I just read Joe Lieberman's tasty Washington Post op/ed on his proposed compromise to save Medicare. Mostly what you'd expect from the guy who killed the public option. Join me after the fold to remind us once again why Senator Droopy is one of our favorite people in the world.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
He first lets us know that it's both sides of the aisle who are killing Medicare and he's the only one with the independence to see the situation clearly and offer a solution to a problem that the GOP has basically made up. How magnanimous of him.
Medicare cannot be fixed without both more revenue and significant changes in its premium and benefit structure. The first is reflexively opposed by Republicans, and the second is reflexively opposed by Democrats — yet both sides are well aware of the demographic and economic realities facing the program.
Keep throwing your caucus under the bus. It will make us miss you even less when you're gone.
Then he moves on to the meat, with five basic points:
1. Raise the retirement age.
2. Reduce benefits in the name of combating waste and fraud, while sticking patients with new copays.
3. Raise Medicare taxes. [This is the first "bipartisan" part of the proposal, since Republicans "hate taxes". Real brave, Joe]
4. Let's punish people with supplemental insurance, since their increased ease of access to care encourages them to actually use it.
5. Raise taxes on income over 250K by 1%. [This is the only part of the proposal that any Democrat would make. 1 out of 5 = bipartisan]
To summarize: cut benefits, raise premiums, and ignore any talk of bending the actual health care cost curve down. Also, be sure to push the meme that Dems aren't doing anything about health care, even though they just passed the largest health care reform bill in 40+ years. So, about what we'd expect from the Senator from the great state of Insurance Companies.
P.S. This is my first diary. Please forgive any breaches of etiquette.