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You are here: Home / Politics / Republican Stupidity / Political Suicide

Political Suicide

by @heymistermix.com|  April 5, 20117:58 am| 97 Comments

This post is in: Republican Stupidity

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This is the key part of the Medicare story Kay linked to yesterday:

Mr. Ryan’s proposal would apply to those currently under the age of 55, and for those Americans would convert Medicare into a “premium support” system. Participants from that group would choose from an array of private insurance plans when they reach 65 and become eligible, and the government would pay about the first $15,000 in premiums. Those who are poorer or less healthy would receive bigger payments than others.

People who are insulated from the realities of buying their own insurance probably think that $15K is a lot of money, but I’d bet no insurance company would be willing to underwrite a policy similar to Medicare for $15K today, much less a decade from now. And how does the government determine who’s “less healthy”? Perhaps there’s a panel somewhere that’s going to make that decision.

This makes Social Security privatization, which is part of the reason Republicans lost the House in 2006, look like a very modest proposal. The ads write themselves, and for once they’re aimed at the under-55 crowd that’s more likely to vote for Democrats.

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97Comments

  1. 1.

    stuckinred

    April 5, 2011 at 7:59 am

    Mika is just stary-eyed after sucking Ryan off just now.

  2. 2.

    Valdivia

    April 5, 2011 at 8:00 am

    But David Brooks tells us this is a news new standard of seriousness!!!
    Fuck him and Ryan with s rusty pitchfork.

  3. 3.

    Yevgraf (fka Michael)

    April 5, 2011 at 8:04 am

    Adding in the middle layer of profit will induce new efficiencies into the system, obviously, because white corporatists in nice suits have all this white christianist integrity, and will never overreach to enrich themselves at the expense of others.

    Trust them. They never lie.

  4. 4.

    roshan

    April 5, 2011 at 8:11 am

    I’m pretty sure many from the ruling class democrats are going to sign up for this, not so sure about the ordinary folks. The script for this Ryan budget has been written sometime back and it seems that there are quite a few converts on the democratic side who have come to agree with him. Having the media accept right wing positions as default and normal does the most damage in this type of situation coz no one in the MSM will question the viability of the Ryan GOP budget.

  5. 5.

    dslak

    April 5, 2011 at 8:12 am

    @Yevgraf (fka Michael): You have no faith in the essential decency of the white man’s culture.

  6. 6.

    Valdivia

    April 5, 2011 at 8:13 am

    I think this will play as well as the social security privatization scheme, no matter how hard the media pimps it.

  7. 7.

    Lee

    April 5, 2011 at 8:13 am

    I guess some people don’t remember why Medicare was created.

    It was because no one wanted to insure people 65+. No matter how much you charge as an insurance company it is going to be a losing game.

    Do Republican’s think it is going to be any different now?

    Has a single insurance company come forward with “this will be the cost of private ‘Medicare’ like converage?

  8. 8.

    Pancake

    April 5, 2011 at 8:15 am

    I wouldn’t be so sure of those conclusions. Some folk are just getting tired of subsidizing lazy shits, perhaps including you. As the former Governor Lamm of Colorado once put it: “Some people owe it to society to just die and stop being a burden.” And he was a Democrat!

  9. 9.

    gypsy howell

    April 5, 2011 at 8:19 am

    I can’t wait for the democrats’ compromise plan – $16,000 vouchers, and not a penny less!

    We are sooooooooo fucked.

  10. 10.

    gypsy howell

    April 5, 2011 at 8:22 am

    @Lee:

    Do Republican’s think it is going to be any different now?

    Uhhh… republicans know, they just don’t CARE. If you keep that in mind, everything they do makes more sense.

  11. 11.

    Lee

    April 5, 2011 at 8:25 am

    @gypsy howell:

    Uhhh… republicans know, they just don’t CARE. If you keep that in mind, everything they do makes more sense.

    I had a momentary lapse of thinking the Republicans might actually give shit about anyone but their billionaire sugar daddies.

    I’ll try not to let it happen again.

  12. 12.

    pablo

    April 5, 2011 at 8:26 am

    Oldsters have nothing to worry about….unless they do!

  13. 13.

    kay

    April 5, 2011 at 8:26 am

    @Lee:

    I guess some people don’t remember why Medicare was created.It was because no one wanted to insure people 65+. No matter how much you charge as an insurance company it is going to be a losing game.

    It’s not just that. Add the heaviest health care users to the private insurance pool(s) and what happens to the premium costs for the rest of the population?

    They’re just going to spread the cost over the whole spectrum, which means younger people get hit twice: they lose the guaranteed coverage when they’re 65 and they pay higher premiums each year to mitigate premiums for those over 65.
    I just don’t think you can add a huge number of “high risk” people who have never been in the current market without huge effects on lower risk people.
    The only reason the private system is creaking along now is the highest risk people aren’t in it.
    The plan doesn’t make any sense.

  14. 14.

    cleek

    April 5, 2011 at 8:27 am

    this won’t hurt the GOP unless the Dems want it to. if the Dems go along with it (as many will) or refuse to attack the GOP over it (as many will), the GOP will come out of this looking (to the media) as the serious, grown-up, fiscally-responsible party.

  15. 15.

    WereBear

    April 5, 2011 at 8:28 am

    After the peak oil thread, I’m more convinced than ever; the rich are simply sucking all the money out of the country, then setting up in Dubai.

