How many ways can these fuckers find to say “both sides do it”? The always awful David Von Drehle:
Change is urgently needed. ObamaCare envisions change within the existing structure of the health care industry, while Republican Paul Ryan’s proposal would impose change by having elderly patients buy their own coverage, using government vouchers. Both of these represent huge departures from the status quo. If this election educates voters to make an informed choice between these options, we’ll be a stronger country for it.
But we certainly didn’t see that sort of informative campaign in the special Congressional election in New York’s 26th District last week. Instead, we saw candidates accuse each other of trying to destroy Medicare.
The Ryan plan ends Medicare. It is that simple. A voucher program is not Medicare. Telling voters that the Ryan plans ends Medicare is a statement of fact. We have reached a point in our discourse where Villagers think that it is sad and unfortunate when voters are told the truth.
Barack: You make some reasonable points.
Paul: So do you. We should do this again.
I get tired of saying this over and over but Medicare is a reasonably functional component of an otherwise dysfunctional health care system. That is all there is to this debate, when one looks at numbers. It’s cheaper than private insurance and its cost is growing more slowly than the cost of private insurance.
With each passing day, I became more sympathetic to Robespierre.
slag
Yes. Yes it is. But unnecessary drama makes for good ratings. So, let’s go ahead and invade a sovereign healthcare plan that never attacked us. This war will pay for itself!
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
This is the United States of America, Doug.
Where these days only the intellectually bankrupt are allowed to cash the checks.
arguingwithsignposts
People in the media who say “Obamacare” are the equivalent of the people who say “Barack Hussein Obama” and “The Democrat Party.” Wankers.
They don’t call it Roosevelt Security, or Johnsonaid.
Hunter Gathers
Ruth Marcus is going to get more money if Ryan’s plan is passed. It isn’t about truths or any of that shit. The reason they fell over themselves trying to orally please Paul Ryan is because they want that Medicare money. They don’t know people who depend on Medicare to survive. All they see is a 10% tax cut on their high salaries, leaving them more money to spend on shitty haircuts, expensive suits and vacations at Martha’s Vineyard. Sure, most people depend on Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security, but Ruth Marcus needs more money.
Fixed.
Suffern ACE
Walter Mondale once told voters that he would have to raise taxes and so would Reagan. Reagan did of course have to raise taxes, and Walter Mondale is still remembered fondly by everyone for being truthful. Our media often praises honesty. And dishonesty – as long as those dishonest statements seem to tell it like it is from the gut. The truth – well that’s often confused with talking from one’s ass an we can’t have that ’cause it’s unsettling.
Stefan
How on Earth is he able to write “we saw candidates accuse each other of trying to destroy Medicare” mere sentences after acknowledging that “Republican Paul Ryan’s proposal would impose change by having elderly patients buy their own coverage, using government vouchers”?
If before the government guarantees you coverage, and later the government no longer guarantees you coverage but instead gives you an inadequate voucher whose value will steadily decline, then that is, in fact, destroying Medicare. Hell, the government could just hand every senior two aspirins and a nickel and call it “Medicare”, but that certainly wouldn’t be Medicare as we know it.
slag
@arguingwithsignposts:
It’s true. But I like when it gets used here because it inevitably conjures up Newsmax ads for me to click on. It’s often the small things in life that bring me joy.
dr. luba
“With each passing day, I became more sympathetic to Robespierre.”
Me, too. And Voltaire: “écrasez l’infâme”
jrg
Libya is just like Iraq. Also. Too.
At some point, the media needs to pick a side: reality or complete bullshit. If they don’t, they will be irrelevant once the Boomers are gone… Because many of us who grew up in the Clinton era caught onto their garbage a long time ago.
Villago Delenda Est
Who delivers health care less expensively on a per patient basis? The VA, or Humana?
The VA. Because they’re not run by parasite assholes.
WereBear
It is my sincere hope that Obamacare will catch on as a grateful nation does not die as a result.
Call me a dreamer…
Linnaeus
Aux armes, citoyens?
Okay, I say that tongue-in-cheek, but I would be less surprised at some sort of violent uprising than I would have been 10 years ago.
