USA Today has decided to become the print regime propaganda organ, to complement Fox News’s video. They have printed an “op-ed” from Donald Trump that contains about as much truth and accuracy as any of his campaign appearances. I don’t want to give them the clicks, since that’s obviously part of their motivation, so here it is.
Donald Trump: Democrats ‘Medicare for All’ plan will demolish promises to seniors
Donald J. Trump Published 3:15 a.m. ET Oct. 10, 2018The Democrats want to outlaw private health care plans, taking away freedom to choose plans while letting anyone cross our border. We must win this.
Throughout the year, we have seen Democrats across the country uniting around a new legislative proposal that would end Medicare as we know it and take away benefits that seniors have paid for their entire lives.
Dishonestly called “Medicare for All,” the Democratic proposal would establish a government-run, single-payer health care system that eliminates all private and employer-based health care plans and would cost an astonishing $32.6 trillion during its first 10 years.
As a candidate, I promised that we would protect coverage for patients with pre-existing conditions and create new health care insurance options that would lower premiums. I have kept that promise, and we are now seeing health insurance premiums coming down.
I also made a solemn promise to our great seniors to protect Medicare. That is why I am fighting so hard against the Democrats’ plan that would eviscerate Medicare. Democrats have already harmed seniors by slashing Medicare by more than $800 billion over 10 years to pay for Obamacare. Likewise, Democrats would gut Medicare with their planned government takeover of American health care.
The Democrats’ plan threatens America’s seniors
The Democrats’ plan means that after a life of hard work and sacrifice, seniors would no longer be able to depend on the benefits they were promised. By eliminating Medicare as a program for seniors, and outlawing the ability of Americans to enroll in private and employer-based plans, the Democratic plan would inevitably lead to the massive rationing of health care. Doctors and hospitals would be put out of business. Seniors would lose access to their favorite doctors. There would be long wait lines for appointments and procedures. Previously covered care would effectively be denied.
In practice, the Democratic Party’s so-called Medicare for All would really be Medicare for None. Under the Democrats’ plan, today’s Medicare would be forced to die.
The Democrats’ plan also would mean the end of choice for seniors over their own health care decisions. Instead, Democrats would give total power and control over seniors’ health care decisions to the bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.
The first thing the Democratic plan will do to end choice for seniors is eliminate Medicare Advantage plans for about 20 million seniors as well as eliminate other private health plans that seniors currently use to supplement their Medicare coverage.
Next, the Democrats would eliminate every American’s private and employer-based health plan. It is right there in their proposed legislation: Democrats outlaw private health plans that offer the same benefits as the government plan.
Americans might think that such an extreme, anti-senior, anti-choice and anti-consumer proposal for government-run health care would find little support among Democrats in Congress.
Unfortunately, they would be wrong: 123 Democrats in the House of Representatives — 64 percent of House Democrats — as well as 15 Democrats in the Senate have already formally co-sponsored this legislation. Democratic nominees for governor in Florida, California and Maryland are all campaigning in support of it, as are many Democratic congressional candidates.
Democrats want open-borders socialism
The truth is that the centrist Democratic Party is dead. The new Democrats are radical socialists who want to model America’s economy after Venezuela.
If Democrats win control of Congress this November, we will come dangerously closer to socialism in America. Government-run health care is just the beginning. Democrats are also pushing massive government control of education, private-sector businesses and other major sectors of the U.S. economy.
Every single citizen will be harmed by such a radical shift in American culture and life. Virtually everywhere it has been tried, socialism has brought suffering, misery and decay.
Indeed, the Democrats’ commitment to government-run health care is all the more menacing to our seniors and our economy when paired with some Democrats’ absolute commitment to end enforcement of our immigration laws by abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That means millions more would cross our borders illegally and take advantage of health care paid for by American taxpayers.
Today’s Democratic Party is for open-borders socialism. This radical agenda would destroy American prosperity. Under its vision, costs will spiral out of control. Taxes will skyrocket. And Democrats will seek to slash budgets for seniors’ Medicare, Social Security and defense.
Republicans believe that a Medicare program that was created for seniors and paid for by seniors their entire lives should always be protected and preserved. I am committed to resolutely defending Medicare and Social Security from the radical socialist plans of the Democrats. For the sake of our country, our prosperity, our seniors and all Americans — this is a fight we must win.
