Kay

    September 16, 2010 at 3:49 pm

    @New Yorker:

    Rand Paul will eliminate Medicare when his father stops directing ear marks to Texas.

    In other words, never.

    I think he has to run an ad denouncing the US Chamber of Commerce, and their advocacy of reckless spending.

  7. 7.

    beltane

    September 16, 2010 at 3:49 pm

    @New Yorker: Even Andrew Sullivan has lost patience with them this time. The idiots at Reason are so estranged from the culture of this country that they might as well be living in Bhutan.

  8. 8.

    Zifnab

    September 16, 2010 at 3:50 pm

    Rather, economists have estimated that for every extra dollar we pay the program, 14 percent is passed on to seniors and 86 percent goes to profits or other costs. In other words, we’re getting only 14 cents of obvious value for every dollar of overpayment.

    If ever there was a textbook example of the failure of privatization, this would be it.

  9. 9.

    Kay

    September 16, 2010 at 3:53 pm

    @Zifnab:

    It’s interesting, because it’s a voucher. When Brain Trust Conservative Rep. Ryan floated his brilliant health care voucher program, Paul Krugman was the only person who responded with “Medicare Advantage”.

  10. 10.

    New Yorker

    September 16, 2010 at 3:54 pm

    @beltane:

    Yeah, I saw that post. I wrote him an e-mail telling him (in more polite terms) that Reason has their heads up their asses.

  11. 11.

    Bootlegger

    September 16, 2010 at 3:55 pm

    Rand’s opponent, Conway, began running his ads during pro football games last weekend. The ad I saw is positive and upbeat stressing his law and order record as AG complete with police endorsements. I’ll be surprised if Conway doesn’t wipe the floor with Rand by the time this is over.

  12. 12.

    Punchy

    September 16, 2010 at 3:56 pm

    OT:

    This never would have happened if only patients were allowed to pack heat.

  13. 13.

    gex

    September 16, 2010 at 4:04 pm

    @Zifnab: They sold us out for 14%? C’mon old people! Demand at least 40% of the profits off the toil of the young folks.

  14. 14.

    suzanne

    September 16, 2010 at 4:20 pm

    @beltane: Seriously. I’m getting pretty damn tired of acting like the mature older brother when they really need a proverbial (or literal, I’m not picky) smack upside the head for their stupidity.

    Ironic that it’s the left wing that understands that personal responsibility actually means taking care of more than just oneself.

  15. 15.

    morzer

    September 16, 2010 at 4:28 pm

    @beltane:

    Don’t worry, Sullivan’s medication will be restored and he’ll be back fluffing glibertarian nonsense within a couple of days.

  16. 16.

    Stooleo

    September 16, 2010 at 4:32 pm

    OT True Conservative.
    h/t Sully

  17. 17.

    binzinerator

    September 16, 2010 at 4:43 pm

    I remember this from Tweety, back in 08, when he ripped into Cantor for insisting goopers weren’t in any way responsible for the previous 8 years of Bushie fuckups:

    “Congressman Cantor, you’re trying to change the rules now and saying, ‘oh, if we take off our uniforms and don’t say we’re Republicans this week, the people will be fooled.’
    […]
    “You have to take responsibility, sir, for the policies of this administration that have gotten us into this mess. You can’t walk away and say, ‘oh, we had nothing to do with this,’ can you?”

    The Tea Party is proof they can. They did exactly that.

  18. 18.

    New Yorker

    September 16, 2010 at 4:49 pm

    @Stooleo:

    The line “she’s a professional politician, she’s just really fucking bad at it” was classic.

  19. 19.

    El Cid

    September 16, 2010 at 4:57 pm

    You see, conservatives want to stop all the spendin’ and all the waste, like this.

  20. 20.

    Roger Moore

    September 16, 2010 at 5:03 pm

    @binzinerator:

    The Tea Party is proof they can. They did exactly that.

    No. The Tea Party is proof they can try. The election will tell if they can get away with it.

  21. 21.

    Svensker

    September 16, 2010 at 5:20 pm

    USA, Inc.

    We’ve met the future and it stinks, folks. Not to be a downer or anything.

  22. 22.

    El Cid

    September 16, 2010 at 5:20 pm

    On Hardballed, Mark Halperin is simply stating that Republicans will take over the House and the Senate and thus the Tea Party stuff is just a bit of dissent within the Republican Party.

  23. 23.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    September 16, 2010 at 5:21 pm

    So, not only is the government as efficient as private enterprise, it’s actually more efficient, considering that 14 cents of the overpayment still had to be spent on seniors.

  24. 24.