Bullsmith
Medicare has been proven to be far more efficient at delivering health care for less cost than private insurance. Thus the only serious, responsible thing to do is to trash it and make sure the old folks get the same bloated, failed, ruthlessly profitable system that everyone else gets. Since the real problem is spiraling health costs, the answer is to convert yet more health dollars into profit instead of care. The logic in infallible. No, sorry, not infallible, monstrous. That’s the word I was looking for.
goblue72
I’ve reached the point with these tools that if someone started recruiting to form a Red Army to overthrow these wankers, I’d be hard pressed not to sign up.
Napoleon
@Stefan:
Not only that but, and I am surprised I don’t see this point, and I will really consider the Dems the biggest group of wankers ever if they don’t run wall to wall ads mentioning this, but didn’t the Ryan plan also repeal the Affordable Care Act (except the “Medicare destroying” cuts to Medicare Advantage)?
That would mean they wanted to do away with the requirement that insurance companies take people with preexisting conditions.
You could run an ad that reads something like this:
“Medicare guarantees all seniors that they will not be left without health care coverage, which the US will guarantee. Now Senator Lugar not only voted to remove that guarantee so that I am left to fend for myself with the insurance companies, but at the same time he voted to get rid of the law that requires them to take people like me with preexisting conditions so that every insurance company can now decline to sell me a policy.”
brendancalling
@dr. luba:
I have been sympathetic to Robespierre for a few years now. Haul these fuckers into a public square in a wooden cart, and lop lop lop, off with their heads.
patrick II
@arguingwithsignposts:
I think down the line Obama will be very proud of the term “Obamacare”. Besides, it’s purported sting is only with those who dislike Obama, so conjoining his name with the health care plan doesn’t do the harm right wingers imagine it does among the majority who actually like Obama.
In the long run, if healthcare is associated with Obama, I think it will be a good reminder that if you need a powerful program for the good of the people it takes a democrat to get it done.
At some point Republicans might call it Reagancare and pretend the seeds of a more perfect plan were actually planted by the great Ronald, and Obama introduced only the flaws.
Turgidson
BlueDWarrior
We are approcahing the point where if our Galtian Overlords tell our newsmodels to tell the public the sky is red, but 99.9999% of the public still believes the sky is blue, and scientists and graphics people can prove the sky is a shade of blue; the media will still posit that there is a question to wether or not the sky is red or blue because hell our Galtian Overlords said it’s red and damnit that means it’s red.
Shrillhouse
Could everyone in the media who uses the term “Obamacare” to refer to the ACA, also refer to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan as “Bushwars”??? Thanks much.
jrg
@BlueDWarrior:
You forgot about the part where the media succeeds in convincing 27% of Americans that the sky is red, then spends a month or two in “concerned” “reflection”, wondering why the average 27%er is so fucking ignorant.
BlueDWarrior
@jrg: Don’t forget the protests by the Red Skyers saying that they should not be ridiculed for their beliefs, because of Free Speech or some other specious argument.
Citizen Alan
I find it odd on some level that I hate Ruth Marcus so much more than, say Michelle Malkin or Gretchen Carlson. I think it’s because those two, like most female right wing personalities, are honest about what they do. Malkin, Carlson, Ingraham and Coulter want to destroy liberalism and install a new and permanent conservative reich and don’t really care if people know it. Ruth Marcus is painted as a liberal. Hell, she probably thinks she is a liberal. And yet on nearly every issue of national importance, she undermines liberalism and advances conservativism. I guess I hate Fifth Columnists more than actual partisans from the other side.
Rhoda
You don’t fuck with a person’s money or life and expect them to vote for you; so no matter what the village says the Republicans are going to go down if they insist on staying with vouchercare. Similarly, if we had a draft we wouldn’t have gone into Iraq.
Shit gets very basic very quickly for people when it comes to the fundamentals.
The great thing about the Medicare debate, other than the way it’s driving voters to the Democrats, is the fact that it reminds people the Republicans own a part of the government and gives someone to put part of the blame on as the economy softens.
Comrade Javamanphil
@jrg: They’ve already chosen. We are just witnessing the inevitable crash in super slo-mo.