To respond to a column, submit a comment to [email protected]
This is disgusting, and potentially very damaging. We need to make a stink about it.
John Carter
So it begins just in time for the election. Marching orders to the media by Right Wing corporate owned State Broadcast Service.
DIdn’t see that coming! /s
Betty Cracker
Glad you called this out. I was seething about it in the morning thread.
Cheryl Rofer
Enhanced Voting Techniques
The man writes in slogans. This reads like someone listening to Spanky babble and wrote down the choice bits. Steam of consciousness.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I believe that’s how his last book was compiled, someone was assigned to take notes as he rambled on the campaign plane and type it into paragraphs
Another Scott
The popular press is ruled by click-hunters. The only thing they understand is money.
Arguing with them is pointless. The thing to do is to ignore them, or tell their advertisers to drop the paper or you will boycott them.
Vote with your dollars and your ballot!! 26 days to go!!
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: This was written by Stephen Miller. It’s why the argument, despite the title of the op-ed, makes a sudden swerve into anti-immigrant xenophobia and nativism.
Corner Stone
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
That’s how you know he didn’t write any part of this. It sounds like it’s in his voice but it actually moves from one topic/theme to the next in a somewhat coherent manner.
Corner Stone
That Daniel Dale guy is good. I wonder if he’d adopt me.
BlueGirlFromWyo
@Cheryl Rofer: Did they do their usual point-counterpoint bullshit or did they dispense with that for their presidential exclusive? Sorry to ask but I don’t want to give them clicks either.
jamey
USAToday? Isn’t that the paper that hotels can’t even give away?
jharp
Have not been able to watch that fucking asshole since the primaries.
Now I can’t even stand to read what that asshole has to say.
Fuck him.
schrodingers_cat
My formerly sane former friend was emailing me about “Venezuela” in scare quotes since 2014. Wingnut meme propagator is the president.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
this is specifically about trump lobbying Shinzo Abe on behalf of Shelly Adelson’s desire to open a case-in-o in Japan, but it applies to the whole scam
Yutsano
Yeah…nice to see USA Today go back to their wingnut roots. These bites are almost word for word (with different numbers) taken from the Reagan anti-Medicare record. It’s an old trope and has never come to pass.
BTW no one tell Dolt45 we already have government run health care. And it works pretty damn well too.
Cheryl Rofer
@BlueGirlFromWyo: No point-counterpoint. This is it.
James E Powell
Rich people helping other rich people stay in power so they can help rich people get richer. Nothing else matters to them.
The Moar You Know
Sadly, this will be a stunningly effective argument for the olds, who all watch Fox anyway. We should have seen this coming. The orange shitbag will continue to double down on his lying.
Tazj
This makes me so incredibly angry. 45 and the Republicans portraying themselves as the ones who will defend your right to obtain affordable health insurance when you have a pre-existing condition, when they wanted to repeal the ACA. The gall, but why wouldn’t they try when no one is tough on them?
I want 45 to explain his plans and how they’re going to protect people and be cheaper. I want him to explain the difference between Medicare and Medicaid and why he thought it would be a good idea to repeal the ACA when people desperate for healthcare pleaded with the administration not to do it. These are basic questions he should be able to answer.
The gas lighting goes on all day and every day.
patrick II
The Koch brothers want open borders — Free Market Libertarinism!
Shalimar
I suppose sending mail bombs is still out? It sucks to have enough empathy to realize the pain impulsive hate would cause.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: yeah, that was… unexpected. I started reading, to see what the healthcare talking points would be, and then, straight to the moon!
Another Scott
Froomkin at WhitehouseWatch has a good takedown of Trump’s tactics (but doesn’t mention the FTFUSAT piece specifically) – https://whitehousewatch.com/2018/10/trumps-new-big-lie-is-that-its-the-democrats-who-threaten-the-rule-of-law/
Give Froomkin your clicks, not FTFUSAT.
Cheers,
Scott.
BlueGirlFromWyo
@Cheryl Rofer: Thank you. Another thing to ding them on. I disagree with the ignore and it will go away approach. That’s how we got into this mess.
zhena gogolia
@The Moar You Know:
Ageist crap.
Butter Emails!!!
