The subtitle of this piece should be: Old Age is the ultimate preexisting condition.
I know the Republican party has always had a problem with understanding how the Wayback Machine works. After all, how else to explain their total lack of willingness to accept responsibility for getting us into two wars that have cost us three TRILLION dollars, plus they managed to wipe out a budget surplus and turn it into the biggest deficit in history, while simultaneously facilitating the destruction of the American economy and a real unemployment rate of over 15% when you include workers who have just given up looking.
But let’s just recall anyway all the fun they had (falsely) accusing Democrats of voting for Death Panels for Grannie back during the last election cycle, falsely claiming that the medical system reforms proposed by the Democratic Party included death panels to dispose of the aging in America.
Well, now that their plan to destroy Medicare and Medicaid has been revealed by their votes in favor of Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget proposal, seems they have not had a really happy spring break with their constituents back home. Seems the folks are a little upset, and probably ready to vote these clowns back out of office next year.
One can only hope.
What is hilarious, however, is that these hypocrites, who two years ago were furiously doing everything they could to push their lies and disrupt meetings of Democratic representatives with their DEATH PANEL claims, which were patent lies, now seem to have had their tender sensitive Republican fee-fees hurt really badly by the Democrats.
How is that, you ask? Well, it seems that the Democrats have been pointing out the TRUTH about the Ryan and the Republicans’ plans to destroy Medicare and Medicaid. Heck, they even want to destroy Social Security. The lies about its supposed insolvency are legion. Just check out this interview with Cat Food Commission member Alan Simpson. Simpson’s stunning lack of knowledge of the actual financial condition of the program he is trying his best to destroy is simply mind-numbing to behold.
Nothing new about this, but in regard to the Republican plan to destroy Medicare, the truth hurts, apparently, when you are a Republican.
A group of House Republican freshmen, tired of getting hammered on Medicare, is leading a fresh protest against Democrats’ tactics on the senior citizen health care program.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger sent a letter to the White House Tuesday signed by 41 of his classmates “calling on President Obama to end the ‘MediSCARE’ tactics,” according to a release today.
“As new members of Congress, we are committed to having a fact-based conversation immediately. Our mission must be about the next generation, not the election—this is something we cannot lose sight of,” the letter reads. “Will you join us to stop the political rhetoric, work to advance America’s interests, and end this cycle of debts, deficits and indecision?”
The latest freshman demonstration comes just weeks after some of the new members faced tough questions from constituents in town halls after their vote to alter Medicare by turning it into a program that provides federal subsidies for the purchase of private plans. Some of the freshmen who made headlines for their raucous town halls, including Pennsylvania Reps. Pat Meehan and Lou Barletta, and Florida’s Allen West, signed onto the letter.
They are sure doing a good job of whining for the wambulance
House Minority Leader of Nancy Pelosi has sought to publicly address their concerns, and their request that the Democrats go easy on them and quit reminding the American people of the truth about their votes, with a couple of memos published earlier this week. I think they sum it up nicely.
To: GOP Freshman (AGAIN)
Fr: Democratic Leader’s Press Office
Da: May 11, 2011
Re: Your Vote to End Medicare Is Here to StayWe know it’s hard for you to accept the anger over your vote to end Medicare as we know it, but holding a press conference to ask the American people to ignore your irresponsible vote is, frankly, a bit puzzling. You defended your vote just two weeks ago, but you didn’t like what you got back from your constituents. It’s time to take responsibility for your actions.
To: GOP Freshman
Fr: Democratic Leader’s Press Office
Da: May 10, 2011
Re: The Truth Hurts — You Did Vote to End Medicare as We Know ItJust half a day after Speaker Boehner said he wants to engage in “honest conversations about how best to preserve Medicare” (ie: the GOP’s plan to end Medicare as we know it), you are trying to silence criticism of your vote supporting the plan.
Sometimes the truth hurts.
House Republicans voted for a GOP budget that:
Ends Medicare as we know it.
Forces seniors to pay over $6,000 more a year.
Requires a 54-year-old today to save an additional $182,000 in his or her retirement account, or $250 a week, just to pay the costs of the plan.
Democrats have a plan to ensure older Americans have access to affordable, high quality care – it’s called Medicare and it currently serves more than 46 million Americans.
We are committed to preserving Medicare—not ending it. Will the GOP finally join us?
Here is the bald truth about the Republican plans to destroy Medicare and Medicaid. It is nothing but an attempt to destroy a system with overhead of only 5%, in order to turn it over to the Republicans’ buddies in the private for profit insurance industry, where the overhead runs in the neighborhood of 35%. One analysis of the plan suggests that the total the Ryan plan could increase health care costs for beneficiaries by a staggering $34 trillion over 75 years.
Of course, that is assuming seniors can find a private health care plan that will even agree to sell them coverage.
Unlike the Affordable Care Act, which mandated that millions of young and healthy Americans purchase insurance with government subsidies, the Paul Ryan plan would instead bring the oldest, sickest, and least profitable demographic to the table. And with the CBO projecting that the average senior would be on the hook for over two-thirds of their health care costs within just 10 years of the plan’s adoption — a proportion that is projected to worsen in the long run — the government subsidies backing them up may not bring in enough profitable customers to make things worthwhile.
“If reimbursement rates are too low to provide basic benefits, they’ll tell the government, ‘You do it,'” one insurance lobbyist told TPM. “I don’t think they can require they lose money, they’d just pull out.”
This inconvenient fact is of course totally ignored when the supporters of this plan talk about these proposals. The for-profit health care insurance industry has a track record a mile long of doing everything in its power to DENY coverage, and to DENY accessibility to insurance to begin with.
Well here is a clue, America. Old Age is the ultimate preexisting condition.
It is one every last American will one day, if they are lucky to live long enough, suffer from. And it is one that the for-profit insurance companies do NOT want to deal with. They are focused on two things: profits for share holders, and multimillion dollar bonuses for CEOs and corporate executives. They are NOT in the business to provide health care for the poor, the elderly, and those who are the most in need. They do not want to be on the hook for the cost of serious and long-term illnesses.
In fact, one bottom line that is also not mentioned about the Ryan plan by its supporters is the simple fact that when the minimal vouchers offered by the government run out, that’s it. There is no coverage for catastrophic illness, or care that requires expenses beyond the projected $20,000 or so a year that vouchers plus individual contributions would cover.
After that point, the Republicans are done with you if you get really sick. Their plan really is very simple, and they have made it abundantly clear again and again.
Just hurry up and die, already. You are interfering with corporate profits.
This post has been faxed to Representative Todd Young, IN-09; Indiana Senators Dick Lugar and Daniel Coats; The White House; House Speaker John Boehner; Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid; House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi; Rep. Paul Ryan, R-WI; and and posted on this web site, http://keepamericafree.com. The web site provides links to documents on the web supporting the statements in this letter.
