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You are here: Home / Healthcare / Vouchercare / A voucher program by any other name

A voucher program by any other name

by DougJ|  June 15, 20116:55 pm| 58 Comments

This post is in: Vouchercare, Sociopaths

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With the Republican House censoring the word “voucher” and the phrase “ends Medicare” and even the liberal Washington Post “fact checker” agreeing such words are inappropriate, it’s pretty clear that one of the big battles in 2012 will be whether or not the media will allow liberals to give an accurate description of Paul Ryan’s proposed voucher program.

Democrats need to push hard on this, obviously.

Also too, we should remember that most of the important people in our national media, like Glenn Kessler, are dishonest sociopaths.

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Reader Interactions

58Comments

  1. 1.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    June 15, 2011 at 6:58 pm

    They tried this with Social Security, if memory serves, saying “personaliztion not privatization”. I suspect it will work just as well.

  2. 2.

    Damned at Random

    June 15, 2011 at 6:59 pm

    If they don’t like voucher, how about ration coupon?

  3. 3.

    dmsilev

    June 15, 2011 at 7:00 pm

    How about Happy Fun Coupon? Or maybe Puppy Coupon. Everyone loves puppies. Why are you against puppies?

  4. 4.

    walt

    June 15, 2011 at 7:03 pm

    Republicans are practiced in Orwellian language arts but their Medicare plan – and the Ryan tax plan – are kryptonite. Republicans cannot escape it even if they manage to censor various words. As grotesque as Donald Trump is, he called this one correctly: a GOP “death wish”.

  5. 5.

    greenergood

    June 15, 2011 at 7:03 pm

    O/T new brand of tea for John Cole to pursue

    http://www.mediaite.com/online/rush-limbaugh-announces-a-huge-new-venture-his-own-sweet-tea-line/

    another brand of kool-aid …

  6. 6.

    freelancer

    June 15, 2011 at 7:03 pm

    DougJ, DougJ! Why do you persecute me?

  7. 7.

    cathyx

    June 15, 2011 at 7:03 pm

    I like the phrase used on a previous post, “Single Prayer Health Care”.

  8. 8.

    Arrik

    June 15, 2011 at 7:06 pm

    I’m sorry to say that my default position on anyone in the media at this late juncture is “enemy.” As a result of a combination of laziness and careerism, these assholes have long ago abdicated any sense of obligation to speak the truth. Official organs of the establishment such as the WaPo cannot die soon enough.

  9. 9.

    Redshift

    June 15, 2011 at 7:06 pm

    Using words other than the deliberately deceptive language Republicans prescribe for their policies (“Clear Skies Initiative,” anyone?) is now considered lying.

    Got it.

  10. 10.

    Citizen Alan

    June 15, 2011 at 7:14 pm

    @Damned at Random:

    At the town hall meeting last week in Oxford MS, I asked Alan Nunnelee about Ryancare and flat out referred to it as a coupon for $8000 worth of health insurance to pay towards a policy for 70-year-olds. He didn’t care for that formulation. I nearly asked him if we’d get a free car wash with our insurance but didn’t think of it in time.

  11. 11.

    RosiesDad

    June 15, 2011 at 7:14 pm

    On the Medicare ending voucher plan proposed by Eddie Munster Ryan, Krugman has laid out the facts and the talking points. They need to regurgitated multiple times a day until they are a mantra.

    That’s how the Rethugs do it; that’s how the Dems have to do it.

  12. 12.

    Citizen Alan

    June 15, 2011 at 7:16 pm

    @Arrik:

    Sad to say, but the Kaplan Test Prep Daily will never die. It’s too valuable as a propaganda tool for the corporation that owns it and uses it to undermine public education in favor of fly-by-night private colleges.

  13. 13.

    SBJules

    June 15, 2011 at 7:16 pm

    Republicans now want to reduce the “vouchers” for the WIK program. Insuring that mothers with young children can afford proper food used to be bi-partisan.

  14. 14.

    Dennis SGMM

    June 15, 2011 at 7:19 pm

    Democrats need to push hard on this, obviously.

    Yep, we need all of the two-fisted fightin’ Democrats to step up and get loud. Democrats like… or maybe… Okay, there’s always Barney Frank because there’s only Barney Frank. It only remains to be seen how much of the GOP’s suicide run the Dems cave on for the next UI extension.

  15. 15.

