The Big Lie: Ryan Hates Medicare

[Politico]

Everybody is entitled to their own opinion, not to mention fantasies of a liberal "utopia," but these are the facts:

- Medicare will go bankrupt in 2024 if we continue Obama's policy of kicking the can down the road.
- Ryan has never proposed changing anything for those who are retired or nearing retirement.
- Romney/Ryan will ensure the permanent solvency of Medicare, one of their top priorities.
- Obamacare takes $700 billion from Medicare in order to expand coverage for poor people.
- By taking from seniors to give to the poor, Obama's "brilliant" plan is robbing Peter to pay Paul.
- Seniors are not stupid. Respect your elders by being honest with them.
- Paul Ryan's mom is on Medicare in Florida.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Yawn.  As I've said before, the Ryan plan to save Medicare is like a plan to save steak by substituting Salisbury steak for sirloin steak. Calling a completely different substitute by the same name does not make it the same thing.

[pepper11]

Yawn.  As I've said before, the Ryan plan to save Medicare is like a plan to save steak by substituting Salisbury steak for sirloin steak. Calling a completely different substitute by the same name does not make it the same thing.

Do you want to eat in 20 years?

[Adam Griffin]

Yawn.  As I've said before, the Ryan plan to save Medicare is like a plan to save steak by substituting Salisbury steak for sirloin steak. Calling a completely different substitute by the same name does not make it the same thing.

Do you want to eat in 20 years?

I think the appropriate question - and what the answer to your question hinges upon is: how much of a discount will my coupon get me on that steak?

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

A large part of why Medicare has such a fiscal problem is because of the Medicare bill that passed in 2003, which Ryan voted for. That was the bill that they held open the vote in the House for hours while they bribed and threatened enough Congressman that it passed. I guess Ryan was already bought off. The idea that someone who voted for that bill is going to save Medicare is so absurd, I don't know where to begin.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Yawn.  As I've said before, the Ryan plan to save Medicare is like a plan to save steak by substituting Salisbury steak for sirloin steak. Calling a completely different substitute by the same name does not make it the same thing.

Yep. Also comparable to say paying off one credit card by taking out another credit card.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Yawn.  As I've said before, the Ryan plan to save Medicare is like a plan to save steak by substituting Salisbury steak for sirloin steak. Calling a completely different substitute by the same name does not make it the same thing.

Do you want to eat in 20 years?

Why yes I do.  I want sirloin, and if someone sells me sirloin like Ryan says he is selling, I want that sirloin, not the Salisbury he actually has.

So long as the Republicans promise sirloin at Salisbury prices, but plan on actually delivering only Salisbury, they are not being honest.  Politically I understand why that is the case, but entitlement reform must be passed honestly or it will never stick.  Even if passed, as soon as the Dems get back in power, they'll "restore" Medicare.

[5280]

Yawn.  As I've said before, the Ryan plan to save Medicare is like a plan to save steak by substituting Salisbury steak for sirloin steak. Calling a completely different substitute by the same name does not make it the same thing.

Do you want to eat in 20 years?

Why yes I do.  I want sirloin, and if someone sells me sirloin like Ryan says he is selling, I want that sirloin, not the Salisbury he actually has.

So long as the Republicans promise sirloin at Salisbury prices, but plan on actually delivering only Salisbury, they are not being honest.  Politically I understand why that is the case, but entitlement reform must be passed honestly or it will never stick.  Even if passed, as soon as the Dems get back in power, they'll "restore" Medicare.

Obamacare doesn't count as restoring it either.

[7,052,770]

WTF does "kicking the can down the road" mean?  Is that some kind of idiom?

Also, why does Politico use that phrase in every one of his posts?

[Landslide Lyndon]

WTF does "kicking the can down the road" mean?  Is that some kind of idiom?

Also, why does Politico use that phrase in every one of his posts?

Because he is programmed to do so?

[You kip if you want to...]

- Paul Ryan's mom is on Medicare in Florida.

And he got through college with a Pell grant and he still wants to get rid of them.

