Category Archives: Medicare

September 21, 2011 · 9:55 pm

Ron Paul Says Aide Who Died With $400k Medical Bill Didn’t Need Government Help

How can people be so blind- and so cruel?

I guess it’s easy to be hard….

Ron Paul told TPM on Wednesday that even if there’s a “case or two” that makes Americans uncomfortable, the government should stay out of the health care business. Even if one of the cases in question is his former campaign manager, Kent Snyder, who died with $400,000 in unpaid medical bills after being unable to secure health insurance due to a pre-existing condition.

via Ron Paul Says Aide Who Died With $400k Medical Bill Didn’t Need Government Help | Election 2012.

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August 24, 2011 · 6:38 pm

Marco Rubio: Medicare, Social Security ‘Weakened Us As People,’ Made Us Lazy

People really need to start paying attention to what these Republicans are saying- and the Democrats need to do a better job of publicizing it and calling them out in public.

This Tea Bagger Senator is on every GOP Presidential Candidates short list for Vice President.  Because he’s from the key swing state of Florida.  Well, his value may have just gone down.  This type of talk is not going to go over well in retiree-land….

Oh, one other thing….He seems to think families and communities should look out for their own.  Well, it’s not 1950 and families and communities are not necessarily there for people who have had to move around all their lives for jobs and to satisfy the Corporations they work(ed) for….These guys need to wake up.

From ThinkProgress.org.  Click the link to go to their site if you want to  see the video.  If not, hopefully, you will see it in an attack ad from the DNC soon.

 

Potential vice president running mate Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) dismissed the importance of programs like Medicare and Social Security during a speech at the Reagan Presidential Library this afternoon, arguing that the initiatives “weakened us as people”:

These programs actually weakened us as a people. You see, almost forever, it was institutions in society that assumed the role of taking care of one another. If someone was sick in your family, you took care of them. If a neighbor met misfortune, you took care of them. You saved for your retirement and your future because you had to. We took these things upon ourselves in our communities, our families, and our homes, and our churches and our synagogues. But all that changed when the government began to assume those responsibilities. All of a sudden, for an increasing number of people in our nation, it was no longer necessary to worry about saving for security because that was the government’s job.

via Marco Rubio: Medicare, Social Security ‘Weakened Us As People,’ Made Us Lazy | ThinkProgress.

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August 4, 2011 · 6:08 pm

Eric Cantor Intends to Break America’s Promises

Eric Cantor is evil.  There is no other way to put it.

I’m ashamed he’s from my home state of Virginia.

Virginia used to stand for honor, gentility, manners, culture and education.

Virginians were once known for their tradition of hospitality and concern for others.

It’s the state that gave us Thomas Jefferson and George Washington….

Well, that’s all obviously gone with the wind…

So to speak….

 

U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R., Va.) on Wednesday suggested that Republicans will continue a push to overhaul programs such as Medicare, saying in an interview that “promises have been made that frankly are not going to be kept for many” and that younger Americans will have to adjust.

“What we have to be, I think, focused on is truth in budgeting here,” Cantor told The Wall Street Journal’s Opinion Journal. He said “the better way” for Americans is to “get the fiscal house in order” and “come to grips with the fact that promises have been made that frankly are not going to be kept for many.”

He added that younger Americans will have “ample time to try and plan our lives so that we can adjust” to the post-Medicare society.

As Cantor sees it, the existing Medicare program simply must be eliminated for fiscal reasons, replaced with a privatized system. In other words, the Paul Ryan plan that was soundly rejected by voters and policy experts alike is still the preferred model for the House Republican leadership.

As a matter of policy, this is still hopelessly ridiculous, for all the reasons we talked about in the Spring. But on a political level, this is just as misguided. The more Cantor and his allies base their agenda on ending Medicare, the happier Democrats are.

Also note the rhetoric the oft-confused House Majority Leader uses: the United States has made promises to the public, and as far as Eric Cantor is concerned, “many” Americans will simply have to accept that those promises “are not going to be kept.”