    PurpleGirl

    June 15, 2011 at 7:19 pm

    When I read portions of the Ryan plan it seemed to me that they were saying that the government would pay the insurance company directly for the you; they aren’t talking about giving the citizens the money to pay the insurance company. They also had something in there about a tax credit. I had searched the PDF for the word “voucher” and it came up in reference to other things but not to paying for health care. I also searched on “premium support” and that term didn’t come up either. The Rethuglicans are a pack of grade A liars.

  16. 16.

    RalfW

    June 15, 2011 at 7:21 pm

    It’s over. Orwell won.

  17. 17.

    bemused

    June 15, 2011 at 7:22 pm

    @Citizen Alan:

    Ha, free car wash. That would have been fun.

  18. 18.

    RalfW

    June 15, 2011 at 7:22 pm

    That is to say, I double plus like the new Medicare, same as the old Medicare, only cheaper, more lethal, and nicer to Republicans.

  19. 19.

    Violet

    June 15, 2011 at 7:23 pm

    Somethings wrong with “voucher”? How about:

    Ration ticket
    Ration chit
    Ration slip
    Coupon
    Token
    Box Top

  20. 20.

    Redshift

    June 15, 2011 at 7:24 pm

    Who knew that Newt was just ahead of the curve with his “accurately quoting what I said last week is false” dictum…

  21. 21.

    Davis X. Machina

    June 15, 2011 at 7:24 pm

    Just finished the section in What Hath God Wrought on the Gag Rule in the antebellum House of Representatives.

    Everything old is new again.

  22. 22.

    cleek

    June 15, 2011 at 7:24 pm

    @RosiesDad:

    That’s how the Rethugs do it; that’s how the Dems have to do it.

    history proves that Dems won’t.

    what’s plan B?

  23. 23.

    cleek

    June 15, 2011 at 7:26 pm

    also, i have to ask: is the House mailing facility the only way Dems were planning to communicate this stuff?

    nevermind… i just saw my own previous post.

  24. 24.

    Damned at Random

    June 15, 2011 at 7:27 pm

    RE WIC reductions-
    Love the fetus, hate the incubator

  25. 25.

    trollhattan

    June 15, 2011 at 7:28 pm

    @Citizen Alan:

    Kudos and a toast to you, sir!

  26. 26.

    Warren Terra

    June 15, 2011 at 7:29 pm

    I actually don’t like the word “voucher” because to me a “voucher” is redeemable for the item in question. What Ryan is offering is more of a coupon – redeemable for a discount on health insurance, not for the full price of health insurance.

  27. 27.

    Steve

    June 15, 2011 at 7:33 pm

    If the media is willing to let us use “end Medicare as we know it” then we should just go with that. It doesn’t sound any worse and it’s not worth fighting on two fronts.

  28. 28.

    Jennifer

    June 15, 2011 at 7:34 pm

    @Citizen Alan: It’s actually even worse than you described.

    The “premium support” proposed by Ryan and passed by house Republicans is equivalent to the cost incurred by an average 65 year old in the year the voucher is implemented. Problem is, the costs incurred by people 5 years older than the minimum Medicare age of 65 are typically DOUBLE those costs.

    Think of how hard it is for people in the prime of life to get insurers to pay what they are supposed to pay. Now imagine an 80-year-old with dementia having to deal with them. Yeah, great idea. Why don’t we just drop the pretense of giving a fuck about old people and just smother them with a pillow on their 65th birthday? That will save even MORE money – and lord knows Paris Hilton can use it…she doesn’t yet have a private jet in every color.

    I wrote about this over at my joint yesterday, if anyone’s interested.

  29. 29.

    Dennis SGMM

    June 15, 2011 at 7:36 pm

    @cleek:
    I live in CA-26 so I get self-congratulatory mail from our closeted Congressman, David Dreier. Of course I read every line.

  30. 30.

    Redshift

    June 15, 2011 at 7:36 pm

    @cleek: Obviously not, but if you want them to fight, just giving up on a free communication medium doesn’t seem like a good way to start.

  31. 31.

    TuiMel

    June 15, 2011 at 7:36 pm

    @Damned at Random:
    Don’t forget to hate the incubated…

  32. 32.

    Redshift

    June 15, 2011 at 7:38 pm

    @Warren Terra: How about “ice-floe”? That seems to capture the idea of giving seniors something that will inadequately hold them up for a while, as well as the obvious longer-term result.

  33. 33.

    Martin

    June 15, 2011 at 7:40 pm

    I think the Dems should go with ‘Death Policy’.

