The Perpetual Republican War on Medicare
Even as Republicans wage their new war against the latest efforts at health care reform, they are still fighting the last one. 44 years after the passage of Medicare, Republicans leaders like Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) are attacking Democratic proposals by blasting the popular health system for America's elderly. Sadly for the GOP, Medicare's proven success in reducing poverty among the elderly and its strong support from beneficiaries belies Price's claim that "nothing has had a greater negative effect on the delivery of health care than the federal government's intrusion into medicine through Medicare."
As ThinkProgress noted, Republican demagoguery on Medicare has a long and sordid past. While George H.W. Bush in 1964 used the now-eternal sound bite to describe it simply as "socialized medicine," Ronald Reagan warned three years earlier that failure to stop Medicare meant " you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were free."
On Thursday, orthopedic surgeon turned Georgia Congressman Tom Price picked up the baton of GOP fear-mongering on Medicare. In a Politico op-ed which unsurprisingly omitted any estimates of the cost and coverage of the Republicans' latest supposed health care reform plan, Price slammed Medicare as the poster child for everything that's wrong about proposals backed by the Obama White House:
Going down the path of more government will only compound the problem. While the stated goal remains noble, as a physician, I can attest that nothing has had a greater negative effect on the delivery of health care than the federal government's intrusion into medicine through Medicare. Because of Washington's one-size-fits-all approach, its flawed coverage rules and broken financing mechanisms, seniors are increasingly having care rationed while federal health spending spirals out of control.
And though newly eligible Medicare patients struggle even to find a doctor who can accept them, the president appears immovable in his belief that what is needed to fix health care is more government involvement. His proposal can only be described as a government takeover of health care.
From a government-run plan that will eviscerate private insurance to prescriptive coverage regulations that require all plans to meet a government definition of care to bureaucratic boards that will decide which treatments are appropriate and who is eligible, the proposal before the House would hand over to Washington nearly every decision that should be made by patients and their physicians.
Predictably, Price regurgitated virtually all of Frank Luntz' GOP talking points, each of them demonstrably false. And just as predictably, Price neglected to mention Medicare's track record of success.
Medicare doesn't merely provide health insurance to 46 million Americans for a fraction of the administrative costs associated with providers in the private market. Since its inception in 1965, the number of American senior living in poverty dropped from one in three to just 14% today. A study by the journal Health Affairs found that "life expectancy at age 65 increased from 14.3 years in 1960 to 17.8 years in 1998 and the chronically disabled elderly population declined from 24.9 percent in 1982 to 21.3 percent in 1994." Before 1965, one-half of the elderly had no health insurance at all.
Which is why, as ThinkProgress detailed, Medicare remains extremely popular among the American people:
A recent survey from the Commonwealth Fund, found that "elderly Medicare beneficiaries reported greater overall satisfaction with their health coverage, better access to care, and fewer problems paying medical bills than people covered by employer-sponsored plans." In fact, Medicare is so popular that most Americans support expanding Medicare coverage to Americans aged 55 to 64. According to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll, "over half of Americans (53 percent) "strongly" support such a proposal and an additional 26 percent say they support it somewhat, totaling 79 percent backing."
Of course, none of the above is to suggest that Medicare is without its troubles. The combination of skyrocketing medical costs and the aging of the baby boomers have produced mushrooming costs for the program. In May, its trustees reported that barring changes the program would reach insolvency in 2017. It's no wonder President Obama called the current path an "unsustainable" scenario which will "swamp our federal and state budgets." For her part, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sibelius warned the report "is a wake-up call for everyone who is concerned about Medicare and the health of our economy," adding, "And it's yet another sign that we can't wait for real, comprehensive reform."
For Republicans, the problem with the government-run plan for seniors is not primarily its growing cost, but precisely that is government-run. Roy Blunt (R-MO), chairman of the GOP Health Solutions Group which includes Price, recently concluded:
"[Y]ou could certainly argue that government should have never have gotten in the health care business...Government did get into the health care business in a big way in 1965 with Medicare, and later with Medicaid, and government already distorts the marketplace."
For his part, Indiana Republican Mike Pence slammed the proposed public option, noting that Medicare ultimately far exceeded the original actuarial estimates in 1965. (Since 1970, private insurance premiums have actually risen faster [9.9% annually] than Medicare's costs per beneficiary [8.8%].) But perhaps cognizant of Newt Gingrich's calamitous 1990's effort to butcher Medicare by 14%, Pence backed off when challenged by MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell:
MITCHELL: I don't know if you want to go back to Indiana and campaign against Medicare.
PENCE: Oh no, I support Medicare...
(This piece also appears at Perrspectives.)
Wow....the GOP now wants to "kill" old people; they "want" them to die young!!!!
That's great! I guess they're on Obama's side, now, because that's what Obama wants to do with his health care plans!!!!!!
... if you ever want to know what the GOP stands for, it is very simple... just listen to what they are blaming the Dems or liberals and assume that is their actual plan.