“The Democrats are going to steal your Medicare!” screams the GOP as it plots to steal everyone’s Medicare.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: This, like all of his speeches, even the nat-sec, foreign policy, and economic policy ones, are all written by Stephen Miller. Even though Miller has no expertise in any of these topics and his only expertise in regard to immigration is that he hates immigrants and is a white supremacist despite being white only as the result of sufferance.
tobie
The FOX News set, which includes most old white Americans and what Anne Laurie aptly calls the the poujadistes, will eat this shit up. Scott in Florida has been doing a test run of this meme against Gillum and evidently they feel it’s been successful. Suddenly ‘universal healthcare’ doesn’t sound like such a bad slogan afterall. I don’t know why it got panned as lame-ass shit.
HalfAssedHomesteader
Of course, because what we need to understand is that Donald Trump just doesn’t have a big enough voice in the media.
BTW, this has Stephen Miller written all over it.
germy
https://dailygazette.com/article/2018/10/09/foss-owner-of-limo-company-has-troubling-history
Daniel'sBob
When I was growing up in rural northern Illinois, Social Security and Medicare were considered the early steps of the Democrats plot to turn the country socialist.
NickM
It sucks that USA Today agreed to print this crap, especially without a response, but does it really matter? Trump has no ability to persuade — no one is going to read this and change their mind about Medicare or immigrants, one way or the other. It’s shitty, obvious propaganda. Does it get more olds and racists to the polls? Don’t they always vote anyway?
Ruckus
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Ad slogans.
It is after all a maladministration that is based upon selling shit as shinola.
@Cheryl Rofer:
Paul brings it as usual. So one voice of reason at FTDNYT.
danielx
Eh, always with the projection. McMegan is clutching her pearls a the prospect of Dems assailing the Supreme Court as a political institution:
The left shouldn’t assail the Supreme Court’s legitimacy
I might be slightly more sympathetic to that thought is Republicans hadn’t made a decades-long project of getting five conservative justices. Then there was this guy named Merrick Garland who couldn’t even get a hearing, and this frat boy douche rocket named Kavanaugh, and Bush v. Gore, and Citizens United…okay, I can feel my blood pressure going up.
The legitimacy of the Supreme Court? Megan, that train left the station a long time ago.
Ruckus
@jamey:
They couldn’t give it away to me starting in the 90s. It was less than the cliff notes to any story. I believe that you knew less after reading it than if you never picked it up.
Adam L Silverman
@The Moar You Know: @zhena gogolia: @tobie: The reality though is that this isn’t going to move the turnout needle. The old white people that watch Fox already always turn out to vote. You can’t turn out more of them as almost all of them vote for them anyway.
Daniel'sBob
Moderation–need to either comment more or not at all.
chris
Right on cue, at the top of my Reddit home page, the Bullshit Asymmetry Principle.
Elizabelle
@germy: Per his attorney, the shady guy is back in Pakistan for “health problems.” Would be curious when he departed. Was it like, Saturday night? Accident happened Saturday afternoon and only broke in the NY Times Sunday afternoon — I am surprised at the delay there.
Attorney says he’ll be happy to return and answer questions. Sure …. 20 counts of manslaughter, at the very least … yeah he’ll be back …
Ruckus
@Yutsano:
It works pretty good when DC doesn’t try to starve it. It is the largest single health care organization in the country or so I’ve been told. It does have it’s shallow end and that is caused by bad management and that poor funding. Which is OK cause no one has to keep a promise to those sucker veterans. Right?
catclub
@Adam L Silverman:
I was thinking Dinesh D’Felon, but Stephen Miller is a good choice.
syphonblue
“Democrats would gut Medicare with their planned government takeover of American health care.”
MEDICARE IS GOVERNMENT HEALTHCARE
Elizabelle
@danielx: It’s Megan. FIDO, as Raven says.
(Fuck it and Drive On.) Would not read Megan output, unless I was being paid to do so.
catclub
@Another Scott:
I have found all of Michael Lewis’s books great, and his latest “The Fifth Risk” is on the braindead Trump transition teams.
satby
@The Moar You Know: except that I think the AARP keeps setting the record straight as a bit of counterbalance.
catclub
@syphonblue: Wait a minute, what about “Keep Government hands off my Medicare” signs?