    General Stuck

    September 16, 2010 at 5:22 pm

    Deep Thoughts of Christine O’Donnell

    The now-GOP candidate dismissed the request that Tolkien should have written more about the females in the book, saying that the books “were written from a hobbit’s perspective” and that if the film changed what was in the books it would “severely take away from the film’s legitimacy.”

    6. O’Donnell on nude sunbathing.
    “I mean, it is very difficult, I’m sure, for a man to sit there and stare at his girlfriend naked and not want to go a little bit further.”

    By gawd, something I agree with.

  25. 25.

    Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther

    September 16, 2010 at 5:24 pm

    Hold on. Do you mean they’re not being entirely straight with us?

    I’m shocked, I tell you. Shocked!

    (But I have noticed that the Republican Party as a whole is not, apparently, as entirely straight as they would like to believe themselves to be, so…).

  26. 26.

    Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther

    September 16, 2010 at 5:25 pm

    @General Stuck: Did she not notice that Arwen essentially became a warrior princess in the movies?

    Did that not bother her sense of the films’ legitimacy?

  27. 27.

    El Cid

    September 16, 2010 at 5:42 pm

    Oh, Jeebus fucking cripes. Tingly leg Matthews on Hardballed just asked on the question of letting $250K+ tax breaks elapse while keeping $250K- ‘hey, d’you think the hardworkin’ guy who comes up, does well, making $100K, you think he’s lookin’ at the guy paying $250K as the rich guy he wants to go after, wants punished? You know a Madam DeFarge type thing?’

  28. 28.

    Zifnab

    September 16, 2010 at 5:43 pm

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent): Well, that was going towards providing greater quality of service (see the perks: Gym membership, aspirin and band-aids, etc). But it still raising the issue that if Medicare actually wanted to offer these perks themselves, it would cost the administration 14 cents on every HMO dollar.

  29. 29.

    El Cid

    September 16, 2010 at 5:43 pm

    Tingly leg: ‘I think the Democrats ought to run the country and not blame the other guys.’

  30. 30.

    TooManyJens

    September 16, 2010 at 5:48 pm

    @Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: She noticed, and she didn’t like that part. She thought it detracted from Arwen’s strong “woman behind the man” role, or something like that.

  31. 31.

    Roger Moore

    September 16, 2010 at 5:51 pm

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent):
    That’s assuming that the 14% that they’re spending is actually going toward regular services. I practice, it sounds as if it was going to bribes extra services to get people to switch.

    @Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:

    Did she not notice that Arwen essentially became a warrior princess in the movies?

    That was one change I approved of. The problem with movie versions of books is that the movie usually has to abridge the book in some way to fit time constraints. Replacing Glorfindel with Arwen managed to reduce the excess of minor characters to keep track of while simultaneously giving more time to a more important character who was given a short shrift in the book. That’s especially important because Tolkien’s under-writing of Arwen made Aragorn look like a jerk for the way he treated Eowyn. So the “Arwen, Warrior Princess” bit managed to strengthen the movie in a couple of ways; it seems like a good result for a minor infidelity to the original.

  32. 32.

    cat48

    September 16, 2010 at 5:51 pm

    Seniors love free stuff/O should have included free aspirin, etc. w/the HC change and they would have liked HC!

    OT: Sen Gregg tells the Hill that he doesn’t want Warren at CPFB because she “will promote social justice.” Beck really started something w/his hammering “social justice.”

  33. 33.

    mcd410x

    September 16, 2010 at 5:54 pm

    Sullivan found this video over at Reason illustrating the Delaware election. And it’s actually funny.

  34. 34.

    Mary G

    September 16, 2010 at 5:55 pm

    The Republicans are running ads in California over the scary music from “The Exorcist” all about how Barbara Boxer wants to take away our Medicare and voted to cut half a billion dollars, etc., etc., call her and tell her to knock it off. Makes me want to gag.

    This is going to be very effective, I’m afraid to say. Many, many older people of limited means sign up for stuff like Secure Horizons and other Medicare Advantage plans. They get extra benefits included, like vision care and drugs, that cost a lot of money to buy separately. In return, of course, much like an HMO, you have to wait weeks to get an MRI approved or the OK to see a specialist, are limited in how many days you can stay in the hospital, can’t get some brand-name prescriptions, and so on.

    They tend to feel it’s well worth it. The specter of having all the extras taken away is what’s fueling a lot of the “Hands Off My Medicare” tea party fervor. Not all old white people are in it to be bigots. They have a logical self-interest in continuing the status quo. I think the Democrats need to address this.

  35. 35.

    mcd410x

    September 16, 2010 at 5:55 pm

    @El Cid: We will bankrupt the country because media type can’t do math.

    You can book it.