    Republican plans make even more sense when you look at them that way.

  16. 16.

    Yevgraf (fka Michael)

    April 5, 2011 at 8:29 am

    @dslak:

    You have no faith in the essential decency of the white man’s culture.

    That’s because I hate America, Sweet Baby Jesus© and the troops. Oh, and I want the terrorists to win, with the worldwide caliphate to be run by Osama Bin Laden through his KenyanMarxistAtheistMuslim puppet Obama.

  17. 17.

    kay

    April 5, 2011 at 8:35 am

    @Lee:

    It gets worse. They also cut massively from Medicaid. Medicaid subsidizes Medicare. They’re linked. Dual eligibles, people who qualify for both Medicare and Medicaid comprise almost half of Medicaid spending, and they’re 15% of the Medicaid population. They’re disabled people and the very sick elderly who have either “spent down” assets on health care or never had assets to begin with. Do they go into the private pools too?

  18. 18.

    JAHILL10

    April 5, 2011 at 8:36 am

    Call me a cock-eyed optimist, but I don’t think there is enough blackKenyanMoozlim hate in the whole world that would make people think that privatizing Medicare was a peacHy keen idea, no matter what Bobo says. As usual, the Repubs are delusional. I am waiting for them to shut down the government this week and hit that same brick wall they hit so hard back in ’95 that they apparently don’t remember it.

  19. 19.

    cleek

    April 5, 2011 at 8:39 am

    @JAHILL10:

    I am waiting for them to shut down the government this week and hit that same brick wall they hit so hard back in ‘95 that they apparently don’t remember it.

    NPR just assured me that it will be different this time. the percentage of people who say any imminent shutdown is the GOP’s fault is, right now, only 3% higher than then number who say it’s the Dems’ fault.

    the Dems are losing the PR battle on this. they’d better step their shit up.

  20. 20.

    Fargus

    April 5, 2011 at 8:39 am

    @kay: This. A thousand times this. It’s just simple fucking math.

  21. 21.

    CA Doc

    April 5, 2011 at 8:40 am

    I’m hoping and agitating for a strong negative response from organized medicine to this POS proposal. It essentially doubles down on the already embarrassing and inexcusable injustice in our healthcare system. It’s like shifting the car into reverse while the rest of the world keeps it in drive. It’s insane that we are even having this conversation as a society.

  22. 22.

    Valdivia

    April 5, 2011 at 8:40 am

    Also this has to go to the CBO for a score and it will show just how fucked it is and how it doesn’t sasve the way Ryan says, I’m glad he went for it because this will be his undoing.

  23. 23.

    Comrade Javamanphil

    April 5, 2011 at 8:41 am

    @cleek:

    the Dems are losing the PR battle on this. they’d better step their shit up.

    The only person representing the Dems that should be on my TV discussing this is Bernie.

  24. 24.

    JAHILL10

    April 5, 2011 at 8:43 am

    @cleek: Que the optics of Obama meeting with Boehner today to avert a shutdown. No way the gentleman from Ooopah-Loompah comes out of that looking good unless it is with a deal to keep government open.

  25. 25.

    kay

    April 5, 2011 at 8:45 am

    @Pancake:

    Some folk are just getting tired of subsidizing lazy shits, perhaps including you.

    It’s just a different payment mechanism, a less honest subsidy. It doesn’t do anything to lower the cost of health care. Costs don’t disappear. It just shifts the heaviest user burden from government to the whole pool of premium payers.
    It’s magical thinking.

  26. 26.

    Valdivia

    April 5, 2011 at 8:45 am

    @JAHILL10:
    Agreed.

  27. 27.

    Observer

    April 5, 2011 at 8:47 am

    The ads write themselves…

    There’s a humungously ginormously massive assumption being made here that’s likely to be proven false or at least less true than expected.

  28. 28.

    Fargus

    April 5, 2011 at 8:48 am

    @kay: In addition, it increases the overhead costs of insurance for the elderly, and it takes away the massive bargaining advantage that a program as big as Medicare has. All of this on top of the previously noted point, whereby taking on the elderly will result in insurers raising premiums for everybody.

  29. 29.

    BudP

    April 5, 2011 at 8:49 am

    The ads write themselves, and for once they’re aimed at the under-55 crowd that’s more likely to vote for Democrats

    If Dems were smart, they’d aim the ads at current medicare recipients. E.G. “Death Panel! Death Panel! Death Panel! The republican party is coming after your Medicare. They want to abolish the program!” Let the republicans spend the next election cycle explaining the nuances.

  30. 30.

    robertdsc-PowerBook

    April 5, 2011 at 8:49 am

    It would be nice to see the President reject this out of hand in its entiretly. In no uncertain terms, just say no.

  31. 31.

    Napoleon

    April 5, 2011 at 8:51 am

    @kay:

    Kay,

    OT and I don’t have a link for this (but I would guess you could find it in the Cleveland PD) since I saw it on local Cleveland news but the Amish here in north east Ohio are pissed at the Republican’s voter fraud/disenfranchisement plan since it requires photo IDs and the Amish are not allowed to be photographed. Allegedly mega winger state Sen. Tim Grendell (both my and their state Senator) is promising to come up with some kind of solution.

  32. 32.

    cleek

    April 5, 2011 at 8:51 am

    @BudP:
    yes, x1000

  33. 33.