Doug Harlan J
@Citizen Alan:
You should.
jrg
@BlueDWarrior:
I agree. Mocking someone who suggests that the sky is red with polka-dots is
political correctness run amokjust like the holocaust.Comrade Javamanphil
@WereBear: You’re not the only one.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
@Rhoda:
My worry is that even if it makes them extremely unpopular, the GOP are going to get the shit they want passed, no matter what, and even if and when they get voted out, the shit will be so entrenched that the public won’t dare allow Dems to stay in power long enough to change anything, especially if the whole ‘You had the majority and White house two years, and you didn’t change anything?! WE WANT THE GOP BACK AGAIN YOU LAZY FUCKS!!” bullshit happens again.
BlueDWarrior
@Comrade Javamanphil: The thing that pisses me off with this Slow Motion Financial Armageddon is the feeling that those who actually caused it will be in gated compounds trying to machine-gun the peons who want their stuff back, or some stuff at all.
jibeaux
“Both represent huge departures from the status quo.” Nope, they just freaking don’t. One of them does, and one of them doesn’t.
Ryan claims that he’s not ending Medicare just because he continues to CALL it Medicare. As K-Thug says, we could give seniors two free aspirin a day and call it Medicare but it wouldn’t be Medicare. This needs to be hammered into people any way possible. Every time they accuse Democrats of using “Mediscare” tactics, we just need to respond that it is scary to eliminate Medicare.
balconesfault
Dems should take to the ramparts and declare that what’s screwed Medicare to the wall was Bush’s determination to push through extremely high priced drug benefits with no cost control (GOP blocking negotiation with drug companies) and no funding (GOP blocking any tax increases to cover the price increase).
It’s that simple. The Dems should take this message and hammer it over and over and over. Bush and the GOP pushed through a budget breaking bill so he could get re-elected in 2004, and Medicare is bearing the brunt of this crappy bill.
The choice shouldn’t be between Medicare and Vouchers. It should be between Medicare with or without a prescription drug benefit – and if we want the prescription drug benefit it means new revenue sources for the program.
Suffern ACE
@Citizen Alan: Just remember that if the Robspierre faction ever gains traction – someone like Ruth Marcus will stand up and say, “Hey, I’m just like you” but she’s not. So when you’re gathering people for the public execution, make certain her name doesn’t get removed from the list.
Jewish Steel
@arguingwithsignposts: It will be called Obamacare until its fruits are enjoyed by the population and it becomes as popular as Romneycare in MA.
Then it will become the “The wonderful idea Republicans had back in the 90s-care”
Rick Taylor
Change is urgently needed. ObamaCare envisions change within the existing structure of the health care industry, bringing down health care costs, while Republican Paul Ryan’s proposal would impose change by putting elderly patients on ice floes and setting them adrift. Both of these represent huge departures from the status quo. If this election educates voters to make an informed choice between these options, we’ll be a stronger country for it.
Jewish Steel
@Citizen Alan: I think this is why POWs, at least among the civilized, are treated with dignity and respect and traitors get it in the neck.
geemoney
@Napoleon: Still too wordy, I think.
Rhoda @24 nailed it: Vouchercare
I also think that voucherize should be used more often as a verb that describes one of the go to GOP plays.
Loss of revenue across all levels of government? We clearly need to voucherize something.
Citizen Alan
@Suffern ACE:
Honestly, I wouldn’t want to execute anyone, not even a loathsome crone like Ruth Marcus. I’d rather banish them all to Wyoming and build a mile-wide trench all the way around it. Let them build their Galtian utopia there and leave the rest of us to live in a decent society.
BlueDWarrior
@geemoney: I like the way you think… you got a newsletter or something I can sign up for.
Comrade Javamanphil
@BlueDWarrior: I think they’ll probably just hire a bunch of illegals to do the gunning for them. Wouldn’t want to take time away from the yacht and everyone knows Americans are too lazy for that kind of work.
BlueDWarrior
@Citizen Alan: I dunno, I think we should give them Idaho. At least they’ll have the potatoes to eat. I’m a partisan liberal but I’m not heartless, probably because I’m a liberal.
Rhoda
@The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik: JMO, but I think people are more clear eyed when it comes to things that matter and affect them on a day to day basis; WI is a great example of this and the buyers remorse in FL, OH, and NJ is going to help Obama in ’12 even with a soft economy.
