Republican Medicare Plan

On August 27, 2012 ABC’s Diane Sawyer pointed out to John Boehner a Washington Post poll showing 64% of Americans don’t support a change in Medicare. Boehner said “If the system doesn’t change it’s going to go broke; Republicans said that forthright, about the needs of fixed Medicare, but our colleagues across the aisle want to be critical of us but they have no plan, they’ve put nothing on the table so if they want to have this debate, let’s have it.”

On August 13 independent analysts said Ryan’s Medicare voucher would cost seniors $1,000s more out of their pocket. On August 14 his Medicare plan was described as–affecting those 54 or younger-at age 65 they would get a $15,000 voucher to shop for health insurance (it was not clarified if it’s an annual voucher), the rich would get less and the poor would get more (no numbers were given to determine the levels of rich/poor) and you’d choose from a menu of government approved health plans (no different than ObamaCare); one option would be Medicare (not at today’s value), for any plan that cost more than the $15,000 voucher, you pay the difference and if the plan costs less, you get a check in the mail (I’m supposed to believe adding bureaucracy to issue checks is going to cut costs); the voucher is supposed to increase with inflation but that does not guarantee it’ll cover future costs. On August 17 Romney said his Medicare plan was the same as Ryan’s. On August 18 Ryan has his 78 year old mother campaigning in Florida to say his Medicare plan does not affect current seniors. When ABC brought up the Medicare voucher system with Marco Rubio on August 28 he said “I think in Florida where I represent 3 million people that are on Medicare, one of them is my mother, another one is Paul Ryan’s mother, they understand the reality- this is a program that is spending more money than it takes in”.  

This has to be a joke. What the mothers are smart enough to understand is that the Medicare cuts won’t affect them. What bothers me is that they don’t care Medicare will be reduced or taken away from our children, friends and neighbors that are 54 years old or younger. This shows that the Republicans don’t care about what the people want or need.