    Georgia Pig

    April 5, 2011 at 8:54 am

    @kay: And creates a massive new revenue stream for private insurers. This is what all these guys are about, from Scott Walker hiring a twenty-something college dropout with two DUIs to school vouchers to Paul Ryan’s “courageous” budget cutting. There is no cost cutting. It’s smoke and mirrors, the creation of captive revenue streams that enrich Republican cronies. The problem is that even progressive democrats get caught up in this meme. Nothing is being cut — it’s being diverted. Having to pay higher insurance rates in this context is simply private taxation. The next victim will be Social Security, which will be a giant cash funnel to Wall Street.

  34. 34.

    The Political Nihilist Formerly Known as Kryptik

    April 5, 2011 at 8:54 am

    @JAHILL10:

    There might not be enough Black Kenyan Mooslim hate, but there sure as hell is enough Dirty Fucking Hippie Scum hate. And I’m sure enough Dems in the leadership will either jump all-in on the Hippie Punching or enable it by continued jelly-spined wimpiness. And the public will eat it up because hey, PUBLIC BAD, PRIVATE GOOD! LIBZ BAD! CONSERVATIVE GOOD!!

    Hell, the fact that the Dems are a hair away from actually losing on the shutdown, something that should be pretty fucking impossible, shows how fucking stacked it is.

  35. 35.

    Napoleon

    April 5, 2011 at 8:57 am

    @Napoleon:

    Link

    http://www.wkyc.com/news/story.aspx?storyid=184021

  36. 36.

    kay

    April 5, 2011 at 8:58 am

    @Fargus:

    We’ll see. Ryan has been promoted by media as The Serious Conservative, and I haven’t seen anything to base that on, other than the fans he has among the “public intellectuals” like Sullivan and Brooks.

    Neither Sullivan nor Brooks know jack shit about health care, or really anything else specific or policy based that they expound on, so I think we should wait until someone who knows what they’re talking about takes a look at Ryan’s plan, before really getting het up.

    There are lots and lots of health care experts who have been grappling with this, real-world, for 30 years. Health care is one area where Ryan won’t get a pass.

  37. 37.

    singfoom

    April 5, 2011 at 8:59 am

    I don’t get it. Isn’t this just Medicare Advantage Redux, which cost 14% more than Medicare? Paul Ryan, big idea guy…

    I don’t get it. How is it courageous to suggest a plan that has been tried before and cost more than normal Medicare?

    WE HAVE TO SAVE THIS TOWN BY BURNING IT DOWN!

    WP Article from 2009 About MA

  38. 38.

    The Political Nihilist Formerly Known as Kryptik

    April 5, 2011 at 9:01 am

    @kay:

    Neither Sullivan nor Brooks know jack shit about health care, or really anything else specific or policy based that they expound on, so I think we should wait until someone who knows what they’re talking about takes a look at Ryan’s plan, before really getting het up.
    __
    There are lots and lots of health care experts who have been grappling with this, real-world, for 30 years. Health care is one area where Ryan won’t get a pass.

    I wish I had your faith, Kay, but I think the fact that Sully and Brooks don’t know jack shit about health care is a feature, not a bug. The less you know about something these days, the more people are willing to believe you have unique expertise about it. Look at fucking Climate Change and Economic Policy. The know-nothings are the ones calling the shots on it here, and by fucking far.

    @singfoom:

    The same way it’s courageous and fiscally responsible to continue pushing Trickle Down Economics at the expense of everything else. It’s courageous because it’s ‘serious’, damned the results.

  39. 39.

    OzoneR

    April 5, 2011 at 9:03 am

    The thing about senior citizens is that any white person can rob them, beat him up and rape in the ass and they’ll always blame a black guy.

    And look, oh hey, a black guy just so happens to be running the government.

  40. 40.

    kay

    April 5, 2011 at 9:03 am

    @Georgia Pig:

    And creates a massive new revenue stream for private insurers.

    We probably disagree about this creating a massive new revenue stream for insurers.
    My point is that premiums won’t cover costs,so they’ll simply shift the cost of the heaviest users to the lightest users.
    During the health care debate, insurers were in favor of Medicare at 55, if it went along with the mandate.
    You can see why they would be. They’d off-load the most expensive customers while retaining all the healthiest.

  41. 41.

    Fargus

    April 5, 2011 at 9:05 am

    @kay: Maybe. I’d like to hope, in a perfect world, this would be the case. But remember that health care is an area where “death panels” were taken extremely seriously, if not by those who knew what they were talking about, then by those who screamed loudly enough to drown everybody out.

    How many people read Brooks’ column? Probably not many, but it’s certainly more than would read, for instance, a Kaiser analysis of the Ryan bill’s effects.

  42. 42.

    kay

    April 5, 2011 at 9:08 am

    @The Political Nihilist Formerly Known as Kryptik:

    Then you”l laugh at my latest naive theory. I think pundits are going to have to add value in the future. They’re going to have to know something specific, instead of just parroting and opining broadly.
    I don’t think people are going to continue to pay for uninformed opinion, no matter how fabulously it’s presented, because people can look at source documents and such themselves.
    Ezra Klein will continue to get paid, because he adds value. He works. He reads reams and analyzes, so we don’t have to. Look at his columns. He links (mostly) to original sources, statutes, government docs, etc. He’s doing some work for us.

  43. 43.

    Punchy

    April 5, 2011 at 9:13 am

    the Dems are losing the PR battle on this. they’d better step their shit up.

