republicans actually thought the tea party"keep the government out of my medicare" crowd wanted cuts to their own benefits. they wanted cuts to other peoples programs. now the republicans are backed into a corner because the tea party will take higher taxes on the rich before cuts. --------------------------------------------------------------- http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/...ops-medicare-privatization-plan.php?ref=fpblg The Republican plan to privatize Medicare may need life support. In a Quinnipiac poll released Wednesday, a robust majority of registered voters disapproved of Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) proposal to privatize Medicare and cap spending on the program that provides health care assistance to the elderly. And further, a strong majority said they supported an alternate path toward deficit reduction: raising taxes on top income earners, a proposal the GOP leadership has said is a non-starter. Further complicating the GOP's position, just under seven in ten voters said they supported raising taxes on annual income above $250,000 -- as President Obama and Democrats have suggested. Twenty-eight percent of voters said they did not suport such a tax increase.
republicans are backpeddling as fast as they can on the plan to end medicare. that have to find a way to unload this hot potato but it will not work. they already voted to end medicare. i can hardly wait to see the commercials the dems run in the next election. Medicare Shoe Drops Hard Josh Marshall | May 5, 2011, 12:25AM little dust-up happened tonight that likely tells us where the debate over Medicare Phase-Out is going. Shortly after 9 PM this evening the Washington Post emailed a breaking news alert which read "Medicare dropped from GOP budget proposal." That kicked off a furious push back from the office of Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA). And shortly after 10:30 PM the Post sent out a revised email with a new headline: "Republican leaders seeking compromise in deficit talks." In the body of the email there was an editorial note: "The headline on an earlier alert incorrectly described the GOP position in deficit talks." It's not clear to me how much the article itself changed. My sense is little or none at all. And the initial headline probably was an aggressive read on just what Republicans are saying. But my sense is they were likely much more right than wrong. From a distance it looks like Cantor was trying to signal without quite saying it that they're not going to make the fight on Medicare -- something to signal to Republicans in and out of Congress as well as to the President and his party. Only the story turned up in the Post less like implicit repositioning than flat out surrender. And to be clear, at least based on what's in the article now, that headline does seem overstated. Still, the effort to offload Medicare Phase-Out seems unmistakable. And the difficulty of doing so is made far greater by the fact that all but six members of the House GOP caucus have already voted for it. http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2011/05/medicare_shoe_drops_hard.php?ref=fpblg
I think Ryan made a good faith effort to address a difficult problem, but his politics were faulty. This kind of major change requires laying an educational background. A lot of people don't realize the size of the problem or are in denial, like Obama. Of course, the result was that Ryan set himself up as an easy target for evey demagogue in the dmeocrat party, led by Obama. Fresh off his arizona speech asking for less partisanship and more respect, obama virtually accused Ryan of wanting to see old people die to give tax cuts to the "rich." Pretty hard to reach across the aisle after that. Of course, obama himself has zero in the way of realistic ideas and isn't even proposing anything, other than even more tax increases. I happen to agree that people who have paid medicare taxes for decades should not see their benefits cut. Ryan's plan didn't kick in for 10 years, so the elderly and those close to retirement would not be affected, but that detail got lost in the noise.
you cant ask old people to give up the most popular government program ever created while at the same time giving huge breaks to the rick. ryan has to be an idiot not to understand that. there are easy ways to fix medicare. means test it,do something about end of life useless medical procedures and maybe a small increase of the wage cap would fix medicare.
Hippocrites on the left, hippocrites on the right... what's new? Why even affiliate yourself with incohesive groups eh? Makes no sense.
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No one was being asked to give up anything. The changes were far down the road. There are dedicated taxes for medicare anyway, so that "tax vcuts for the rich" nonsense has no relevance. Just more leftwing class envy demagoguery. It's easy to say cut useless end of life procedures, but it's not always so clear they are useless. I 'm sure obama and HHS Sec. Sebellius don't have any problems with killing old people, just as they don't have any problems with baby killers, as long as their families are not affected, but decent people do. The worst possible solution is to have government panels deciding who gets what procedure. We know how that will work out, Geroge Soros will get anything he wants, the average person won't be able to get an MRI.
so people like you dont have a problem with republicans destroying medicare which will cause many senior deaths but you whine if some tightening of end of life costs is attempted?