El Cid
If it weren’t (for whatever reason) so politically harmful to have moved toward the privatization of Medicare, it would have been done, because the power elites of the country just don’t like the idea of people they don’t care for being treated so well by the government instead of having to pay for private service.
It’s just distasteful, it’s a terrible example of how via our elected government we can actually use public service institutions to better our lives, and it’s money which should be going to wealthy people.
The leadership of both parties would be happier, in my view, in going down that path — not quite as much so now that the consequences of that politically have been starkly detailed.
I don’t think it will really stop the encroachment long term.
Dick Gephardt (along with future Reagan administration budget director David Stockman) proposed a voucher-using plan in 1980 (really, this isn’t some GOP spin).
This was more of a “public option in reverse” approach, in which a currently single-payer plan would be opened up to a privatized option, so that individuals could choose to receive a defined annual benefit (a “voucher”) to pay premiums of the health care plan of their choice.
Once someone chose to go to the voucher system, they could never go back.
And once 50% of Medicare eligibles chose the voucher option, Medicare would be repealed.
Their plan, though, had pretty strong regulations on the responsibilities of private insurers who accepted Medicare vouchers and limited out-of-pocket expenditures by the covered individuals. At least for Medicaid.
Nikita
More evidence that the conservative viewpoint is sadly oppressed: A producer on Friends admits that Hollywood pushes liberal story lines.
http://tv.yahoo.com/blog/tv-executives-admit-in-taped-interviews-that-hollywood-pushes-a-liberal-agenda–3086
I’m wondering what types of conservative themed TV shows that NBC/CBS/ABC will inevitably force down our collective throats all the in the name of balance?
beltane
@Nikita:
That would be their news programming and Sunday morning bobblehead hour.
Mike in NC
If the abominable Ryan plan were ever to be enacted, those lovely vouchers would be phased out entirely over some given period of time. All in the name of ‘protecting our freedoms’. That’s guaran-fucking-teed.
gex
@jrg: I hope that is so. But there are a great many in my generation (X) that lurves them some Fox News and keep a picture of Reagan next to their Bible. And, a heck of a lot of younger people (my girlfriend’s a comic so we hang out with a lot of 20-somethings) who have bought into glibertarianism hook line and sinker.
IOW – younger folks can be just as dumb or disinterested as older folks. We just get less racism and homophobia from them.
@Villago Delenda Est: It amazes me how this fact cannot gain any traction. “Government is wasteful” is a given and somehow the media fails to educate on this particular point.
Anoniminous
@gex:
Given the lack of well articulated alternatives in the media, the only choices seem to be glibertarianism or Fundamentalist God-Bothering.
Anyone with a brain would go with the former.
gex
@BlueDWarrior: Like when Blackwater protected the property of “real” Americans during Katrina? Military contracting has done a really good job of helping create a for-hire military machine they can put to use if the serfs get uppity.
Calouste
@Rhoda:
And the GOP can’t win the Presidency without both OH and FL. They probably can’t win it without either of them.
gex
@Nikita: Are you smarter than a 5th grader. SASTQ.
gypsy howell
@Napoleon:
I had an unpleasant conversation with my congresscritter Gerlach’s staffer over exactly that issue. He votes to repeal ACA, and then he votes to dismantle medicare. Good luck getting ANY health coverage, seniors!
gex
@Anoniminous: I didn’t realize there was a difference between the two. Just a slightly different conception of what God is.
Nikita
@beltane: @gex:
You are both so right. I totally withdraw the question.
Tsulagi
No bugs, that’s the feature. Well, that and enriching private insurance carriers.
Yep.
And of course there would be no fraud upon the elderly in this free market grand experiment. Certainly no one looking to separate Alzheimer granny from her voucher providing as little in return as possible.
Haven’t read if the voucher amount would vary by region or zip code. If not, that would be another feature. Medical care costs and insurance premiums to cover them are much higher in urban and generally blue states than rural and Southern states.
CBO told Congress the predicted cost per Medicare head 10 years from now to be $8k year. Would think the really smart Ryan deficit warriors to reduce government spending would want to peg the voucher amount under that secure in their faith/absolute knowledge private carriers known for their altruism would make dreams come true. Yeah.