  36. 36.

    slag

    September 16, 2010 at 5:56 pm

    @Kay:

    I think he has to run an ad denouncing the US Chamber of Commerce, and their advocacy of reckless spending.

    Awesome. The ad could star Sarah Bridge-to-Nowhere Palin.

  37. 37.

    General Stuck

    September 16, 2010 at 6:01 pm

    OT

    I really thing this is a seminal event in our politics, it’s Appomattox in reverse for the GOP. A passing of the dildo, so to speak, to the new guard and pure grade wingnut.

    Oh hath the mighty fallen.

    Warning – Blog whore alert

  38. 38.

    Tonal Crow

    September 16, 2010 at 6:04 pm

    @General Stuck: Why isn’t she condemning Tolkien for promoting spiritism or Satanism or whatever wingnuts call cultural attitudes with which they disagree?

  39. 39.

    MikeB

    September 16, 2010 at 6:25 pm

    Oh yeah, Mary G, the advantage plans have lots of nice little (inexpensive) perks,
    but when you need serious medical attention, the old HMO cost cutting
    measures kick in and you find yourself on the phone talking to some low level
    office drone about how to get grandma into the hospital or the specialist’s
    office.

    I had this experience with my elderly mother in law several years ago,
    when she suddenly needed surgery. I could not get approval for
    anything for weeks. Since the plans use their own doctors, she did
    not have a personal GP.

    My doctor refused to see her until she went back on regular Medicare,
    saying he didn’t want the advantage “plan” telling him how to treat his
    patients.

    A couple days later, we canceled the advantage plan, my doctor fixed her and all is well,
    but beware the 14%.

  40. 40.

    Triassic Sands

    September 16, 2010 at 9:00 pm

    …it’s the same old product.”

    In a sense it’s an even worse product. While there are virtually no good Republicans left in public office, there are worse, worser, worserer, and worserest [sic] Republicans. No one who assumes the mantel of Tea Bagger is going to come from anything but the worst possible category.

    Imagine the difference between a Republican led Senate made up of 67 Olympia Snows, Scott Browns, etc. (the etc. is almost as long as the potential list — let’s see there’s Collins, and maybe Lugar…) and 67 Inhofes, DeMints, Rand Pauls, and Sharron Angles (not to mention O’Donnells).

    In the first instance, we’d live in a Republican hell-hole, but the latter would probably mean internment camps, abortion would be a felony punishable by death, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid would be history, education would be privatized, the prison industry would be the largest sector of the economy…it’s too horrible to contemplate. With 67, the Republicans could begin to rewrite the Constitution and I think we have a pretty good idea of what that would look like. America’s borders would be overrun with immigrants — trying to get out. Just imagining such a scenario has made me physically ill…

  41. 41.

    Church Lady

    September 16, 2010 at 10:02 pm

    @MikeB: I don’t have any idea what Medicare Advantage plan your mother was under, but it is nothing like the one my Mom uses. Her plan, Secure Horizons, has never given her any problems. She’s had two knee replacements under it and my father went through two years of dealing with three different types of cancer under that plan. They even covered his hospice care at 100%. Obviously, some of the plans are better than others and I’m sure their monthly premiums reflect that difference. My parents paid extra for the plan they chose, and Mom has been quite happy with it. When the Advantage plans are phased out, she will be really pissed, because her present internist (for the last 15 years) does not take traditional Medicare patients.

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

Recent Comments

  • The Lodger on Monday Evening Open Thread: Back Into the Workday World (May 30, 2023 @ 12:54am)
  • Avalie on Monday Evening Open Thread: Back Into the Workday World (May 30, 2023 @ 12:38am)
  • YY_Sima Qian on War for Ukraine Day 450: Ukrainian Air Defense! (May 30, 2023 @ 12:38am)
  • thalarctosMaritimus on Monday Evening Open Thread: Back Into the Workday World (May 30, 2023 @ 12:29am)
  • kindness on Monday Evening Open Thread: Back Into the Workday World (May 30, 2023 @ 12:27am)

Balloon Juice Meetups!

All Meetups
Seattle Meetup on Sat 5/13 at 5pm!

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Fundraising 2023-24

Wis*Dems Supreme Court + SD-8

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
We All Need A Little Kindness
Classified Documents: A Primer
State & Local Elections Discussion

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Mailing List Signup
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)

Twitter / Spoutible

Balloon Juice (Spoutible)
WaterGirl (Spoutible)
TaMara (Spoutible)
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
TaMara
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
ActualCitizensUnited

Join the Fight!

Join the Fight Signup Form
All Join the Fight Posts

Balloon Juice Events

5/14  The Apocalypse
5/20  Home Away from Home
5/29  We’re Back, Baby
7/21  Merging!

Balloon Juice for Ukraine

Donate

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2023 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!