    You act as if there’s a substantial population who will be swayed by such PR. Republicans will blame Dems, Dems will blame Republicans, Indys will blame both. Nobody’s influenced by a commercial or MTP interview. This country is permenantly polarized, and it aint reversing.

  44. 44.

    cleek

    April 5, 2011 at 9:15 am

    @kay:

    I don’t think people are going to continue to pay for uninformed opinion, no matter how fabulously it’s presented, because people can look at source documents and such themselves.

    people don’t want to be informed. they want to be:
    1) entertained
    2) assured that they’re already correct
    3) on the winning side when it all comes down

    we are not a nation of diligent scholars. we’re a nation of armchair quarterbacks and backseat drivers.

  45. 45.

    cleek

    April 5, 2011 at 9:15 am

    @Punchy:

    This country is permenantly polarized

    if that was true, election results would be the same every year.

  46. 46.

    cathyx

    April 5, 2011 at 9:16 am

    @Punchy: The only way people will be swayed to change their position is when they suffer from the consequences. More and more people will suffer from the consequences as time goes on. Then things will change.

  47. 47.

    kay

    April 5, 2011 at 9:19 am

    @The Political Nihilist Formerly Known as Kryptik:

    And, just to extend and buttress my crack pot theory of the imminent decline and fall of broad (paid) punditry, on the political side (as opposed to policy side), I give you Nate Silver (adds value) compared with Chuck Todd (adds no real or unique value).
    So, I’d say an Ezra Klein (type) on policy and a Nate Silver (type) on politics continue to get paid, and people are less and less inclined to pay for Brooks and Todd.

  48. 48.

    singfoom

    April 5, 2011 at 9:22 am

    There’s a serious discussion to be had about Health Care costs and managing the cost curve in the years ahead. From the evidence, I think I can say that those costs are the biggest drivers on our national debt.

    However, I think is is incumbent upon us as a nation to treat our seniors with respect and allow them to get the medical care they need without it bankrupting them.

    I do not understand the desire to profit off of selling medical insurance. Scratch that, I understand the desire, I don’t understand why we can’t take the profit motive out of it. Doctors are highly trained specialists and given the amount of time and money it requires to train them, I think they deserve relatively high salaries.

    On the other hand, Medical Insurance is unlike other goods you find in the economy. You can go without it, but if you need it and don’t have it, you’re SOL.

    Doctors and other health providers provide a service. Health care insurers only provide overhead and complications.

    Make all health insurance companies non-profits, or create a new model that allows a certain % of profit while keeping the profit motive a distant second from providing people with the policies to get the care they need.

    It’s all just bad incentives. Greed is the order of the day.

    I’m fine with people profiting off the delivery of health care, but seriously, can anyone tell me the service the insurers actually offer?

    Other than an offer you can’t refuse (or go bankrupt?)?

  49. 49.

    eemom

    April 5, 2011 at 9:22 am

    Didn’t know quite what to make of this, but I thought it was interesting. Michael Gerson thinks Obama has beaten the republicans at eleventy-dimensional chess.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/on-the-budget-obama-has-republicans-cornered/2011/04/04/AFbin9eC_story.html

    or, maybe he’s just playing his own version of eleventy-dimensional chess for WaPo hacks….

  50. 50.

    arguingwithsignposts

    April 5, 2011 at 9:22 am

    @kay:
    I think we’ll need to see who the NYT hires to replace Bob Herbert to see how your theory is doing.

  51. 51.

    singfoom

    April 5, 2011 at 9:23 am

    Moderation? Booo… hiss. I wonder what tripped it.

  52. 52.

    Gin & Tonic

    April 5, 2011 at 9:23 am

    Sorta health-care related: amusing story in the NYT about a guy who sells individual cigarettes (“loosies”) on the street in NYC. It’s individual initiative reacting to absurdly high taxes on packs of smokes, thanks to Bloomberg (leaving aside the fact that his supply is cartons smuggled in from NC and VA), but let’s leave that talking point aside. He clears $120-150/day, and I’ll assume he may be less than fastidious about reporting this to the IRS. But at that income level now, he’s thinking about buying health insurance. Currently his plan is that every time he’s arrested (which is often, as what he’s doing is a misdemeanor) and goes to Riker’s, he gets a full checkup, bloodwork, etc.

  53. 53.

    kay

    April 5, 2011 at 9:25 am

    @cleek:

    Well, that may be true, but after all the bullshit, people do need actual, reliable information.
    I get very specific questions about the PPACA, from all sorts of people who wander through this office. Need has a way of narrowing attention. Partisanship is a bit of a luxury that many people can’t afford, or simply aren’t interested in, because they’re living their lives.

  54. 54.

    kay

    April 5, 2011 at 9:27 am

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    Absolutely. My attention wanders, so let me know if it’s playing out.

    I have MANY theories.

    This is just one :)

  55. 55.

    Just a wonk

    April 5, 2011 at 9:43 am

    People like Ryan don’t realize the degree to which the private insurance industry relies on Medicare to set standards for levels of payment and coverage. Many private insurance contracts with hospitals and doctors are expressed in terms of a percentage of the standard, public Medicare payment. And Medicare coverage decisions about new technologies drive the proliferation of those technologies.

    Private insurance plans, which operate differently state by state according to our system of insurance regulations, do not have the market power to do this on their own.

    However, if such a policy were put into effect I could see it driving a wave of insurance consolidations till we end up with just a couple big firms, like the cell phone industry.