Now, not 10 years from now, $8k wouldn’t buy SF area granny decent coverage. Today, for the low, low price (jump on it, granny!) of $938mo., granny could be the proud owner of a Blue Shield $1000 deductible, 70% hospitalization covering, max $5500 annual out of pocket plan. So over $11k year now. But of course in the year 2021 thanks to the magic of Ryanomics that premium for the same coverage would be much less than today. VSPs all agree.
Tony J
Since we’re talking about the MSM’s eagerness to push Republican talking-points into the realm of conventional wisdom, and since there’s an argument going on a few threads down about why Obama doesn’t just pound the bully-pulpit 24/7 to get his message out..
I just popped over to the WaPo Online and saw their top headline was about the ‘Deficit Summit’ at the White House. Bohner was quoted, Ryan was quoted, numerous other Republicans were quoted, even anonymous Republican operatives were quoted. Not one Democrat. Not even someone from the White House.
Now, I can’t believe for a minute that there were no Democratic Congressmen or White House spokesmen available to give their opinion on how the discussion had gone, but somehow their quotes weren’t included in a piece about a meeting at the White House.
That’s not just bias, that’s propaganda.
Joel
@arguingwithsignposts: Maybe we should start calling it Bushtorture and Reaganpoverty?
Tsulagi
@Tsulagi: Okay, the link to that $938mo. quote doesn’t work. Blue Shield of CA will give an online quote here. For my example I used a 64 year old living in a SF zip code.
Mark D
Here was my response over at Time (copied for ease — sorry for the thesis — and originally posted under the nym “Unholy Moses”).
Dear Mr. Von Drehle and every other single person in the media:
When Democrats point out that the GOP is trying to eliminate Medicare, it is not scare tactics. It is not hyperbole. It is not dirty politics. It is not trying to muddy or poison the debate.
IT. IS. THE. TRUTH.
As Steve Benen writes at Washington Monthly:
Why folks like Mr. Von Drehle want to gloss over this obvious, not-up-for-debate, based-100%-in-reality fact is beyond me. I guess criticizing Democrats for telling the truth is just ingrained in the DC Village narrative.
Sure, the GOP can spend months blatantly, grossly, and abhorrently lying about the Affordable Care Act — telling folks that the government is going to kill grandma, and the GOP (and only the GOP) can stop that from happening — without nary a peep from anyone but bloggers.
But Democrats actually telling people what the GOP wants to do — and has wanted to do for decades — to Medicare (and, even worse Medicaid)? That they’ve wanted to destroy it ever since Reagan claimed providing health care for the elderly was the greatest threat ever to mankind (and being utterly wrong about that fact)? That the real problem isn’t Medicare, but our bloated and morally repulsive health care system that only favors the wealthy and has no real cost constraints whatsoever?
Pearls are clutched, fainting couches occupied, and vapors had by all.
The reason our discourse is so screwed up isn’t due to Democrats telling the truth — it’s due to people like Mr. Von Drehle deciding that truth is less important than optics, and that harsh realities should take a back seat to some absurd notion of civility.
And until the media decides to take back up its role as the sharer of truth — no matter how inconvenient that truth might be — instead of acting as part Stenographer and part Umpire of Civility, it’s just going to get worse.
gex
I never for a moment want the right to get their way on this. But if they do and seniors and soon to be retirees will get a good taste of what purchasing insurance on the private market is like. Especially since government handing out vouchers seems to be linked to the costs of that item going up by about the amount of the voucher. I can’t think of a better set up for single-payer.
Mark D
@gex: Great point here:
Of course, they’re only into glibertarianism because they think if they support it, they’ll be able to, like, legally smoke pot some day and, like, ya know, get the government outta everyone’s, like, life, ya know?
[sigh]
They’re buying into one of those things that sounds great—as long as they don’t put too much thought into it, or perhaps read a history book to find out that it was tried already and failed.
MTiffany
What better reason to kill it? By removing Medicare from the equation the rest of the healthcare system won’t look quite as bad, if only for the absence of something to compare it to. Other than foreign healthcare systems. But foreign things are just so… un-American.
