Handout / Reuters
RNC Chairman Reince Priebus appears on NBC's "Meet the Press.". Priebus defended the changes to Medicare in Paul Ryan's budget plan, charging that President Obama is the one who has "blood on his hands " for stealing from the program to fund his health care law.
COMMENTARY
At least for now, Medicare is the issue of 2012 election. In a period of sustained austerity, it's a little jarring to see America's major political parties wrestle over who will best preserve the sanctity of a major social welfare program. But that's exactly what's happening: Democrats are running against Paul Ryan's plan, which would replace the single-payer model with a private voucher system, while Republicans are hammering President Obama for supposedly "robbing" $700 billion from the Medicare coffers.
One way to explain Medicare's central role in the campaign is to say that it's a proxy for the larger philosophical split between liberals and conservatives on the issue of social welfare. Democrats, this story goes, are defending Medicare because they believe that the government has a responsibility to take care of its neediest citizens when the free market can't. And Republicans support the Ryan plan because they believe the free market does a better job of fairly allocating resources—including health care—than the federal government.
As edifying as that debate might be, it doesn't match up with the rhetoric being employed by both parties. If Republicans believe a private voucher system is fairer and more efficient than single-payer, why are they so livid over the $700 billion going from Medicare to health care reform? The Affordable Care Act—which, remember, expands health care by requiring nearly everyone to acquire private insurance—is closer to what Ryan and other Republicans evidently think Medicare should be like.
For that matter, if Democrats believe in the social safety net so deeply, why is the Obama campaign trying to run to the right of Mitt Romney's welfare position? As labor journalist Josh Eidelson has noted, an Obama "campaign statement charged that Romney 'petitioned the federal government for waivers that would have let people stay on welfare for an indefinite period, ending welfare reform as we know it, and even created a program that handed out free cars to welfare recipients.'" Snarks Eidelson, "Only Obama can protect us from a Republican regime of hand-outs and Oprah-style free cars for the undeserving poor."
Compare that to how both parties treat Medicare's cousin, Medicaid. Ryan's budget plan actually does even more damage there: evidently, Republicans don't consider scooping out a full third of that program's budget to be "robbery." And while Obama has mentioned Ryan's proposed gutting of Medicaid in passing, you might have barely heard it over the Democrats' near-constant hammering of the Medicare issue.
The reason why is simple: Medicare users are the more powerful constituency. The elderly are more likely to vote than any other age group, and retiree advocacy group the AARP lays claim to nearly 38 million members. Organizations for low-income Americans, like the late ACORN, simply don't command that level of influence. And because the voter ID laws currently sweeping the nation disproportionately disenfranchise the poor, their preferences are now even less relevant.
The truth is, Republican denunciations of Medicare "robbery" could not be more disingenuous. Neither, however, could the pious invocations of fairness from a Democratic Party that has long embraced President Clinton's gutting of the welfare state. The fight over Medicare is not due to a deep, principled disagreement; Democrats and Republicans are simply trying to out-pander one another for the senior vote.
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We need a Medicare for all public option offered at the insurance exchanges. We can pay for this very easily by simply raising the cap on Social Security/Medicare up from $110,000 up to $250,000 or even one million dollars in income. Corporations could also be given mandatory Social Security and Medicare taxes to pay on profits even as little as 1 percent would bring in huge amounts of money into Medicare. Corporations last year made $2 trillion in profits. A certain amount of this can be taxed and reinvested into Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. We would accomplish several important objectives with a Medicare for all public option:
1. We would cover all Americans with a Medicare for all public option. We have 50 million uninsured Americans who need coverage. The advantages of universal coverage would be increased prevention programs that treat medical conditions early before they become chronic. The uninsured are a drain on the system because they frequently only go to the ER when the pain and discomfort from medical problems can no longer be ignored or put off. By then it is often too late for the patient who will be more in need of a mortician than a doctor. You need regular medical checkups and treatments throughout life not when the appendix bursts in the ER.
2. Our national security and economic security will be enhanced by healthier young recruits for the military. This also has the spin off effect of producing a healthier workforce for civilian employers too. We need to remember that nearly all recruits who join the military come from working class or middle class families. We have to make sure that all young people who join the military are healthy and ready to respond to military training. Recruits that fail to complete their first contractual term of military service cause a large waste of taxpayer money. Many recruits will have $500,000 plus in training invested in them. Technical jobs may well require training that costs over $1,000,000 in training. When a recruit is mustered out of the military because they can not pass the medical of physical fitness training tests to be deployed it is a huge hit to the federal government. The British passed the National Health Service in 1948 precisely for reasons of national security. Too many young British recruits were unable to pass medical conditions to complete their terms of military service. This meant that only richer wealthier British families saw their sons disproportionally going off to military service. This inequity was correct by the 1948 National Health Service Act.