  56. 56.

    rickstersherpa

    April 5, 2011 at 9:43 am

    I would like to make a few points that I don’t see mentioned in the laudatory coverage that the Ryan proposal is getting in the Village (all about his “courage” in proposing something the right wing noise machine will love and applaud).

    1. The Ryan proposal to end Medicare would be an immense diversion of tax payer funds to for profit institutions, the private insurance companies, and the CEOs and princiapal officers of these companies (and to a lesser extent, the shareholders, as to how lesser an extent you can ask the shareholders of AIG). Funny how that never gets mentioned in the media’s “straight” stories (see today’s NY Times today).

    2. As Ryan does not touch the monopolistic, rent-seeking, and craft guild features of the American medical system, it does little to control costs. Drug companies will still have the ability to charge immensely expensive prices for medicines still under patent and the incentive to market these drugs “off-lablel.” Americans would not have the ability to take their vouchers and buy into foriegn medical systems. There will be no evaluation of treatments for effectiveness. Being monopolists they can charge immense prices for a smaller customer base. So if anything costs will increase and resort to the emergency room will be the treatment option for the majority of Americans, young, middle age, and old.

    3. The proposal is also especially gruesome for those younger than 55. This is put across as fairness, but it is in effect the exact opposite. Those younger than 55 (and my how lucky ducky you who are 48-54 must feel right now) will be expected to still pay medicare and social security taxes cover those in the program now and 55 and over. At the same time they will be expected, if they are properly virtuous and prudent, to start saving for their own medical care and retirement. So please tell me how exactly is this fair? Or how long it would be politically sustainable when it comes time to finance the next tax cut for Galtian overlords and some fun littlw war. (By the way, I am an old fart so I am part of the group that the Republicans are trying to sucker with this “grandfather” scam). The joke of course is that this is being done to “save” our children (specifically, Pete Petersen’s kids and grand-kids and the other youngsters whose families reside in the upper 1% percent).

    3. Finally, about “means-testing.” In the Conservative “Reformist” wing, means testing needs to be has humiliating and “mean” as possible so as to “encourage” savings and hard work, and discourage “dependency.” Anyone who asks for these benefits will presumed to be a crook. And because of the incentives, it will pose a tremendous incentive to every day people to cheat and hide wealth an income, and hence to commit fraud (gee, if I get caught and I am 70, they throw me in jail for the rest of my life where I get FREE MEDICAL care).

    For the vision of the hierarchial-oligarchial America in the Tea Party/Republican/Conservative Movement future, you can read the following if you can endure it.

    http://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/beyond-the-welfare-state

  57. 57.

    Cacti

    April 5, 2011 at 9:44 am

    I don’t know how many people realize that Medicaid not Medicare covers Nursing Home care.

    They’ll be finding out when Grandma moves into the spare bedroom.

  58. 58.

    MarkJ

    April 5, 2011 at 9:45 am

    What pisses me off the most as a 41 year old is that I’ve been paying into the social security and medicare system for half my working life. If Ryan’s plan goes through, all that money will be paid in vain – I won’t get benefits commensurate with it.

    Basically my money will have gone to make current retirees, and those close to retirement, very comfortable. When it’s my turn it will be “take your chances on the free market, chump”. Apparetly they want to start a generational war now that they’ve won the class war.

  59. 59.

    Joey Maloney

    April 5, 2011 at 9:55 am

    @kay:

    We’ll see. Ryan has been promoted by media as The Serious Conservative, and I haven’t seen anything to base that on, other than the fans he has among the “public intellectuals” like Sullivan and Brooks.

    He’s got a real purty mouth. In a media world where Gretchen Carlson and Steve Douchey are credible broadcasters, that’s all you need.

  60. 60.

    johnsmith1882

    April 5, 2011 at 9:56 am

    I wish I had your optimism, mistermix. But I think the Dems are too big of pussies, too much in the pocket of big business themselves to stand up to the GOP not only on a slam-dunk like this, but with anything. There will be some “grand compromise”, but like Driftglass says, the only compromise between sanity and bullshit crazy, is bullshit crazy.

  61. 61.

    JPL

    April 5, 2011 at 9:57 am

    @MarkJ: The taxes you are paying for medicare/social security are being used to cut taxes for the rich. It’s a bait and switch program.

  62. 62.

    Joey Maloney

    April 5, 2011 at 10:02 am

    @cleek: If that was true, election results would be the same every year.

    They pretty much are. I don’t mean that in a Obama-is-the-same-as-Bush-he-sold-us-out way. I mean that one, look at how close most big elections are. 60-40 is a fucking landslide. There’s really only a few percentage points ever up for grabs. And two, the political spectrum in this country runs the gamut from A to B. The differences are real, but when you look at the spectrum of possibilities they’re not that large.

  63. 63.

    johnsmith1882

    April 5, 2011 at 10:09 am

    @Joey Maloney:
    I agree with your point, not with your defining of the political spectrum. Let’s say, using your A and B, that the GOP is A, the Dems are B. That makes far right, and center-right. What about center-left, and far left? I’m over here in what would be D, liberal country. There’s no representation for liberals, barely any for C. A quibbling point, I know, but it needs to be made, considering how far the “spectrum” of choices has moved to the right in just the past ten years.

  64. 64.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    April 5, 2011 at 10:11 am

    @CA Doc: “It’s like shifting the car into reverse while the rest of the world keeps it in drive.”