Why not? Because Republicans say so. Promises to Grover Norquist are sacrosanct, but promises to senior citizens are not.

This is, to put it mildly, a gift for Democrats. I’ll look forward to the DNC running ads in, say, Florida, telling voters that the leading House Republican believes the United States committed to the Medicare program, but now believes those promises “are not going to be kept.”

And in an ideal political environment, the Republican presidential hopefuls would spend the next few weeks responding to a straightforward question: “Do you agree with Eric Cantor that America’s promises to Medicare beneficiaries should be broken?”

via Political Animal – Cantor intends to break America’s promises.

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April 20, 2011 · 7:16 pm

Republicans: Let’s Cut Social Security, Too

God, I hope people are paying attention to what these fools want to do…

They will not rest until they totally destroy the social safety net in America..

Do we really want Senior Citizens to end up sleeping and dying in the streets?

These guys are providing a lot of support for D.H. Lawrence’s observation:

“The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted.”

I hope we yet prove him wrong by voting these people out of office….

From MotherJones.com:

For all the drastic spending cuts in GOP Rep. Paul Ryan’s proposed 2012 budget, there’s one major government program that it barely touches: Social Security. Now Republicans in both houses of Congress are preparing to dig into that sacrosanct entitlement as well.

On Wednesday morning, shortly before Obama’s big deficit speech, three Republican senators unveiled a plan to cut $6.2 trillion by paring back Social Security over the next two decades. Under a proposal unveiled by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and Mike Lee (R-Utah), the qualifying age for Social Security would rise from 67 to 70 by 2032, while benefits for everyone earning more than an average of $43,000 over their lifetime would be reduced. Graham took pains to explain that he wasn’t pushing for privatization but also slammed any tax increases to shore up Social Security, saying such a move would “destroy America.” “It’s much better to give up benefits on the end side than pay taxes now,” he explained.

Graham, who’s long led GOP efforts on Social Security, said that he could only find two other senators to join him at the podium on Wednesday, given the political risks involved in tackling the issue. “It shows the real reluctance of the GOP,” he said. And while House Republicans have made privatizing Medicare and cutting Medicaid their top budget priorities, Graham said that Social Security reform needed to be moved to the front of the queue. “It’s the place to start entitlement reform. Once you fix the Social Security problem, move to Medicare,” he told Mother Jones.

via Republicans: Let’s Cut Social Security, Too | Mother Jones.

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April 18, 2011 · 9:44 pm

My Thoughts: On Tax Day and the Social Contract

Today is Tax Day, the deadline for filing one’s income taxes in the USA.  Even though I filed mine a while back, I still always stop and ponder our tax situation on the deadline day.

First of all, I pay a lot of taxes and I really don’t mind it.  I’m  lucky enough to have a good job, at least for now, so I don’t mind contributing to the good of the country.

I don’t mind paying Medicare and Social Security withholding taxes as they are a part of the social contract we have with the government to support today’s seniors now and ensure we aren’t destitute and without medical care when we get old.  I’ve kept my part of this bargain by paying into the system since I was 16 years old and I expect the government to live up to their end of the deal and not change things this late in the game.

I don’t mind paying taxes even though I’m a Gay man who can’t file a joint return with his partner.  I don’t mind paying taxes to support education even though we will never have children.  I don’t mind paying taxes to build high-speed rail and save our crumbling infrastructure.  I don’t mind paying taxes to prevent those people and their children not as lucky as me from starving or doing without medical care. I don’t mind paying taxes to build give poor children a head start or to create jobs by exploring clean energy and energy efficient cars.  I don’t mind paying taxes that support internet improvements and expansion so we can link the country to the world.  I don’t mind paying taxes to provide benefits to our Veterans who have served our country.  I don’t mind paying taxes to enrich our country’s cultural and artistic life.