  34. 34.

    Mike in NC

    June 15, 2011 at 7:40 pm

    @SBJules:

    Republicans now want to reduce the “vouchers” for the WIK program.

    Cutting vouchers for Whackos, Idiots, & Klansmen? That would definitely piss off the base.

  35. 35.

    Warren Terra

    June 15, 2011 at 7:43 pm

    I’m also interested in whether it’s possible to communicate the notion that the Ryan plan is actually an incredibly regressive estate tax.
    See, Ryan’s not a totally heartless monster: in addition to its inadequate (and deflating year-on-year) subsidies for seniors to try to find health insurance in the private market, he also offers increased subsidies for the poorest seniors. If you’re sufficiently broke, you get a special voucher that might bring you back to the level of care you might have gotten from Medicare.
    Now, how do you become sufficiently poor? By spending your assets on health care, of course. After you’ve exhausted your resources trying to pay the difference between Ryan’s Medicare-replacing annually decreasing insurance subsidies and the actual cost of health insurance for seniors, you get the better “vouchers”. Money that might have made your life comfortable or that might have helped your grandkids buy their first home now goes to Aetna instead.

    Although, of course, if you are so privileged as to be able to actually pay for health care without going broke, this doesn’t apply to you.

    Thus: the change from Medicare to Ryancare amounts to a confiscatory estate tax on those elderly so improvident as to be less than wealthy, and so imprudent as not to die quickly. An estate tax that is used, of course, to pay for tax reductions on the wealthy – because those reductions are part of Ryan’s plan, with their budgetary consequences somewhat ameliorated by the cuts in Medicare.

  36. 36.

    cleek

    June 15, 2011 at 7:45 pm

    @Redshift:
    “give up” ? do the Dems have a choice in the matter?

    on the bright side: precedent! the GOP won’t be in charge of the House forever.

  37. 37.

    Davis X. Machina

    June 15, 2011 at 7:45 pm

    @Redshift: Older folks tend to read their mail, if my parents are anything to go by…

  38. 38.

    PurpleGirl

    June 15, 2011 at 7:46 pm

    @Redshift: There’s this problem with the continuing existence of ice floes…

  39. 39.

    Laertes

    June 15, 2011 at 7:46 pm

    Why do Republicans get to decide which mailers Democrats get to send to their constituents?

  40. 40.

    Martin

    June 15, 2011 at 7:47 pm

    @Davis X. Machina: Hmm. I wonder if the Dems know that they have to send the mail in all caps. Remember, it’s not important unless the Jesus Key is on.

  41. 41.

    Dennis SGMM

    June 15, 2011 at 7:50 pm

    @Warren Terra:
    Ryan’s plan is just another way for the GOP to take us back to the Good Old Days. You know; if you became too old to work you starved and if you got sick then you died. It’s just their way of simplifying a confusing world.

  42. 42.

    Jay in Oregon

    June 15, 2011 at 7:54 pm

    @Laertes:

    Why do Republicans get to decide which mailers Democrats get to send to their constituents?

    I’d like to know the answer, too. There’s “framing the debate”, and then there’s this…

  43. 43.

    And Another Thing...

    June 15, 2011 at 7:59 pm

    @Damned at Random: Plus Rep Virginia Foxx had an ammendment to eliminate teaching/assisting mothers with breastfeeding. IIRC about 165 idiots voted to eliminate the funding.

    Sometimes I’m glad I’m getting old and won’t have to live in the cold, desolate world these “people” are building.

  44. 44.

    cleek

    June 15, 2011 at 7:59 pm

    @Jay in Oregon:
    because, there exists a thing called the House Franking Commission. and…

    Pursuant to Public Law 93-191, the bipartisan Commission on Congressional Mailing Standards or the “Franking Commission” has a three fold mandate: (1) to issue regulations governing the proper use of the franking privilege; (2) to provide guidance in connection with mailings; (3) to act as a quasi-judicial body for the disposition of formal complaints against Members of Congress who have allegedly violated franking laws or regulations.

    and

    As a result of the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act for FY 1991, Members are required to submit all mass mailings (unsolicited mailings of 500 or more pieces of the same matter) for an advisory opinion prior to mailing.

    there are six members. three of each party. but the chair is a Republican.

    presumably, the chair, Aaron Schock, carries some weight.

    or maybe not…

  45. 45.

    ppcli

    June 15, 2011 at 8:02 pm

    @Violet: You’ve got to think like a Republican. Within two weeks everyone on Fox will be instructed to call them “Eternal Life Certificates”. For about a month, the NYT and WaPo will refer to “vouchers, which the Republicans prefer to call “Eternal Life Certificates”. By the next month, the newspapers will be Gleichsaltung-ed too. Three months, tops, and Kessler will be attacking people who don’t use the approved vocabulary.