Can those be wrong?
tobie
@Adam L Silverman: It’s the wives of the poujadistes I was thinking we might be able to persuade. Every small business owner I know is in some trade related to the housing industry, has limited education, inherited the business from a parent, doesn’t report earnings, doesn’t offer his employees proper benefits and is at the same time absolutely convinced that he is an engine of the economy like Thomas Edison. They’re a nasty bunch. Sometimes their wives are kinder, though they also fail to comprehend the subsidies they receive to live in scarcely populated regions where roads, hospitals, schools, electric lines, broadband, fire stations and the like have to be paid for by people living in the urban areas. They’re too stupid and/or too prejudiced to realize the con Trump’s playing on them. Should the Democrats ever retake government, they will need to think about ways to make sure urban areas receive as much representation in the House as rural areas.
Neldob
He is lying about the fact that Repuglicans want to end Medicare. Taking the left’s arguments trying to protect Medicare and lying them out of Republican mouths. He is driving the citizens insane, it’s out of a Hitchcock movie. And all we can do is support our nation and our citizen selves by supporting Democrats. I wouldn’t wipe my ass with the USA Today.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
That’s so perfect. That’s not every small business owner I know, but I’ve known a lot of them.
A lot of my dad’s friends (acquaintances) were kind of like that, Silent Generation or older, they didn’t inherit anything, and not all of them assholes, but they did well in the post-war/suburban expansion boom, often no college, or first in their families to do so, went to school on the GI Bill, great believers in their own bootstraps and the idea that because they “met a payroll” they knew all about the federal budget. And by god, they earned every cent of Social Security and Medicare.
Adam L Silverman
@catclub: D’Souza doesn’t work for the administration.
Adam L Silverman
@syphonblue: Shhh! You’ve said to much. Activate your emergency exfil plan!
The Moar You Know
@satby: I am a member and get all the bulletins. They have been dead silent. Which is quite a surprise, now that I think about it. Hopefully that will not continue.
The Moar You Know
@Neldob: It’s brilliant politics. It’s horrendous for the actual welfare of the citizenry, but hey, they’ve never given a shit about that.
Free college next. Or maybe they’ll leave that for Bernie so he can keep splitting the Dem vote.
Mike in NC
Fixed that.
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: But isn’t SM just articulating what the Orange Boss feels. Shithole countries, Mexicans are rapists etc came from the President and then candidate T. He chooses people like Miller because they conform to his world view.
gratuitous
The talking points in this op-ed track almost precisely with an add that Republican incumbent Jamie Herrera-Beutler is using in her campaign against Carolyn Long in WA-03 (Southwestern Washington, Vancouver area, just across the Columbia from Portland). Herrera-Beutler’s ad tosses in a couple of local issues (e.g., replacing the badly superannuated I-5 Bridge between Washington and Oregon and raising the specter of a toll bridge), but the “take away your health insurance” and “$32 trillion” are centerpieces of the ad. What goes unmentioned is that the same study that estimated costs at $32 trillion over the next ten years under the Democratic plan would be more than $34 trillion under the Republican plan. Also not mentioned is that the Republican plan would like to bring back denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions and no-coverage health insurance that only covers you if you were in a flood in Peru.
tobie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You’re right. I exaggerate. But I have to say that every single one of my neighbors is a small business owner, 80% never attended college, and all are convinced that no one works harder than them and that America’s biggest problem is the freeloading set in the city. It’s when you get onto the subject of government programs that their nastiness comes out. I think every resident of this country should get a “Makers and Takers Report” at the end of the year explaining how much a county paid per capita in federal and state taxes and how much it received in services. Heads would explode.
Brachiator
Having the op-ed piece printed in a national newspaper ahead of the mid-terms is a smart move by the Trump regime. I wonder who thought of it?
I am mildly curious as to why USA Today would print it, but just mildly curious. I doubt that the paper endorsed Trump.
HOWEVER, as usual Trump tips his hand. The GOP are obviously going to ramp up efforts to dismantle Medicare and Social Security. Meanwhile, this piece should be an easy target for Democrats.
This is an easily demolished lie. And although die-hard Trump supporters will nod their heads, other voters will remember Republicans running away from Town Hall meetings when confronted with the simple question, “what are you going to do to replace Obamacare with something better?” THAT was the promise.
BTW, there are stories that the Trump Administration plans to do maintenance on the Obamacare site during prime times when people would otherwise try to log on to get information and coverage. Typical bullshit moves.
