Senator Scott Brown (R-Massachusetts) would like to spend this week talking about something different, please. Mr. Brown writes in a Politico op-ed today that he would not vote for the Paul Ryan budget and its plan to kill Medicare:
Our country is on an unsustainable fiscal path. But I do not think it requires us to change Medicare as we know it. We can work inside of Medicare to make it more solvent.
I'm not sure Senator Brown has gone all the way to coherent yet. Is he saying that we don't need to change Medicare? If so, what does that part about how "we can work inside" it mean? Just a few graphs before this, he writes that we should "where appropriate, phase changes in over time." He seems to be echoing Democrats' charge the Ryan budget ends "Medicare as we know it." Maybe the question is still how much you can change something before you have in fact killed it.
Given what Senator Brown told a local Chamber of Commerce in Massachusetts earlier this month, it may be asking too much to expect coherence. "The leaders will bring forward (Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's) budget, and I will vote for it, and it will fail," he said, in remarks reported by the Newburyport Daily News. That statement seems to be the opposite of what he's saying today, but it is very clear.
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Like Gingrich Scott is now finished as a Republican
No, he's from Mass. He *has* to defend medicare. No way a guy gets re-elected in Mass. after working to dismantle the social contract. Not a chance. Now if he had aspirations for a career on the national level, I quite agree.
if they spent some money up front rooting out fraud Medicare would be solvent.
Like the fraud Rick Scott's company perpetrated in FL.
Medicare is in trouble, but not for the reasons the repubs say. It is in trouble because more and more doctors are refusing to accept Medicare patients. In many cases now, Medicare literally doesn't even reimburse enough to cover the cost of the medicines given to the patients. As a result, unless a doctor is part of a large clinical group or a hospital, treating Medicare patients is financially impossible. This is really beginning to affect low income patients and seniors, as they are finding it harder and harder to locate doctors that will treat them, much like we are seeing on the abortion front, where women who need abortion services are finding it harder to locate abortion clinics, despite the fact it is still legal. Repubs are working to destroy the healthcare system of the country in order to benefit Big Pharma and insurance companies. If it requires a few million people to die for the benefit of those industries, well, it's a small price to pay for the continued prosperity of the wealthiest Americans.
Ahh yes. If only we rooted out fraud and inefficiency in our <enter government program here> everything would be fine. Let me just point out three facts.
(1) Fraud and waste account for some small percent of expenses that can be cut. But how much, do you think? 20%? 30%? That would be absurd. Lets be cynics and say fraud and waste are about 5% or even 10%. Slashing those would still leave the program non-solvent, though by all means, let us get rid of them. But, see the next point.
(2) In physics, it is a law of nature that no process can be perfectly efficient. That is why there can be no perpetual motion machines. There is always friction and "wasted" energy. Think of human activities as similar. No large organization can operate at 100% efficiency with no waste (let alone some fraud at the margins). It goes against nature, if you accept this analogy.
(3) When Clinton was heading out of office, the US was on track to get rid of all its debt and make medicare solvent for decades to come. Instead, the US government decided that it would be better to just hand people money (tax cuts) and leave that whole balancing the budget and saving medicare for another day. Not that it helps now, but it's good to remember it was possible. So how about we start by returning to the tax levels that *made* this possible to begin with? Nah, I didn't think so.
I've been laughing at the whole repub line of "we can save billions of dollars just by eliminating waste in government programs" for decades, ever since Reagan started blabbering about it. Yes, there is certainly waste in government, but certainly nowhere near the magnitude repubs claim there is. There is also waste in private companies, (unless you really think a CEO should be making $40 million a year or more).
Uffdaguy - Exactly! I love this....
Repubs have tried to drill into our heads for decades that the private sector is the model on which we should base our government, ("I'll run the government like a business, because I am a businessman myself"), and on which we should base our personal lives, ("If you ran your finances like a business does, you wouldn't be losing your house right now"), but the fact of the matter is that businesses are composed of people.....many of them pretty poor excuses for human beings, (Madoff, Ken Lay, Trump,etc.). They make the same mistakes, suffer from the same personality flaws and foibles that all of us do. The difference is that when an individual does something stupid, does something greedy, venal or selfish, it rarely destroys the world economy, unlike Wall Street banksters in the first decade of the 21st century.
If a politician tells me he will run government like a business, he automatically loses my vote, as it is apparent that they have no real concept of the differences between government FOR the people, and business AGAINST the people.
So if you did run the government like a business, and this business could not pay the bills even after they cut back on everything they could. How do you pay the bills? Well every business I know, you have to raise more revenue. The only way our government can raise more revenue is to raise taxes. So just whose taxes are you going to raise?
No, no, no, don't you understand basic repub economics? If a business is failing....you ask the government to bail you out with taxpayer money, while handing out huge bonuses to top execs as a reward for their fine work. As a corollary, if repubs believe the way to increase government revenues is to decrease them, then a well-run business should immediately slash prices in order to increase their income.
It reminds me of the old SNL skit for the company that would break your dollar bill into change. They charged no fees to do so, and when asked how they could stay in business that way, they replied, "volume".
That is the problem with this system. I am a democrat but I don't let that fact cloud my decision to give the best person my vote. He should be commended for his honesty and for listening to the people who elected him. Hardcore republicans shoud be the ones worrying come election time.
