More Like This Please — Paul Ryan Is Trying to End Medicare
This is being played in various markets (including Ryan’s in Wisconsin and accompanied by a huge robocall effort to talk to votes over 45 in Republican House Districts) :
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbvfGlI_xLg[/youtube]
And from the DCCC (this is very good from them — too long for a commercial run, but incredibly clear about the GOPers who ran on protecting Medicare and then got to DC and voted to dismantle it. This ought to be good cut for individual districts):
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8FM-tvstas[/youtube]
More of this kind of thing is needed to make sure that folks actually get this — and to stop the media silliness over how ending Medicare is some sort of brave act to balance the budget. Americans overwhelmingly do not want Medicare to be sacrificed to balance the budget and energizing more folks around this is pretty crucial.
And here is an interesting assessment from McClatchy — noting that is looks like Ryan is the new face of the Republican Party:
He’s doing it for two key reasons. Obama wants to shift the public focus away from own contribution to the nation’s skyrocketing debt — which hurt Democrats in the 2010 congressional elections — and onto the Republican Party’s proposed solutions. And he wants to frame the election as a choice between two very different visions of America: The Republican one he calls a dark place for the poor and middle class, and the other his own view of a friendly, more utopian place.
Obama, his top advisers and fellow Democrats believe that Ryan handed them a gift when he proposed a budget plan that would cut taxes by $2 trillion over 10 years and also cut federal spending by $6.2 trillion, cuts which include possibly wrenching changes in the popular Medicare program.
Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/04/24/112725/obama-paints-rep-ryan-as-the-gop.html#ixzz1KZGQBe19
Ryan did indeed hand Democrats a gift. Ryan offers a bogeyman on the right Democrats can point at to distract from their own rightward drift.
The Ryan budget is even more horrible than Obama’s individual mandate. And the Ryan tax cuts are even more unfair than Obama’s tax cuts for the rich.
If Ryan didn’t exist Obama would have to invent him. Better to make the election a referendum on Ryan. Actually if the Repubs just stood pat and played defense, the election would become a referendum on Obama and Repubs would win handily.
But even though Ryan’s budget is extreme and far right, let’s not lose sight of how much ground the Democratic agenda has lost all on its own via the tax cuts for the rich and the individual mandate.
But you know what? The Ryan plan was out there before the mid-terms, and the only people talking about it were bloggers. Why didn’t Dems start demonizing it then?
Because it wasn’t in the form that’s being criticized now. We all talk about this as if it were some intellectual exercise, but it’s actually the budget the House voted for.
Yes, the vote makes it hard to ignore. But Ryan’s plan was the official position of the House Republican caucus before the election. I didn’t hear any Democrats running against the Republican plan to end Medicare. And I didn’t hear Obama campaigning from the bully pulpit explaining that if the GOP took the House they would end Medicare.
Why didn’t Dems take the Ryan plan seriously, and use it as a cudgel to keep the House? Why wait until now?
Actually, it wasn’t the “official” position of the House Republican caucus. Most Republicans were deliberately vague as to whether or not they supported Ryan, specifically to not have to answer for this in 2010. Which is something of the point of the second video I posted — showing video of Repubs who ran *against* cutting or changing Medicare and then came to Washington and voted *for* cutting it.
“Why didn’t Dems take the Ryan plan seriously, and use it as a cudgel to keep the House? Why wait until now?”
because they calculated they could only use it once and better to use it in a presidential race than mid-terms.
Anon, the individual mandate is only bad without a public option. In order for universal health care to work, everyone needs to be paying in in some form or another. you can only make that happen by requiring people to buy it.
“Tell that to Medicare recipients.”
What have Medicare recipients “bought”?
How did my comment come out above the one I was answering?
Geezer, comments are flipping all over here. Not sure why that is happening, but it is….
you can only make that happen by requiring people to buy it.
Tell that to Medicare recipients.
“What have Medicare recipients “bought”?”
Nothing, that is the point. Medicare is funded by a
progressivetax that pays for health care, not insurance. That is how all health care should be funded, not by an individual mandate to buy private insurance.(Actually, the Medicare tax is not progressive but at least it is flat with no income cap. It still doesn’t apply to unearned income though, which is most of what the wealthy earn.)
Actually, it wasn’t the “official” position of the House Republican caucus.
Even more reason to hang it around their necks during the election. If it was an election issue they would have been forced to either own it or repudiate it. Repudiation would have cost them teabagger support and GOTV.
Did you even *look* at the videos posted? Repubs running for office were specifically running *against* changing Medicare. Pretending that the elimination of the Medicare Advantage program was somehow the apocalypse. It is pretty hard to hang the elimination of Medicare around the necks of people specifically running to save it. You see the lie when they actually endorse the Ryan plan.
🙄
My point is that people are still paying for it — just not the Medicare recipients, who paid their share while they were working. Everyone does pay into it, but through taxes.
Madison, Wis. Recallers have enough votes now to go after the 6th Republican State Senator. Delivery of recall petitions this Thrusday.
Folks on medicare are still paying and paying. We are paying a monthly fee of at least $150 out of our social security checks, and we pay a portion of our drugs. We also pay co-pays for every doctor visit. Aint nothing free here. Cant wait for VT to go total single payer, its just a matter of time. John Conyers is putting back in HR646 Medicare for all bill…
If the Senate democrats had any cajones at all they would force the Ryan bill out of the Senate and make the Senate repukes vote on it. Why doesnt Reid do that? There are games being played here by both parties. Lets not forget Obama had the doctors and nurses for single payer arrested. Couldnt even get a seat at the table. We also know that Rahm went to Big Pharma and did a deal with them too. So I really dont trust either party, its up to the citizens to make sure our voices are heard loud and clear..or we are going to get bamboozled. Surely Obama knew when he put Bowles and Simpleton Simpson on that Task force, what he was gonna get back. And the insurance question wasnt even part of their mandate. Obama needed a fall guy and it was Bowles and Simpleton.