ETA: The cost of living figures should be released tomorrow. These numbers will be used to set Social Security payments. It is projected to mean a significant increase in benefits. Normally, this would be followed by Republican bullshit about the need to rein in entitlements. However, I predict that the GOP strategy will be to keep quiet about this until after the November election. They have been remarkably disciplined and intend to maximize any political advantage. And, as usual, they are unanimous in their loyalty to Trump and their willingness to follow his lead.
cthulhu
I’m not particularly surprised that USA Today published this. I would be no more surprised if the NYT had. It is all about the clicks. And, in the US we are not supposed to think of OpEds by President’s as propangda as much as simple position statements. I would not have had a problem with them publishing something from Obama supporting the ACA.
It would have been nice, however, to have presented an associated fact check given the number of clear lies. They will likely publish something like that at some point because: more clicks!
That being said, USAT’s editorial roots historically have tended center right. That they of late have typically been critical of the current admin has been a mild surprise.
Steeplejack
This just in! First Supreme Court group portrait with Brett Kavanaugh.
Shalimar
@syphonblue: They claim the government would shift part of the money that pays for Medicare now to cover more people, thus reducing the amount of care seniors get. Hell, Republicans are opposed to every possible tax increase, so maybe in their world there is no option where the total money available for healthcare would grow. In the real world, what they say is in conflict with every evil stereotype of tax and spend Democrats they have created.
Immanentize
@Steeplejack: broken link
Cheryl Rofer
Fact check on the op-ed by the Washington Post crew.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
Miller, Kirstjen M. Nielsen and others are sadistic racists who get pleasure from hurting nonwhite people, and are giddy at being able to indulge their sickness on an industrial level as part of the Trump administration. Trump actively attracts and cultivates people like this.
Trump also takes advantage of many Americans’ inability or unwillingly to acknowledge willful racist malice on the part of some of their fellow citizens.
Gelfling 545
@The Moar You Know: Do you have a clue how many elderly people read and participate in this blog? Do you think all of us here are watching Fox? I am getting heartily sick of this stereotyping of an entire age group. Most of us understand just fine that enlarging the pool of recipients would likely make it more secure for us. And even Fox watchers have children and grandchildren for whose benefit they are concerned. Selfishness is not a generational trait. And f you are doing this to get a reaction, please stop. The issue is too serious for silly games.
kindness
I avoid USA today like it’s a Klan rally. Have you ever read the comments under articles there? Might as well be on what I imagine 4Chan is (I’ve never been there, I only imagine). No, USA Today is Pravda for conservatives.
Gelfling 545
@catclub: Ignorant is ignorant, whether in youth or age. And some ignorance is invincible.
Brachiator
@Cheryl Rofer:
And let’s emphasize a fun little part of the WaPo rebuttal:
Also love that there is an embedded YouTube clip. The power of the Internets wins again. No GOP tool can get away with the claim that “Reagan never said that” when you can see him… well, saying just that.
People should be posting pieces of this rebuttal all over the Facing Book to all their right wing nutjob friends and relatives.
By going too far with his lies, Trump may have given the Democrats an advantage. His lies are easily refuted.
dmsilev
Florida Woman:
Tenar Arha
@NickM: @alexandraerin makes a good point that essentially what USAToday did was allow that man (and the GOP) to launder their propaganda through their opinion page. So that,
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
Found a working link: Supreme Court group portrait with Kavanaugh.
Brachiator
@The Moar You Know:
Huh? They have a big ass site page on Protecting Medicare.
in the past, they pointed out how Trump was a threat to Medicare: President’s Budget Targets Medicare, Medicaid and Food Stamps
Kathleen
@Corner Stone: He also knows how to report on Trump, a journalistic skill or will that seems to elude his American compatriots.
Brachiator
@tobie:
It’s odd that you apparently know such a narrow slice of small business owners. I’ve prepared or reviewed thousands of tax returns of small business people. Very few inherited their business.
This thing about “limited education” is also odd. I’ve known people who had to drop out of school or never went far for various reasons. But many of these people are voracious readers and have made sure that their kids get all the advantages that they never had.
One of my relatives had abusive parents, ran away from home at 11 and was largely self-educated. He had a business, was extremely fair to his employees, also owned several apartment buildings, and was one of the most cultured and sophisticated people that I’ve ever known. He also helped friends start their own businesses.
And yeah, I’ve also known business people who are the absolute scum of the earth.