But he's got "Republican" at the end of his name. Remember in 2010 it was all about "jobs, jobs, jobs--where are the jobs" and it became anything but. And remember politicians "lie." Just like Newt, they mince their words to suit who's listening, and they lie to cover up the lies.
His honesty? Oh, you were trying to be funny. OK, I'll try to be funny too. He's so honest, each side of his mouth is separately honest. You know, one side that says he'll vote for it and the other that he'll vote against it.
To know TPaw is to know he is anything but honest, even with himself. If he were, he'd admit that he's no christofascist, he's no lover of Tea Party ideology, and he's not some macho man, Arnold-wannabe. He is whatever it is that he and his advisors say he needs to be to get elected. While all politicians do that to one extent or another, TPaw is in a league of his own. I don't think anyone knows what his core principles really are, as they seemed to change from year to year here in MN. I guarantee you that if dems were as dominant as repubs have been in the last decade, TPaw would switch parties if he thought it could get him elected. He has real gall to say Obama has no courage, when TPaw doesn't even have the courage to define what he is to himself, much less to those he wants to scam into voting for him.
Never never never never never never vote for the man! That's the choice too many people take. Only a party in total control can get things done for all the people and that party is the Democratic Party.
When is someone going to point out that if over 80% of the public (including about 2/3 of Republicans) want Medicare left alone but we can't afford to pay for it, that's not a spending problem -- that's a revenue problem...
p.s. and if the Tea Party was the 'grass roots movement' it's leaders claim -- as opposed to a propaganda machine funded and organized by FreedomWorks, et.al., then where are all the demonstrators with the 'Keep Your Government Hands Off My Medicare' signs now??
From where I sit, as a 41 year old, medicare is doomed anyway. Framing this debate around "the ryan plan" and "ending medicare," may be politically expedient but ultimately, it's a "fail" for the citizens of country.
The bottom truth is that medicare can not continue to exist in it's present form, long term revenue doesn't cover long term costs. (whether the shortfall is in 2017, 2038 or 2050 is arguing which generation gets screwed) It's complicated to administer, doesn't fairly compensate doctors, doesn't cover medications or long term care adequately, is susceptible to systematic fraud. As good a program as it is, it has long-term problems that need to be addressed. They needed to be addressed 25 years ago.
Real reform doesn't turn it into a "voucher program," and simply ending fraud won't make it solvent. There needs to be a significant structural reform to the program that includes fraud enforcement, reimbursement reform, consolidation and simplification, and (in my opinion) the ability for people to "opt out" by means testing. (NOTE: Not FORCED out, but opt out by showing they can provide their own medical coverage)
All this political rhetoric about Ryan and "ending medicare" is just that, meaningless rhetorical inanity that solves nothing.
/end rant
Kinda throws that whole "don't want our children and grandcholdren enlaved by this giant debt" argument under the bus and backs over it a couple of times, doesn't it?
Yea, well...in my saner moments, I'm willing to accept that I may have to lose benefits or pay more to "save the system." My generation doesn't have the voting power to overrule the baby-boomers or the millennials, so we are stuck with whatever happens.
In my emotional moments, you get rants like the above.
Dude, even in your emotional moments you are still right. Don't sell yourself short.
Being right and passionate is meaningless without a few trillion dollars to with which to buy politicians. Such is the state of our government and it's depressing, makes me really cynical, and really grouchy.
He will deny this tomorrow.
I will repeat what I said in another thread; I haven't had this much fun watching Republicans twist in the wind since Nixon and Watergate.
Did he just say the Ryan hoax is "radical". Sounds like he wants to be Newt's Veep.
This is a test of how this works.
Has anybody seen the "Draft Elizabeth Warren" petition on Daily Kos? Hmm, who should win this seat? I think I know who I would vote for. But I don't live there.
Seniors we assist lack critical thinking and the decision making skills needed to understand and utilize the available SSI approved health care options. Even when guided by consultants like Secure Horizons, Scan, Doctor's Office professionals, etc. they often fail to navigate the systems challenges for getting timely and adequate "in plan" care. Copays, complicated rules like the "Donut Hole" for prescription drugs, and questionable hospital charges are incomprehensible. The prospect of negotiating for and receiving coverage at a reasonable cost from a powerful insurance company would be hopeless.
ps. Thanks for all your great work.
Sick and aging Seniors can't decipher complicated medical plans.
A big reason that the voucher system won't work is that as we age we get less and less able to figure out complicated bureaucratic stuff. Seniors, even young ones, can barely understand Medicare as it is now. But old, sick, losing the ability to read well, and hear well enough to converse about complicated billing matters, seniors cannot be expected to do comparative pricing on different medical insurance plans. This will not work.
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Therein lies your passive death panel. When you lack the mental wherewithal to tend to your own healthcare, nature takes its course and you are no longer anyone's problem. It is passive euthanasia. Ugh, I just gave myself chills. I'd never heard the term before, but the premise is accurate so I'll run with it.
Unfortunately, even in our current healthcare system, we have "passive euthanasia", as you call it. Spend some time in a nursing home and you will see it all around you, people sitting around waiting to die. I spent a few days in one while my mom was recuperating from an accident, and it gave me nightmares.
Odious. I'm very sorry man.
Fortunately, my mom recovered and was released from the nursing home. It did make me bound and determined that I will do all in my power to keep from ending my days in one of those places. It's just plain horrendous.
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Maddow team is the force!!