Talk Elections

(link (http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/daniel-gross/romney-turns-65-isn-t-signing-medicare-162543228.html))

Pure political grandstanding, and it may help him slightly in the primaries, but I can't see where it will help him at all in the general election.

Of course, the dirty little secret of the insurance racket is that the only reason someone as rich as Mitt is even needs insurance is so that he won't be socked with the full price that the uninsured are charged in the current system, but which no insurance provider comes even close to having to pay.

It would be ridiculous for a man with a 9-digit personal fortune to use Medicare.

"Medicare card!  I don't need no stinkin' card!"

does not appear in the article.

At least be more unbiased in your reporting.

Besides, look at all the money Mitt is saving the taxpayers.  

This was a completely selfless gesture on Mitt's part.

It was probably less effort him to not enroll and have to send a check for the premiums every month. Besides Romney is probably best friends with the CEOs of some major insurance companies.

I see you still have not yet received your HUMOR.DLL upgrade since you complain about the humorous spin I put on his decision.

If you think this was selfless, you are more clueless than I think you are pretending to be.

There are a few primary voters who will be impressed by this, which is why I think he is doing it.

But, by making himself have no skin in the game, the fact that he has to personal reason to be worried if he ruins Medicare is likely to make a significant block of swing voters nervous, especially once Obama focus group tests some negative ads.

It really is laughable how he keeps eroding his claim he can bring in the moderates in the general election as he tried to lock down the base and the nomination.

If he wants to means test medicare, this is just being consistent.

Well, and if anyone should be means-tested out of Medicare, it's people like Romney. But it's an idea that might well make some nervous, especially those at the low end of wherever means-testing would begin.

It's not affordable to upgrade such an old and incompatible system like WINfield94. It's far more affordable to just junk it.

Awesome, Mitt! Can you get rid of these cards as well please?

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Mitt might be old enough to have the little words in red that my mother's social security card has but that mine does not.

NOT TO BE USED FOR PURPOSES OF IDENTIFICATION

Nothing says common man like being able to take a pass on Medicare. What a world this man lives in.

I've never heard of a president being on medicare and I don't think anyone on it would make it to the white house. This proves that such programs don't really work in terms of making other successful. That said, it's still a good program. Hail Romney! for actually being honest. I wonder how Clinton or Obama would answer such a question.

Is this posting meant to get people to attack and insult someone with more money than than most of us have?

No.  My posting had two parts.  The first was pointing out that I think politically Mitt's decision to forgo Medicare is not going to be helpful to him in the long run.  It might get him a few more primary votes, but it will cost him a few votes in the general election, if he is the nominee.

The second was a diatribe about the health insurance industry.  Mitt is rich enough that in any equitable insurance market with no taxpayer subsidies for employer-provided insurance (I presume he still is getting his insurance from his time at Bain) and no broken price structures (the sticker price the uninsured are charged can be as much as four times the cost an insurance company pays for the exact same treatment) he would be in an excellent position to self-insure.  Even a catastrophic health event would not put him in financial peril, so under an equitable insurance market, he would find it financially beneficial to be uninsured as the expected value of what he would have to pay would be greater than the cost of his premiums.

Instead, because of the double whammy of subsidies and a gimmicked table of charges, it is cheaper to buy insurance than to pay for it himself.  Under our current system, the only people for whom it makes sense to go uninsured are those with no chronic conditions (i.e., no reason to see the doctor regularly) and so few assets that if they do get stuck with one of those inflated medical bills for an unexpected emergency, they have no consequences from filing bankruptcy and so won't paying the sticker price that the insurance companies never pay.

It is also ridiculous for a man with a 9-digit personal fortune not to be guillotined, and yet...

Real revolutionaries tear somebody like that limb from limb with their bare hands, opie. You're just too effete and cultured and government-reliant to ever make a convincing radical.

Well I don't want to see him or anyone struggle financially. I think it's proof that these programs don't make anyone successful even if they are important for society as a safety net. Car insurance works the same way though. If you're never in an accident, you end up paying monthly and getting nothing out of it. Fannie and freddie didn't have consequences for filing for bankruptcy either. Most wealthy companies don't because the government comes to their rescue the same as it comes to the rescue of the poor. Things go both ways. Have you ever heard of a president on medicare?

Great little machine that guilltine. The trouble w/ it is: it's hard to stop, once it starts working. My estimate of P(opebo guillotined|conditional on Romney guillotined)=1 or very close to that.

I've never suggested otherwise, Tondhreim.    My point was just that our political system is ridiculous.

How would you have the political system work? Which country has a better system and how so?