Butch
@The Moar You Know: I’m at least nearing what you’d call an old and I not only don’t watch Fox I’m probably more liberal than I was 30 years ago. Stereotyping isn’t any cooler because it comes from a progressive.
jl
The Trumpatorial is mishmash of lies and BS. It is vile cynical lie to scare the elderly, thinking that healthcare reform will pit them against younger people. Fortunately, so far, seems like a critical mass of elderly sense this is BS, but with big lie propaganda like this being spread, we need to keep fighting it.
I think the US can go two ways from here to a good healthcare system, and my two favorite examples are ‘Obamacare done right’ (Switzerland) and a Medicare for All as done in Australia. Both types of health care reform have greatly improved the health all across the age distribution and some of the greatest gains have been in the elderly.
The data are freely downloadable here:
https://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?DataSetCode=HEALTH_STAT
Where you can see the evolution of life expectancies overall and by gender over time at birth, age 40, 60, 65, and 80, for most high income industrialized countries. The US looks like a killing field since the early 1980s compared to Switzerland and Australia, and at least 20 other countries, for all ages, for both men and women.
Edit: if anyone doubts me, download the spreadsheet data and compare evolution of life expectancy at age 65 for US, Switzerland and Australia. Current Australian system in place since mid 1980s, Swiss since mid 1990s.
SiubhanDuinne
Proof that Balloon Juice is influential: Charles P. Pierce is also taking on the USA Today “op-ed” and, rather than link to FTFUSAT, he linked to this B-J post.
Nice. Thanks, Charlie.
catclub
@dmsilev: I bet it was a flying squirrel!
jc
If Donald Trump ever had to have a legitimate, fact-based debate on health care (or immigration, or women’s rights, or*) one on one against a knowledgeable opponent, he’d melt into a puddle of toxic goo. Of course, his administration will make sure that never, ever happens.
*or climate change
or police brutality
or campaign finance
or Russian election tampering
or money laundering
or …
catclub
@Neldob:
This worked fabulously well for the GOP in 2010. Expect them to continue to use it until it does not. With any luck, the counter from the Democrats will be faster and more forceful, that the GOP are lying.
Chris Johnson
@Brachiator: Oh, good. I specifically joined them because I thought AARP was a power bloc in a position to resist both the gutting of health care for seniors, and ridiculous bullshit that would LEAD to the gutting of health care for seniors.
I’m pretty sure that, just as you look to something like The Economist or WSJ for reasonably accurate takes on movements they don’t like (such as socialism), you could look to AARP to keep track of whether the propaganda actually conceals an intent to wreck health care for seniors and everyone else.
They might even end up reminding people that Medicare is government health care and as such, closer to (gasp!) socialism than it is to private ‘market’ schemes.
Soprano2
@tobie: I knew the man who owned the bar & grill where my husband used to hang out. He thought he was the smartest businessman in the world, while at the same time calling my husband an idiot over a political disagreement and always being drunk when he came in the bar. (We don’t drink that much in our bar & grill because we don’t want the customers to see us drunk! It’s bad for business.). He died at the age of 67 in a motorcycle accident. He had no will or trust or any kind of document to help administer his estate; he had gotten married just 4 months previously, and had grown children from a previous marriage, so his estate was a total clusterfuck. I always thought he was full of shit about being a great businessman, and the way he left his estate proved it to me. The probate court told his manager how to run the business for several months; that would have driven him crazy!
The Moar You Know
@Gelfling 545: Starting to by the utter cluelessness manifested here on a daily basis.
I’ll keep doing me, thanks for the input, everybody.
PST
@Gelfling 545:
How old do you have to be to be elderly? I’m asking for a friend who turns 65 tomorrow.
mr gravity
FWIW Listened to a little bit of the Tennessee Governors Debate last night. Democrat Karl Dean says he would take the Medicare Expansion and look at fixing any problems with the ACA. “Conservative Outsider” Bill Lee says we can’t just throw money at the problem we need a comprehensive solution that will solve the problem “twenty years down the road”. I had to laugh as I seem to recall that this was the GOP solution twenty-five years ago. And it will be the GOP solution twenty-five years from now. Just like with Climate Science, “elect me and I will make sure that someone else deals with it in the future.
mr gravity
Also too, Tennessee Senate race: Some progressive super PAC is raining on Marsha Blackburn for being in Big Pharma’s pocket on opioids. Conservative super PAC now running ads saying former Governor Phil Bredesen is in Big Pharma’s pocket on opioids. Bredesen has been out of government for eight years chairing Solar Energy development.
These people can’t even make up their own lies.