[Marston]

Everybody is entitled to their own opinion, not to mention fantasies of a liberal "utopia," but these are the facts:

- Medicare will go bankrupt in 2024 if we continue Obama's policy of kicking the can down the road.
- Ryan has never proposed changing anything for those who are retired or nearing retirement.
- Romney/Ryan will ensure the permanent solvency of Medicare, one of their top priorities.
- Obamacare takes $700 billion from Medicare in order to expand coverage for poor people.
- By taking from seniors to give to the poor, Obama's "brilliant" plan is robbing Peter to pay Paul.
- Seniors are not stupid. Respect your elders by being honest with them.
- Paul Ryan's mom is on Medicare in Florida.

Medicare was projected to go insolvent in 2017 before the ACA was implemented. The roughly $700 in projected spending reductions are taken from the provider-end of the health services continuum.

Ironically, these are the actual facts:

1) Romney and Ryan are criticizing Obama for cutting Medicare payments to targeted healthcare providers.
2) Ryan's "Path to Prosperity" budget plan actually keeps those cuts in place while repealing all the other elements of Obamacare.
3) Ryan is a hypocrite. 

[Lief 🗽]

Another day, another horrible Politico thread.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Is Politico getting paid?

[anvi]

Dirty little secret; no politician "hates" Medicare.  Keeping Medicare benefits flowing is what helps get politicians elected, both Dem and Pub.  Ryan, in his plan, pushes structural changes ten years down the road precisely because he doesn't want changes to effect current seniors, so it won't influence their votes!  It also pushes the toughest calls on future Congresses so that they won't be pinned on the current one.  No, Ryan doesn't "hate" Medicare; on the contrary--he loves his current job.

[Zioneer]

Another day, another horrible Politico thread.

This is why I usually avoid the Presidential election forum; it's got the worst shills on all of Atlas.

[You kip if you want to...]

Another day, another horrible Politico thread.

This is why I usually avoid the Presidential election forum; it's got the worst shills on all of Atlas.

Hackiest board on the forum. Difficult to not get drawn into it.

[Bull Moose Base]

Dirty little secret; no politician "hates" Medicare.  Keeping Medicare benefits flowing is what helps get politicians elected, both Dem and Pub.  Ryan, in his plan, pushes structural changes ten years down the road precisely because he doesn't want changes to effect current seniors, so it won't influence their votes!  It also pushes the toughest calls on future Congresses so that they won't be pinned on the current one.  No, Ryan doesn't "hate" Medicare; on the contrary--he loves his current job.

But those aren't mutually exclusive.  Politicians often pretend to love something they hate (or vice versa) because they also love their careers.  Conservatives opposed the creation of Medicare and have never particularly wanted it around.  Ryan, as a Ayn Rand devotee, obviously is anti-Medicare but because he loves his job, he designed a plan that would affect current retirees less (only repealing their Obamacare benefits: covered preventive care and lower prescription costs) and desrcibes repealing Medicare and replacing with vouchers to the tune of tomorrow's seniors paying $500 more a month as "saving Medicare".

[anvi]

Oh, I'm not denying Ryan wants to make Medicare into something else--he wants to transform it from a defined benefit plan distributed by the feds to a premium-support plan administered by exchanges and overseen by the feds.  What Ryan wants to do with Medicare, the ACA does for insurance coverage for non-seniors.  The merits of that are worthy of serious debate, depending on what benefits are available and depending on whether it will actually be feasible in terms of affordability.  I have less against the structural idea of that kind of thing than I do against its feasibility in the absence of cost-control mechanisms.  Who cares about the name of something when what's important is what is being delivered, and the fact that the name overshadows the content of alternative reforms in our public debates is one of the things that prevents us from having needed discussions about how to make the right sorts of reforms.  Hey, if it were up to me, the U.S. would have a Bismarck system of universal coverage and non-profit multiple payers, but nobody, from the devotees of Rand to the Obama team, is going to listen to me on that one, so what do my dreams matter anway?