Mnemosyne
@Tony J:
And yet those same people arguing with you down below actually do believe that the Democrats had no spokespeople there because, hey, it’s not like the press would only talk to Republicans, so it must be the Democrats’ fault if they’re not in the story.
Either that, or they think the Democrats are supposed to photobomb the Republicans while they’re being interviewed on camera. Which would be kinda cool, I have to admit.
Makewi
So your definition reasonably functional includes broke, plagued with fraud, and set up to encourage doctors to lie or simply not take medicare patients?
arguingwithsignposts
@Makewi:
nope.
no more so than private insurance companies.
nobody encourages doctors to lie or not to accept patients. they do that of their own accord.
try again, troll.
Makewi
@arguingwithsignposts:
I love it. Just deny, deny, deny.
Nothing to see here folks, let’s move along.
Mnemosyne
@Makewi:
Compared to getting your health care from the private insurance market? Yep. Medicare is a vast, vast improvement over having your insurance with a for-profit company.
Compared to every other civilized country in the world, our Medicare system sucks, but you guys keep screaming about how we can’t have “collectivism,” so the Medicare we have now is the best we can do until you STFU, sit down, and let the adults fix the mess that you made.
Church Lady
Honest question: Why are the vouchers that Ryan proposes for future Medicare recipients to use in a Medicare insurance exchange so bad, but the vouchers the ACA will give to lower income Americans to use in the insurance exchanges the ACA will set up so good?
Makewi
@Mnemosyne:
Government run, or public if you prefer, health care systems have their own set of problems. The frustrating thing about trying to have an “adult” conversation with you is that you simply pretend this isn’t true. How very “adult” of you.
FlipYrWhig
@Church Lady: I dunno, maybe because older, sicker people’s medical costs increase a lot faster than younger, healthier people’s, and hence a voucher will be much more rapidly insufficient for a Program-Formerly-Known-As-Medicare recipient?
gex
Some businesses cheat on tax write offs. Therefore there should be no tax write offs.
Not to dissimilar from…
Some people cheat Medicare. Therefore there should be no Medicare.
The moral scolds only ever want to do something about the latter, not the former.
It’s as thoughthey get off on punishing the poor and elderly.Makewi
@FlipYrWhig:
Doesn’t this assume a lack of price controls?
Makewi
@gex:
Your comment is a lesson on protecting yourself from uncomfortable truths. Have fun with that.
rikyrah
VOUCHERCARE
IS
VOUCHERCARE
IS
VOUCHERCARE
what is hard to understand…Medicare will be REPLACED BY A VOUCHER?
yeah, folks understand that quite quick
FlipYrWhig
@Makewi: It assumes that controlling health care costs for the elderly is a very, very long-range project. Of course a true national health-care system would do wonders to control health care costs across the board, but conservatives decided something something liberty Wolverines! so we can’t have that.
FlipYrWhig
@rikyrah: I think it’s absolutely a kick in the fucking head that after two years of fighting about health care in the most dishonest and demagogic way possible, Republicans have managed to get major pockets of the media tut-tutting Democrats for not being brave and candid and fair enough.
LittlePig
@Makewi: Projection, thy name is Makewi.
Mandramas
You can’t solve medicare because medical are overpriced. Sitcom’s recurrent joke-level overpriced.
Mandramas
@FlipYrWhig: You can reduce health care costs quickly and easily, as long as you can afford to do un-american things.
artem1s
expanding Medicare is the easiest route to universal, single payer coverage and the GOP and the insurance industry knows it. They have to kill it before the electorate (mostly baby boomers) gets used to the idea and dependent on it. They know once the average voter gets used to health care without all the fine print involved in deciphering private coverage there will be no going back.
the lying, shrillness, and gnashing of teeth will only get worse from here on out as the insurance industry feels more threatened. This ain’t nothing compared to what we will see when big businesses finally figures out that unloading health care benefits on the government will do wonders for their fixed costs. Business will hate the tax co-pay but wrangling with insurance companies every couple of years is really messing with their projection sheets. They will try and just eliminate health care as a benefits for most workers first but that’s only going to put more pressure on legislators to come up with affordable alternates. They can try and push a voucher system but the communities who have experienced school vouchers can pretty much tell you they don’t work and don’t expand choice at all.