    Our political parties are like an automatic transmission; put it in R and the country goes backward, put it in D and it goes forward. Problem is that our transmission is leaking internally. Pressurized fluid is leaking from the D circuit and into the R circuit, causing it to drag down to the point where it’s about to lock up on us.

  65. 65.

    Chris

    April 5, 2011 at 10:14 am

    @Joey Maloney:

    There’s really only a few percentage points ever up for grabs.

    This. A few swing voters go back and forth between the two parties, drawn to whoever can pull them in with the most soothing tones and shiny colors, then recoiling in horror when they realize their vote has consequences.

    But other than that, each candidate can count on at minimum 45% of the electorate.

  66. 66.

    kay

    April 5, 2011 at 10:25 am

    @Napoleon:

    OT and I don’t have a link for this (but I would guess you could find it in the Cleveland PD) since I saw it on local Cleveland news but the Amish here in north east Ohio are pissed at the Republican’s voter fraud/disenfranchisement plan since it requires photo IDs and the Amish are not allowed to be photographed.

    Sure he’ll “fix” it. They’ll make a religious exception, to add to the mass confusion they like to create around elections, and poll workers won’t know what to do.
    What are they going to do? Hand out an “Amish” card? Mark the poll book with a buggy next to their names?
    Not the sharpest knives in the drawer, those Republicans.
    I don’t think the law survives a court challenge, I think they know the law doesn’t survive a court challenge, and they drafted it simply to cause confusion and suppress voting.

  67. 67.

    bob h

    April 5, 2011 at 10:39 am

    As a senior myself with a chronically sick wife also on Medicare, I can tell you that this fine, user-friendly, no-hassles program is one of the things that makes being old more tolerable. That you would inflict on any senior the necessity to get referrals, to argue with insurance companies about denied coverage, to confront lifetime limits and other corporatized bullshit is simply unbelievable.

  68. 68.

    Judas Escargot

    April 5, 2011 at 10:41 am

    @Yevgraf (fka Michael):

    Adding in the middle layer of profit will induce new efficiencies into the system

    This. Both true and beautifully succinct. We need more soundbites to drill into the rubes’ heads, and this is one of them.

    This got touched upon in the thread on garbage collection a few months back, but with all its middlemen and shareholders to feed, the private sector can never, never beat the potential cost savings of the public sector.

    This is simple mathematical fact.

  69. 69.

    PanAmerican

    April 5, 2011 at 10:41 am

    @cleek:

    All the GOP has to do is point at the black man in the White House.

    This current over 55 set, in the aggregate, has not and never will break Democratic. There is no political upside in trying to placate them. They’ll continue to believe whatever is necessary to maintain their worldview.

    Implement policies because they are the right thing to do. Don’t expect votes from the old fuckers that benefit.

  70. 70.

    les

    April 5, 2011 at 10:46 am

    @cleek:

    if that was true, election results would be the same every year.

    And they’re not? After a devastating two term clusterfuck of epic proportions, 52-48 is treated like an historic landslide? In any given congressional election, fewer than a quarter of the seats are seriously in play? And in many of those, the only reason they’re in play is one party triangulates so close to the other, you can’t tell the difference? And in the meantime, the oligarchy entrenches itself, even beyond third world levels of disparity?

    Government routinely ignores the policy preferences of a majority of the people–often enough, 2/3 to 3/4 majorities; and equally routinely gets returned to office. Oh, the country’s polarized alright, and not getting less so; it’s just not necessarily between Dems/Repubs.

  71. 71.

    jwest

    April 5, 2011 at 10:46 am

    @MarkJ:

    MarkJ,

    I know how you feel about paying in to a system and not getting the full benefit back when you expect it. However, we need to remember that when FDR put the Social Security system in place, life expectancy was only 63 or 65 years.

    Thirty years ago when Reagan wanted to privatize the system, democrats saw how this would hurt a core constituency, older white women. They successfully blocked the proposal so that we can retain the system in place today, which has poor black males pay into the system for 45 years and die early so that money that would have went to their families is available to pay SS benefits to rich white women in Miami.

    Had this privatization occurred, you can imagine how black families would have wasted the money they would have inherited. Of course, there would also be the effect that financial independence would bring – uppityness.

    So, you see it not just us that misses out on getting full value from our SS payments.

  72. 72.

    Georgia Pig

    April 5, 2011 at 10:55 am

    @kay: The additional revenue includes the coin they’ll get from cherry picking the over 65ers who can still afford the rates they’ll charge with the 15K subsidy. In addition, as you point out, they’ll be able to suck additional funds from the under 65 pool. The indigent elderly won’t be able to afford anything but junk insurance with the subsidy, or they’ll go uninsured. Impoverished urban and rural localities will have to deal with that, it’s no problem for the folks in affluent suburbs. It’s the best of all possible worlds if you’re an asshole. School vouchers are the same gig. You bait-and-switch the near-poor with a subsidy-based system that doesn’t really materially change (or even worsens) their position, you completely screw over the poor and you funnel cash directly from the tax collector to your campaign contributors. The common thread in all these schemes is privatizing public revenue streams and covering it with a smokescreen of free enterprise.

  73. 73.

    Svensker

    April 5, 2011 at 11:00 am

    @jwest:

    However, we need to remember that when FDR put the Social Security system in place, life expectancy was only 63 or 65 years.

    Hooey.