Don't know if my last post sounded hackish or not.  But the more I think about Ryan's largely deferred Medicare reforms, the Medicaid block-grant plan and the lopsided and dramatic near-elimination of discretionary spending he lays out in his "budgets," the more contemptuously indignant I become.  Major entitlement reforms?  Yes, we do need them.  Spending cuts across the budget?  Yes, we will have to implement them in sensible and phased-in ways.  Lowered marginal rates in exchange for specified deduction eliminations across the board?  Sure, as long as we invest in the right kinds of education reform and research so we can get the innovation bang for the buck that will lead to increased domestic productivity--and demand in the future, so all those dynamic revenues actually materialize.  But the way Ryan suggests we do it is dumb, especially with regard to the lopsided weight the discretionary cuts have to bear just to hold up spending in other areas.  Romney, having been the governor of a state in financial straits should know better than to wrap his arms around that ludicrous crap, even if just to posture.  Does any of this mean Obama has a plan for serious deficit reduction going forward?  No, it certainly doesn't--and Obama's abandonment of Simpson-Boweles was, in my view, quite contemptible too.  But Paul Ryan??  The more I look at his "plan"...good grief.        

[Politico]

WTF does "kicking the can down the road" mean?  Is that some kind of idiom?

It means to procrastinate (and sometimes pushing your problems onto somebody else).

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Because it is all Obama offers from a policy standpoint. Obama has no plan for the future. He wants young people to vote for him even though it will lead to disastrous consequences for them, both in the short-run (i.e., the jobless recovery) and the long-run (i.e., massive, crippling tax hikes down the road).

[Marston]

WTF does "kicking the can down the road" mean?  Is that some kind of idiom?

It means to procrastinate, and pushing your problems onto somebody else.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Because it is all Obama offers from a policy standpoint. Obama has no plan for the future. He wants young people to vote for him even though it will lead to disastrous consequences for them, both in the short-run (i.e., the jobless recovery) and the long-run (i.e., massive, crippling tax hikes down the road).

Are you paid per post or are you salaried by the Romney Campaign?

[Politico]

Sure, as long as we invest in the right kinds of education reform and research so we can get the innovation bang for the buck that will lead to increased domestic productivity--and demand in the future, so all those dynamic revenues actually materialize.

The NEA prevents education spending outside of the tertiary level from being anything other than complete and utter waste. States need to experiment, be responsible and find ways to spur better results with regards to primary and secondary education. By its very nature, the federal government is incapable of assisting. Theoretically, the federal government ought to have a significant role; in practice, they are utterly incapable of doing anything but more harm than good.

The best research that lays the groundwork for exceptional innovations in technology/industry is usually within defense and NASA (e.g., the Internet, GPS, touchscreen technologies, etc.). The spillover effects can be enormous. This is one of the reasons why we should not gut defense and NASA (the other key reason being national security), which is exactly what Obama and Co. are committed to doing.

[Landslide Lyndon]

WTF does "kicking the can down the road" mean?  Is that some kind of idiom?

It means to procrastinate, and pushing your problems onto somebody else.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Because it is all Obama offers from a policy standpoint. Obama has no plan for the future. He wants young people to vote for him even though it will lead to disastrous consequences for them, both in the short-run (i.e., the jobless recovery) and the long-run (i.e., massive, crippling tax hikes down the road).

Are you paid per post or are you salaried by the Romney Campaign?

Neither. He gets to keep Mitt's used magic underwear at the end of every day.
Don't ask what he does with them.

[Politico]

Also, I would add that Romney's preference for Medicare, which is what matters, is the bipartisan, pragmatic proposal by Paul Ryan and Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon. Romney prefers that approach over the plan Ryan presented BEFORE working with Wyden. Some of you need to get your facts straight on this.

What is Obama's plan for Medicare? Shift $700 billion from treatment for seniors to treatment for the poor. In other words, rob Peter to pay Paul. It is not a plan for the future, and neither the old nor the young should fall for it.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Yeah, Politico is definitively getting paid by Romney campaign. Otherwise, no person would waste time and efforts on campaigning on some obscure political forum.