3. We will save huge amounts of money by having a Medicare for all public option. Countries with single payer health care systems typically spend less than 4% of their costs on administration. Our American private health insurance system spends nearly 30% of every dollar on administration. So the British National Health Service spends 4% on administration while insurers like Blue Cross and Blue Shield could spend upwards of 20% to 30% on administration. The American Veterans Administration, Medicare, and Medicaid programs typically have administration costs of about 5%, roughly comparable to the lean and highly efficient British National Health Service. So its the private for profit health insurance companies that drive up health care costs not doctors or nurses in America.
The sad truth is that health care in Britain is vastly superior to health care in the United States. American conservatives need to realize that if you want to save money, we must have a Medicare for all public option. We need to get rid of our employer based for-profit health care system that does not work. We need to do this immediately. After we have done this we will wonder why we did not do this many decades ago.
Superb commentary! Seems we continue to wage campaigns on talking points. Seems that every conversation is, in reality, the GOP position that the government can't do anything right, so why try, vs, a Democratic position of promoting the greater possibilities of efficiencies, if a service is funded through the government.
In this debate, the Democratic position requires a government that actually governs - makes decisions, keeps updated in its' capacity, strives for effiiciency. The Republicans believe that government is unable to do the requirements of the Democratic government, so, they work hard to make it fail, so that they can be proven right.
Rather poor way to run a country, or, have a conversation between candidates from each side of the spectrum. If progress, or degress, are to occur, one party needs to totally control all branches of government and SCOTUS. Guess that brings the conversation down to calling the people to get out and vote. Unless a party has a super majority in the Senate, control of the House, the presidency, and, over time, control of an obviously political SCOTUS, governing is not going to go well, for the common good, from effective governing.
Name one thing that the government runs that is successful and efficient every day we have reports of massive waste and fraud from GSA, IRS, ICE and on and on
The private sector has always done a better job and more efficient then anything the government has ever done
So why dont we let them run as much as we can
TRF, I do believe that your conclusion is what we have been doing. I do not condem the public sector, as you do, I just seek it becoming as efficient as possible. We already use the private sector to do much of the public sectors work, note our highway system. If you are talking about our healthcare system, the only thing that is public is the funding vehicle for Medicare and Medicaid (obviously excludes military and totally state run programs). The result of that effort has been controled costs for the population - not totally efficient, but less than leaving that money (and inflation) in the hands of Wall Street.
My preference is that we had a single payor plan for everyone, with money flowing through an independent public authority and services provided by private enities. Rather guess that we will never agree on this, but, I can see your viewpoint, and, would appreciate your seeing others as honest opinions.
I have a choice to make
I'm 15 years before i reach 65
so i can vote for Obama and Medicare will not be their for me because it will be bankrupt 12 years from now and he has no plan to fix it
Or i can vote for Romney and medicare will be there for me when i reach 65 it might be different then it is now but it will be there
So tell me who should i vote for?
trf you are wrong. medicare wont be bankrupt in 12 years.
and the repubs version of 'medicare' is worth CRAP.
the voucher loses worth year after year till seniors will give up and have zero healthcare. it will cost atleast 6grand and only get worse.
obama 2012.. the only man not beholden to the koch brothers.
T-pubs have been saying the safety net was going insolvent since it's inception under the new deal. Here's the deal I would trust the democrats to preserve and protect the safety net as oppose to the T-thug party who's very existence hinges on dismantling the safety and security of average Joes and the poor while help to line the pocket of the wealthy elite. I mean after all it your whole ideology dress up in the sham language of rugged individualism when the truth is you are just looking after your own and F the rest of us. But you know what? You have miscalculated and badly because a whole lot of "your own" (a majority in fact) are the ones pocketing those same benefits so you are running a close gamble thinking "rabid Obama Hate" trumps their own "government hand out" When you get your asses handed to you go ahead and double down on the same ole retreaded ideological talking points while I pray a sensible 3 party relegates the T-pub thug party to the peanut gallery.
So the bipartisan CBO is lying to me when the said Medicare will be bankrupt in 12 years?
Yep! I am also saying I would rather lie naked in a den of hungry crocodiles then trust those T-pubs bastard to look after the interest of the average Joe. It is just NOT their schtick. They are much better at spend billions off the damn books for wars and giving tax breaks to the wealthy while they screw the public out of their retirements and homes. Well thanks but whatever is wrong with medicare the Dems can handle that one.
medicare offered by repubs is worthless.
will cost over 6k a year--seniors will die if they can't afford it.
obama 2012
Trust me, not on Medicare yet, but i know that with Romney there will be no Medicare for you. You will be at the mercy of the insurance companies that will no longer even have the restrictions on them provided by the affordable health care act. Clearly you do not have a serious illness or you would know what that means.
The only thing Obama has restricted in the ACA is the overcharge by groups such as Medicare advantage. You want Medicare solvent fight to lower medical cost, to raise taxes on capital gains with at least some of the money collected going into medical coverage for all Americans, and to either get insurance companies out of the medical care business or restrict their practices.