    More folks died from lack of antibiotics and incurable diseases, bringing down the “average” age of death, but plenty of folks lived into their 70s and 80s or beyond.

  74. 74.

    rikryah

    April 5, 2011 at 11:13 am

    ok, folks, it’s time to break it down like a fraction to these Senior Citizens and baby boomers who think Medicare is so far away…

    DO THEY have the money to pay for their healthcare?

    DO THEY think the insurance companies aren’t the real death panels?

    I’ve said my peace on Medicaid…all those folks who have Mom and Dad in the nursing home…hope you’re ready to pony up the money for it.

  75. 75.

    OzoneR

    April 5, 2011 at 11:18 am

    @PanAmerican:

    This current over 55 set, in the aggregate, has not and never will break Democratic.

    Pretty sure that over 55 group voted for Clinton in the 90s, but that was a different group.

  76. 76.

    Gin & Tonic

    April 5, 2011 at 11:22 am

    @Svensker: Unfortunately, not hooey.

  77. 77.

    agrippa

    April 5, 2011 at 11:29 am

    Those people do not appear to be thinking clearly. It looks like they are on a mission.
    They look like nihilists to me; they would destroy the country for the sake of spite.

  78. 78.

    Glen Tomkins

    April 5, 2011 at 11:31 am

    Medicare does all the heavy lifting.

    When you compare how much health insurance via Medicare costs, versus how much it costs to do it any other way in this country, you have to factor in the actual work of health care that the insurance plans we’re comparing actually pay for.

    Medicare does most of the work. People can get sick at any age, but the heavy preponderance of getting sick and generating medical claims occurs during that part of the lifespan covered by Medicare. No private plan competes with Medicare for this demographic.

    It’s a drop-dead certainty that no private plan could cover people in this age-range, even a subset of them selected to avoid adverse selection, for anywhere near $15k. This entire demographic is the most adversative slice of the population that exists. You can’t get good coverage as a 35yo in good health for $15k. You won’t get close to adequate coverage as even a healthy 65yo for $15k.

  79. 79.

    MarkJ

    April 5, 2011 at 11:39 am

    @jwest: My bottom line is that they should be proposing this system for everyone, including those currently on Medicare. If it’s such a good idea, why not apply it to the core Republican voting block? Surely when seniors see how good this all works out they’ll be even more likely to vote Republican. And if it doesn’t work out then Republicans can pay the political price in the near term.

  80. 80.

    Judas Escargot

    April 5, 2011 at 11:40 am

    @jwest:

    However, we need to remember that when FDR put the Social Security system in place, life expectancy was only 63 or 65 years.

    We also need to remember that they had also had actuaries back in 1935, who already knew that life expectancies were going up. They ran the numbers well into the 21st century and (impressively enough) weren’t all that far off.

    Lift the income cap, stop raiding the trust fund to cover tax cuts, and that pushes SS out to at least the 2080s.

  81. 81.

    jwest

    April 5, 2011 at 11:41 am

    The only way to solve the problems of Medicare is to switch to a full, government run single payer system for catastrophic illness.

    Naturally, this would be the worst system for normal health maintenance, so individual health care accounts (supplemented through subsidies based on income) should be used for non-catastrophic healthcare.

    Only the federal government has the immunity from liability and authority to implement the type of decisions that the Death Panel needs to make in order to make the system work.

  82. 82.

    Lawnguylander

    April 5, 2011 at 11:46 am

    @PanAmerican:

    Older people’s votes are not a winner take all proposition like a state’s electoral votes. There’s a hell of a lot of them that vote and you’d have to be an idiot not to try to sway some percentage of their vote if you’re running for office. Obama won the 50-64 vote by a percentage point. I bet Medicare and Social Security were on a lot of those voters’ minds.

    Anyway, I blame all of this on LBJ. Why didn’t he make it illegal for anyone to make negative changes to Medicare? Because he was a pussy and a pre-emptive capitulator, that’s why. (Insert something about fellatio and unlubed anal sex here) /savvierthaneveryoneelse

  83. 83.

    Glen Tomkins

    April 5, 2011 at 11:52 am

    @Gin & Tonic: You cite a table of life expectency at birth.

    There are two periods of life during which people do most of their dying: old age and early (6yo and below) childhood. This is still true today, despite antibiotics and childhood vaccinations, though recently the old age mortality peak is much greater than the childhood peak. But before those two modalities existed, the childhood peak rivaled, at some times and places even surpassed, the old age peak, in the sense that over half of children born would die before reaching age 6.

    The life expectency at birth is driven heavily by the childhood mortality peak. This is where we get the often quoted idea that an estimated life expectancy of 45 for most of mankind over most of history means that most people used to die in their 40s, and old people were rare through most of history. This is a quite false idea. What we have had for most of history is a massive die-off prior to age 6 making the life expectancy at birth average out at a bit more than half of the age the avg person would live to once he or she had survived those perilous first six years.

    Svensker is right. Life expectancy at, say, age 45 (roughly middle of working years) has only improved marginally since FDR’s time. It’s improved some, because, you’re right, we are more clever about cheating death by cancer and the metabolic and infectious diseases. But we only usually win a year or two when we win such battles, and the resulting gains are thus quite marginal. Save a one-year old, they go on to live another 70 years, and that exerts a huge lever arm on the life expectancy at birth. Save a 65yo, and mostly they’ll just die of something else in a year or two, and, at age 65, don’t exert much lever arm on the statistic anyway.