In no other terms, it is clear that nothing would make the GOP happier than the dismissal of a large amount of the elderly population from the middle and low classes, who is collecting social security and other "entitlements" right now. Because the GOP sure as f*ck feels "entitled" to those moneys and thus despises the "rif raf" who is "wasting" all that money trying to stay alive to see their grand children grow up. The gall of the plebs!
and start introducing legislation that curbs medicare, even if it's just a token shot across the bow.
And promise to campaign, and to get your colleagues to campaign, on the evils of Medicare.
Say hello to a political routing like you've never experienced before. Granny and Grandpa can be your most loyal supporters, buy into all the socialism hype hook line and sinker... but you Fuck with their ability to see a doctor or get treatment, and you are finished.
Republicans on Medicare= I got mine, get fucked.
GOP policy can be summarized as:
1. Cut taxes
2. Fuck you
1. I got mine
2. I got yours
3. Cut my taxes so I get to keep more of both
4. Cut my lawn and send your kids to die for mine
5. F*ck you and don't think about getting in the way of my bottom line
You have put very forth the republican reason for being in government.
You nailed the republican attatude and intelligence spot on.
republicanism is a mental illness!
They exploded! The blast was heard for miles, the smoke darkened the sky over DC- and the smell...!
Do they really think people are that stupid? Yes, they do. But they are wrong- dead wrong!
Maybe the Fed Gov could create different categories for various groups, similar to Medicare for the Elderly:
S-CHIP for kids, MediMaternity for expectant mothers, Mediinfant for babies, MediTeen for teens, and so on.
Then, when the Repugs attempt to destroy a program they'll have to go against each group and it's supporters.
http://www.stinque.com/2009/07/30/crowley-the...
against decency and compassion.
These Republicans are purely evil.
If I'm ever on life support I'll make sure he gets a videotape with which to diagnose me.
The fringe right physicians like Price demonize Medicare, the other 90% of us are very happy with it and it would be a disaster if it went away. It would be wonderful if it bacame our single payer system.
Medicare did have couple of big flaws that led to much of our current problems: Originally physicians were able to charge whatever they wanted and got it. Talk about the good old days. When medicare did decide they needed to slow this down, the RUC was formed to recommend reimbursements. Specialists hold the overwhelming majority of seats on the RUC, so consequently your orthopods, anesthesiologists and such make 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 times what PCPs make.
Price is an embarrassment to physicians everywhere. Except in the south.
I'm disabled and have been on Medicare since my mid thirties. If not for medicare I'd probably be dead.
http://www.jafafahots.com
These bastards have single payer medical insurance coverage for life!
in January and I am 66. After my company-paid insurance lapsed at the end of April, I was due to go on COBRA...but it was going to cost me $475 a month. So I activated my Medicare, Part B, for which they deduct $96.40 a month from my Social Security and I bought a Medi-gap supplemental policy with basic vision and dental for $75 a month, so now I can afford it while looking for another job. That $475 a month would have eaten up all my savings in no time. So for my money, Medicare for all should be our single-payer savior. Get a clue, Congress!!
“The greatest evildoers are those who don’t remember because they have never given thought to the matter, and, without remembrance, nothing can hold them back,”
just shut up and go away!!!
I'm still waiting to see the Republican Health Care Plan....or for that matter, the R economic stimulus/recovery plan, or the R Iraq War plan, or the R environmental plan, or the R energy plan.....or the >>>>>>>>>>>
"Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of Stupidity" - Frank Leahy
I can see having a different opinion...but some of this stuff is just a no brainer.
How can they keep these morons following this pathetic rhetoric when it isn't substantiated by ANY fact??
I give a rat's ass about what they want, it is about what the patients want. Period, end of story.
Any doctor or HMO who does not like it, they can get other jobs. I am tired of the whole country being held ransom by a bunch of jackasses whose business plan revolves around adding 40% overhead just for the "privilege" of denying care because they feel entitled to massive profits, and doctors which are more concerned about their Tee time than actually caring for patients.
With their current approach, the US ranks at the very bottom of the industrialized world in quality of care. It takes balls for them to talk about the quality of the US health care system.
It is like a guy with a batting average of 0.000 who feels emboldened enough to give hitting lessons to Babe Ruth. At some point, the American people needs to stop being polite and tell these vermin to just shut the f*ck up already...
A new record!
republicanism is a mental illness!
She's covering- most everything- and, as usual, with her uniquely entertaining and delectable touché!! Within largely RepubHypocrit-hyperbole- she laments the thought of wearing a (lovin'it!!) "Prom-Dress" as a counterthreat- Too funny;!
Is there anyone out there that can verify that the Ideas presented as the Repugs position regarding the desire to end Medicare.
Asumming truth, I point out that these BUMS, in return, for being elected to office, have MEDICARE_LIKE SINGLE Payer Medical Insurance, best of all, FOR LIFE. They pose what is good for them, they want to deny the rest of Americans.
Yuo BOZOS out there keep on voting for those that want to deny or hurt you!!!
and self destructive idiots too, us old folks and cripples will vote em out and lynch em. Fools, what else can people without anything to their name but a vote do? Just die, one thing for sure we'll take them with us. Fools...
Representative Anthony Weiner challenges the Republicans to put-up or shut-up on healthcare.
