What is it about the third rail that our politicians just don't get.
From the New York Times:
Lawmakers Offer Bipartisan Plan to Overhaul Medicare
A Democratic senator, Ron Wyden of Oregon, and a Republican representative, Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, unveiled a bipartisan plan on Wednesday to revamp Medicare and make a fixed federal contribution to the cost of coverage for each beneficiary.
There is a bit more over the squiggly!
What is it that they have in mind you might wonder? Well it is this:
Congress would establish an insurance exchange for Medicare beneficiaries. Private plans would compete with the traditional Medicare program and would have to provide at least the same benefits. The federal contribution in each region would be based on the cost of the second-cheapest option, whether that was a private plan or traditional Medicare.
So, now we get a "bipartisan" proposal for the insurance exchanges. Except we get to throw Medicare into the same sort of structure that we are going to end up with under the ACA. Second cheapest option. Fixed government subsidy. Of course, what that translates into is higher and higher premiums for seniors, just like it will be for people not on Medicare - higher and higher premiums.
I don't know at this point whether this is planned to hit the current seniors or whether its implementation will be delayed. But it doesn't matter.
For whatever reason our politicians are bound and determined to cut Medicare and I can't imagine why they won't go for Social Security too. Why? I am not sure but I have it narrowed down to two things: Either they are going to extend the damn Obama Tax Cuts permanently or there are about 400 billionaires that haven't received enough bailout money via the banks. Perhaps this will go hand in hand with Lieberman et al to allow the Defense cuts not to happen.
Who knows? Like I said, it probably doesn't matter anymore. They are determined to do something like this. I have seen in the last day or so that Simpson and Bowles have been talking up their Cat Food "solutions" again. I think that this "initiative" by Wyden and Ryan is more than a coincidence.
The politicians we have, regardless of the letter after their name, are hell bent on paying for this whole economic fiasco on the backs of the people that can least afford it. When is the American public going to tell all of them that Enough is Enough?
What did Mr. Wyden have to say about this:
For his part, Mr. Wyden said: “Medicare is the most important fiber in the social safety net. I would never do anything to shred it, weaken it or harm it in any way.”
Okay then. Very well. Sheesh!
We need a revolution at the ballot box. We really do.