  84. 84.

    kay

    April 5, 2011 at 12:09 pm

    @Glen Tomkins:

    There are two periods of life during which people do most of their dying: old age and early (6yo and below) childhood. This is still true today, despite antibiotics and childhood vaccinations, though recently the old age mortality peak is much greater than the childhood peak. But before those two modalities existed, the childhood peak rivaled, at some times and places even surpassed, the old age peak, in the sense that over half of children born would die before reaching age 6.

    Oh, good for you. This is actually the second time this lie has made the rounds.
    Bush relied on it make his ridiculous argument that black people didn’t benefit from Social Security (remember that?)
    He repeated it at town halls, and media parroted it.

    It’s not true. It was never true. He (eventually) was shamed into dropping it. By the time (adult) people start paying into Social Security, all of those infant to teenage mortality risks are (of course) no longer a factor.

    I cannot even believe they’re rolling it out again.

  85. 85.

    elmo

    April 5, 2011 at 12:09 pm

    My disabled partner is on Medicaid because we can’t get married and put her on my insurance. She has several chronic conditions, none of which will kill her outright, but all of which make her completely uninsurable and would make her life miserable without access to treatment. And I do mean miserable — even with treatment she’s in constant pain.

    I am blind fucking terrified right now, I won’t lie.

  86. 86.

    Gin & Tonic

    April 5, 2011 at 12:09 pm

    @Glen Tomkins: Yeah, I know that.

    I used the word “unfortunately” because this allows for the cheap sound bite, a la jwest, that implies people would pay in and die just before collecting. That wasn’t and isn’t the case (as I said I know, and as is pointed out very nicely by the SSA itself.) But as the saying goes, “if you’re explaining, you’re losing,” and having to write 3-4 paragraphs to say that life expectancy for a 65-year-old has increased only by five years in the last 60 puts you behind the eight-ball.

  87. 87.

    Glen Tomkins

    April 5, 2011 at 12:49 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: Well, or you could just cite the relevant statistic, which is life expectancy at age 65. Let the people who cite life expectancy at birth then do the explaining.

  88. 88.

    jcricket

    April 5, 2011 at 12:50 pm

    I’m so fucking mad I don’t even know what to do. Ryan’s budget is a load of shit. The revenue projections are ridiculously rosy, his assumptions about the impacts of cutting ACA are totally bogus (it will increase, not decrease the deficit). But the pundits will all get a hard-on or report it like it’s “a serious start”.

    Not to mention what it will actually accomplish: destroy medicare and medicaid – eliminate programs for the neediest (food stamps, unemployment benefits), increase taxes for the poor and middle class, decrease taxes for the wealthiest.

    Fuck Republicans for trying to “balance the books” on the backs of the average American. And Fuck the Democrats for failing to explain why this is suicide for our country and not even worth discussing. And Fuck the pundit class for their BS about “shared” sacrifice which never includes them. DIAF already.

  89. 89.

    TenguPhule

    April 5, 2011 at 12:52 pm

    The Republicans in House and Senate can touch Medicare over their dead, IED spattered bodies.

  90. 90.

    jcricket

    April 5, 2011 at 12:53 pm

    BTW – I deleted Sully from my feed. I know I should read people I disagree with, but I can’t take his “sacrifice” meme-age anymore. He’s so out of touch it’s not even funny and the stakes are so high I don’t need to listen to the constant refrain of an over-privileged hypocritical out-of-touch non-American jabbering about how the poor and middle class need to get fucked over some more.

    Let’s just deport him already.

  91. 91.

    Elizabelle

    April 5, 2011 at 12:55 pm

    Ryan’s plan is a stupid idea.

    I think we could stop it if we contacted our congressgrafters. They’re already up for re-election in a year when Obama’s on the ballot.

  92. 92.

    Svensker

    April 5, 2011 at 1:01 pm

    @Glen Tomkins:

    Thanks for explaining that. Anyone who has done genealogy will “grok” this. Before the age of antibiotics and vaccines, you’ll see lots of children dying — I have one gggrandmother who had 10 kids, only 2 of whom lived to maturity. But that ggrandmother died at age 83 in the mid-1800s and she was mourned by her church group made up of her peers, all in their 70s and 80s. If you made it out of childhood and if you made it past childbirth (many women died giving birth) you had a very good chance of living into your 70s or beyond.

  93. 93.

    Elizabelle

    April 5, 2011 at 1:01 pm

    @kay:

    from napoleon: I saw it on local Cleveland news but the Amish here in north east Ohio are pissed at the Republican’s voter fraud/disenfranchisement plan since it requires photo IDs and the Amish are not allowed to be photographed.

    Can’t wait to see this one play out.

    Isn’t there another kinda backward-seemin’ religion that eschews photography?

    And its women wear funny lookin’ headgear too and don’t want to be photographed without it?

    Cannot wait for how they thread the needle on protection of voting rights for the faithful observant.

  94. 94.

    Cacti

    April 5, 2011 at 1:15 pm

    I like the age 55 cut off. It’s more or less a bright line between the Baby Boomers and everyone else.

  95. 95.

    debbie

    April 5, 2011 at 6:41 pm

    I haven’t had insurance since 1995 when I purchased COBRA for $224.12 per month. I gather prices have increased since then?!

  96. 96.

    alwhite

    April 5, 2011 at 7:42 pm

    I think you’ll take whats behind door #3 Monty.

    Hope you enjoy salty dicks!

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