  46. 46.

    PeakVT

    June 15, 2011 at 8:05 pm

    @Jay in Oregon: Because the mailers in question are being sent using US taxpayer money appropriated by Congress. Apparently at the same time Congress authorized the program it also authorized itself to review the mailers sent under the program.

  47. 47.

    Martin

    June 15, 2011 at 8:05 pm

    @And Another Thing…: Well, I googled for that and since the free market offers the service, government shouldn’t have any part of it.

  48. 48.

    MattMinus

    June 15, 2011 at 8:32 pm

    I had no idea that the House Republicans had any say so over Dem mailings. Given that they do, I’m surprised that they ever let any go out.

  49. 49.

    slightly-peeved

    June 15, 2011 at 8:43 pm

    The trouble for the republicans is that they spent so much time in 2009 inducing paranoia about medicare that seniors now are suspicious of any change in the program. Which, in the case of Couponcare is the entirely appropriate response. Weren’t there some polls that showed that people still hated the rand sorry ryan plan even after the Republican arguments for it were heard? Nice to see them hoisted on their own petard for once.

  50. 50.

    Gramsci

    June 15, 2011 at 10:04 pm

    Great moments in WashPo history:

    “Most would agree that Ms. Parks could find relief by leaning on a seat in one of the middle rows of the bus.”

  51. 51.

    rikyrah

    June 15, 2011 at 10:24 pm

    it’s called COUPONCARE.
    VOUCHERCARE.

    Get ready to give Grandma and Grandpa 500/month care

  52. 52.

    Epicurus

    June 15, 2011 at 10:52 pm

    “The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.”

    They are attempting to enforce the rules of “Newspeak” on us all. Orwell is spinning in his grave.

  53. 53.

    CathiBea

    June 15, 2011 at 11:25 pm

    CRAP – Congressman Ryan’s Allotment Program.(not original to me

  54. 54.

    Fwiffo

    June 15, 2011 at 11:40 pm

    If they don’t like voucher, how about coupon?

  55. 55.

    jayackroyd

    June 16, 2011 at 2:14 am

    Just ataying on the record DougJ.

    http://wapo.st/jfDAlC

    Ezra reflects the elite DC consensus–the goal is to move Medicare and Medicaid to the exchanges. This WILL involve premium support, and the end of Medicare as we know it.

    IMO, it pissed off Obama and the Democratic leadership to find that Bob Dole’s promise that 10-15 GOP senators would support Dole-Daschle’s AEI/PPI compromise that was the PPACA.

    Likewise, it has pissed off Ryan and his GOP wonks that Democrats are repudiating their own premium support language.

    But the direction is clear. Premium support, exchanges, and the end of Medicare as we know it is the consensus. IMO, of course. Your mileage may vary. But, you know, read the stuff.

    Background material for my claim is here: http://bit.ly/ik1oNL

  56. 56.

    RosiesDad

    June 16, 2011 at 6:19 am

    @cleek:

    what’s plan B?

    Plan B? There is no Plan B. There’s not much evidence that there is a Plan A. Isn’t that our (seemingly) endless source of frustration?

  57. 57.

    grandpajohn

    June 16, 2011 at 9:34 am

    @Dennis SGMM:

    Ryan’s plan is just another way for the GOP to take us back to the Good Old Days.

    Actually I view it in the opposite, it is the first steps into moving us into the future as envisioned in the movie “Logan’s Run”

  58. 58.

    Cerberus

    June 16, 2011 at 7:55 pm

    They aren’t even pretending anymore to be anything other than the personal propaganda services for their CEO’s political desires.

    I mean, they used to at least pretend to be hiding behind “objective unbiased journalism” in which the only means they could talk about things was he-said, she-said bullshit.

    But now?

    They are openly trying to act as a PR service for the Republican Party and not being at all subtle about it.

    As disappointing as Obama has been, he definitely has our oligarchs scared, literally pant-shittingly terrified and they’ve abandoned any notion of subtlety and revealing exactly how deep the corruption goes and where in their desperate effort to sell em while they got em as it were.

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