I do mind that my taxes support unnecessary wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  I do mind that I pay more taxes than Exxon Mobile, GE and Bank of America, who don’t pay any.  I do mind that my tax rate ended up being higher than the 17% tax rate that most of the wealthiest 1% of Americans paid- if they paid at all.  I do mind that so many Corporations don’t pay any taxes and spend billions lobbying Congress to keep it that way.

I guess my thought has always been that we have an obligation to give back.  It’s part of the social contract.

None of us will ever be completely happy with how our tax dollars are spent.  But we do need to realize the obligation we have to society to pay these taxes.  We also need to do our best to elect Representatives that will make everyone pay their fair share and use these  tax funds to the benefit of the nation as a whole-not just the lucky few.  That is becoming harder and harder to do as the Rich and the Corporations buy the Government piece by piece.

We have an obligation to learn the true positions of the people we elect to manage the nation’s finances.  We are not doing our duty as Americans if we fall for public relations campaigns and smoke and mirrors that hide a Candidate’s true agenda.  That certainly happened in last year’s Congressional Elections….

So on tax day, don’t resent having to pay.  Remember, death and taxes are the only two inevitabilities in life.

Just think about how you can best work to be sure everyone pays their fair share and our nations funds are used wisely.

And I know, that alone, is asking a hell of a lot…..

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April 18, 2011 · 9:08 pm

Will Anyone Even Insure Seniors if Paul Ryan’s Medicare Plan Passes? | TPMDC

I thought of this right away….

There’s not money to be made insuring Senior Citizens, so why would private insurance companies cover them?

This is another reason Paul Ryan’s Republican proposal to kill Medicare just won’t work….

It’s not realistic.

But then, that never mattered to the GOP….

At first glance, Paul Ryan’s plan to send millions of seniors into the free market with dwindling vouchers in hand might seem a boon to the private insurance industry. But would companies even want to participate?

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.”

via Will Anyone Even Insure Seniors if Paul Ryan’s Medicare Plan Passes? | TPMDC.

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April 15, 2011 · 9:01 pm

The Republican Medicare Masacre

This is a very clear summary of the Republican Budget plan that they voted on today…

Basically, it ends Medicare for anyone currently under age 55.

Do you want to be old and at the mercy of insurance companies?

Do you have enough money saved to pay the additional $7000 per year it would cost you to pay for this insurance?  That is if the insurance companies will even offer it…

Think long and hard, folks…

Elections have consequences….

From the NY TImes:

Representative Paul Ryan and the House Republicans are portraying their budget proposal for the next fiscal year as a courageous effort to finally bring federal spending on Medicare under control. An analysis issued last week by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office finds that the Ryan proposal would sharply reduce federal spending — but at the price of shifting more of Medicare’s costs onto beneficiaries and their families.

How much more? Calculations derived from the C.B.O. analysis show that in 2022, when the Ryan plan would kick in, the typical 65-year-old would pay $6,400 to $7,000 more per year than would be paid for comparable coverage under traditional Medicare.

Mr. Ryan’s proposal would change Medicare from an entitlement program in which the government pays for a defined set of medical services into a “premium support” program in which the government would give beneficiaries money to help them buy private insurance. He contends that competition among health care plans and more judicious use of health care services by beneficiaries can help bring down the cost of health care and reduce the federal government’s burden.

But the C.B.O. says a private plan offering comparable benefits would be a lot more expensive than traditional Medicare because the private insurer would have higher administrative costs, would need to make a profit and, in an extrapolation of current trends, would pay hospitals, doctors and other providers substantially more than Medicare does. Beneficiaries would have to pay higher out-of-pocket costs or buy skimpier policies.

The Ryan plan has no chance of becoming law while the Democrats still control the Senate and the White House. But if health care becomes a defining issue in the 2012 elections — as it should — everyone under the age of 55 is on notice that Mr. Ryan’s plan would impose heavy costs on them when they reach age 65.

via The Republican Medicare Reshuffle – NYTimes.com.

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