As the House Energy and Commerce Committee continues its mark-up of healthcare legislation today, at least one amendment is sure to raise some eyebrow: Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) has offered a measure that would eliminate Medicare.
While certainly not expecting his amendment to pass–let alone receive a single vote–Weiner is using the amendment to force a vote on a "government run" program that most lawmakers support.
Weiner wants the lawmakers who oppose including a so-called "public option" in healthcare reform to take a stand on whether government is capable of running a healthcare program.
"It's put-up or shut-up time for the phonies who deride the so-called 'public option," Rep. Weiner said.
MUST SEE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTh-Yu9RfF0&fe...
...to provide yet another hun-yuk of a Congressman for all to see and ridicule. Although my bet is that Price, if he were to be proposing permanent displays of The Ten Commandments, like another of Georgia's finest (Westmorland), he would at least be able to name you four or five of 'em if he had to.
The thing about new Medicare patients not being able to easily find doctors, it's a profit deal. Doctors don't want to take 20% off the top for Medicare patients unless they were that doctor's patient before they became Medicare eligible. So the answer is to make sure you see all the doctors you'll ever need in your life before you turn 65 (that's supposed to be a joke). The real answer is to require doctors to take, at least, some percentage of new Medicare patients. So they make $800K a year rather than a million.
A nation whose citizens allowed corporations to become “citizens” - Who allowed three straight proven to be purposefully corrupted national elections to pass without real protests or revolt - Who allowed torture, that resulted in the death of over 100 humans, to be accepted, and “defined” as legal - Who have allowed their nation to become the most incarcerated nation in history, in raw numbers, and percentage of its own population - Who continues to allow over half of it wealth to be spent on a fiscally out of control military-industrial-congressional-complex, more than all of the other nations’ spending - combined - Who remains the only 1st or 2nd world nation without universal health care, the only one controlled by corporations that blatantly let people die, rather than pay for the needed care those peoples’ physicians stated they needed... to live - Who allowed the largest criminal wealth-transfer in written history to succeed, and which is still being accomplished as I write this - Citizens who continue to allow, allow, allow, allow. . .
All of it without real protests, without hitting the streets in anger, without even a weak revolt - Do you think they will not continue to allow. . . Until their own self-destruction results in our destruction also?
In a nation who allows 47% of its adult citizens to not know how long it takes the Earth to orbit the sun, or allow 41% of its adult citizens to believe that humans and dinosaurs coexisted?
Do you think they, the citizens of this nation, aren’t going to continue to allow, even in the face of all the exposed facts concerning their own self-destruction? Do you really? Seriously?
The fact that none of the previous administration, outside of one scapegoat, and none of the corporate officers of the banks, et al are not in prison right now, and none of whom are under, at this time, any serious investigation. . . And that there are no real protests, nor any in the streets righteous anger, nor a revolt of any kind in the face of it all. . . Kind of says it all right?
When can we start?
being in Congress, no longer actively practicing medicine, is that patients no longer have to be subjected to "care" from this money grubbing, profiteering, greedy-assed, morally bankrupt, shit-for-brains of a douchebag.
You certainly can tell who gets into medicine soley for the money. There ought to be some kind of psychological/personality marker test that applicants have to pass before being admitted to medical school, just to weed out the people who only want in because they want to use the practice of medicine to make themselves rich. That type of person is inherently untrustworthy. There is something that has gone fundamentally wrong in people who seek to profit off of the misery and need of others. He's just a predator in surgical scrubs.
Price needs to tell us, in writing, that neither he, nor anyone in his family will ever, EVER accept a dollar of Midicaire services.
Then watch this slug slowly crawl back under his rock.
MITCHELL: I don't know if you want to go back to Indiana and campaign against Medicare.
PENCE: Oh no, I support Medicare
DUH, Andrea! The proposal is not REALLY intended to end Medicare. It is to get Republicans on record in support of a public medical plan. They don't DARE vote against Medicare as it is an extremely popular program that works well and most of the Republican constituency is of the 'over 60' demographic (in case she hasn't noticed, Republicans don't do terribly well with younger voters these days).
ALWAYS trying to kill old people! Disgusting!
Absolutely spot on TD....
I have been calling the blue dogs and repubs (fwiw) and asking them if they would consider giving up their 'inefficiently run and VERY expensive government health care....'
of course, all I get from the staffers is a jumbled.."I'll let him know you called...."
Hey, anyone know if the old bat Barbara Bush has Medicare? I'll bet she does, and she has LIFETIME GOVERNMENT - you know that 'very expensive and very inefficiently run government - health care..PLUS Social Security. Count on it.
...you just gave me my new .sig line. Thanks!!!
... Jon Stewart on 7/27/09 when he got Bill Kristol to admit that the government can run health care, even that it does a better job than private industry.
"The American public does not deserve the same quality healthcare that our troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan deserve....."
The same slimebag Kristol who has always been against anything 'government'.
If you need funds to pay for essentials, you have a revenue problem
If you need funds to pay for frivolity, you have a spending problem
...I've been on Medicare for two years and still use the same doctor I've had since 2003 through Cleveland Clinic. And Medicare pays quickly and efficiently. So what's all the fuss, Congressman Price?
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