The GOP is trying for a slam dunk, one time change because they know incremental change only allows voters to see where the privatization road leads us – less, more expensive coverage, not better, cheaper coverage.
Mnemosyne
@Makewi:
Thank you, Captain Obvious. The question here is not whether or not every health care system has its problems. The question is whether our for-profit healthcare system is in any way sustainable, and if it’s not, what the plan is to replace it.
I mean a plan other than the already articulated Republican position of “Die quickly, peasant.”
Actually, no. My position is that the problems of our for-profit health insurance industry are worse than the problems that crop up in countries that have much more government involvement in healthcare. There would still be issues with, say, a single payer system in the US, but we wouldn’t have people getting their chemo cut off in the middle of treatment because the insurance company scoured their policy to find something completely unrelated that will let them rescind the policy.
You, on the other hand, like to pretend that Canada and France are howling wastelands filled with death panels and our only option is to have a for-profit system, so I’m still not seeing an adult conversation from you.
Makewi
This is very adult and not in any way a gross exaggeration intended to shield yourself from harsher truths.
No, you simply aren’t interested in having an adult conversation. What you are interested in is putting words in my mouth and then declaring yourself the winner.
Georgia Pig
@Mnemosyne:
Yes, and cannibals get a lot more protein.
Mnemosyne
@Makewi:
Ah, yes, I knew projection was going to be the next tactic. You’re so predictable.
ETA:
Ryan’s plan is to give seniors $8,000 to pay for healthcare that will cost them at least $15,000 in today’s market and then use the cost savings to give more tax breaks to the rich. What exactly do you think the outcome of thousands of seniors not being able to afford healthcare will be?
Read the Ryan plan. It’s all in there. But as long as your team proposed it, it must be good, right?
Ash Can
Your words are nothing but sarcasm and ad hominem attacks. You don’t provide links, you don’t cite statistics or evidence from reputable sources, and you don’t argue your points in good faith. And then you accuse other commenters of not being interested in having an adult conversation. You’re the one not interested in having an “adult conversation.”
Take a look at Church Lady’s comment above. She’s considerably to the right of almost everyone else who comments here, and on occasion makes a pest of herself. But she knows how to comment and debate like a grown-up. You’ll notice that her question, as worded, was devoid of the presuppositions you loaded into your initial comment. That’s how a grown-up converses. She’s the adult. Not you.
Death Panel Truck
@Rick Taylor:
Um, no, Thanks to climate change, the small number of ice floes that still exist are occupied at the moment – by polar bears.
El Cid
I still bet those “vouchers” would dry up shortly after the program was enacted.
Another government funding or whatever crisis would make it even more important that people not expect the taxpayers to bail their heart surgery out.
El Cid
@Death Panel Truck: Duh! You don’t need real ice! Realistic artificial ice floes can be available at local Walmarts in no time.
Death Panel Truck
People can say what they want about Robespierre, but there’s one thing I admire about him. Sonofabitch knew how to get shit done.
Alan in SF
Yep, helping a few more people get health care, in the exact same way that everyone else already gets healthcare, is exactly as radical a departure from the status quo as ending Medicare.
kay
This is a gift. I love this. I’ve been begging for a conservative health care plan, and if media and conservatives (finally) want to admit this IS the conservative health care plan, I think that’s great.
I read that Paul Ryan is doing this too, comparing his Medicare voucher plan to Obamacare (on FOX, but still) and I think Boy Wonder should keep it up.
Why wouldn’t we want this?
It’s perfect, straight comparisons are an easy argument to lay out, and I have no problem going through each and every provision of the PPACA and comparing it to Ryan’s manifesto.
If it’s Ryancare versus Obamacare, I predict Obamacare wins.
Marc McKenzie
@jrg:
“Because many of us who grew up in the Clinton era caught onto their garbage a long time ago.”
…I hope so. I honestly hope to whatever Deity exists that this is the truth.
Marc McKenzie
@Death Panel Truck:
“People can say what they want about Robespierre, but there’s one thing I admire about him. Sonofabitch knew how to get shit done.”
Yeah. Too bad a lot of innocents died just so he could “get shit done.”