Recently a rare offering from the Desk of House Rep. Joe Heck ([R] NV-3) showed up in the mail at my folk's place in Henderson Nevada. I know this, because my parents called me after they'd noticed it was somewhere in the pile and opened the little stinker up. I can't say I blame them. A letter from Joe Heck to a non-Republican voter in his district is damned unusual. Like the junk mail equivalent of a Bigfoot sighting, it just naturally generated an impulse to reach out and say "hey, guess what I just saw". I'm glad they did. The letter is hilariously tone deaf, and is best suited for somebody who has absolutely no access to anything but Fox News for fact-checking.
My folks are not these people.
My father has never voted for a single Republican. My mother has apparently only voted for a Republican candidate once in her adult life, casting a very unenthusiastic ballot for Wiliam Weld for Massachusetts Governor back in 1990 because the dimwit Democratic candidate John Silber scared the living crap out of her.
If you don't have a buck to donate or a vote to give Joe Heck, you are about as useful to him as a Michael Dukakis Fathead to stick on his office wall in DC. Usually.
So what was this all about?
Well, they are old. 85 and 75 years old, which means that both of them collect Social Security and are on Medicare. With a big election coming up fast in 2012, that must mean that it's time for Joe Heck to do his part in scaring the aged.
Dear Friend,
And by "friend" I mean
Dear total stranger who I have never attempted any communication with before this moment in my district!-
As s physician for more than twenty years, prior to being elected to Congress, I took care of thousands of patients and understand that Medicare is a promise and lifeline for our county's seniors.
I'm Joe Heck. Doctor Joe Heck.
I saw patients for over twenty years, and not just rich ones either. Some of them were the other kind. What do you call them? Ah. Poor people. Poor and old people. Poor, old, and sick people. I could have been golfing or getting a massage. But, no. I put on my whites, closed both of my eyes, walked into the room, and just thought of England.
I didn't like it.
Have you seen what Porsches and Mercedes cost? Have you? Jeez. I didn't go off to medical school to fill out socialist paperwork in triplicate. Somebody had to fight for what's best about being in Medicine, the ability to get paid! Which is why I ran for Congress, voted for the Paul Ryan Kill Medicare Plan, am sorry that it didn't pass, and are laying the groundwork for another go-round at killing it off again!
Ahem. Doctor. Me. This guy.-
Few things are as important as having affordable, quality healthcare coverage in retirement. Yet with 10,000 Baby Boomers reaching retirement age each and every day, and nearly one-in-three primary care doctors limiting the number of Medicare patients they are able to see, it is imperative that we improve and strengthen health care for current and future retirees.
And nothing says 'improvement' and 'strengthening' health care, for current and future retirees alike, quite like completely gutting out the successful social safety net programs and services that you have now, and denying your children and grandchildren the same protections and services you strongly support now in the future, so that for-profit corporations can make more money, because profit is what's really important here.-
Fortunately, steps have been taken to address this critical challenge.
Okay.
"Health Care Reform" passed.
By the Obama Administration and Democrats in the House and Senate, so, it doesn't count. What counts is that these people, all of whom I've helped obstruct, have to pay. So. Not only am I going to help the far Right hijack the Congress so that it is completely paralyzed, I'm also going to sit here in my expensive leather chair and seriously pretend that the ideological hackery of the Paul Ryan Plan were those steps to address the 'critical challenges'. That, and that my House Republican peers haven't been the most useless House class in modern American history while I do it.-
Earlier this year, House Republicans passed a plan that guarantees Medicare will fufill it's promise of health security for America's seniors. In our plan, no changes are made for those in or near retirement age.
I hope you don't stop and think
'hey, if the Paul Ryan Plan is such good policy, why won't you advocate applying it to current and soon-to-be retirees, instead of trumpeting that it doesn't apply to you, stranger who I've never felt the need to communicate with before, as if this isn't a total tell that I'm bragging to you that 'you've dodged the bullet!'-
We propose that starting in 2022, individuals would be able to choose from a list of guaranteed coverage options which best suit their needs. Seniors will be able to select where a Medicare benefit check goes to help cover the cost of a plan- this is personalized health care coverage. Plus, low-income individuals, as well as folks with higher health risks, receive greater support.
Notice how I didn't say 'Privatization'? Pretty slick, huh? I think so. It's 'you get to say where the check goes' like you are going to be King in the castle and not trying to figure out where the rest of the money is going to come from when you finally realize that you are so, so totally screwed. Notice how I said that the Medicare benefits check would 'help' cover the cost of the plan, got all 'it's personalized' about something that is completely undefined, and then causually said that folks who were poor and sick would receive "greater" support, without ever telling you how privatizing your Medicare means you get more and not less in the end? Vague. That's how I roll, baby.-
And to make the Medicare system more stable, the plan roots out billions of dollars of waste, fraud, and abuse.
You get a lot less, plus, it costs you more, and the for-profit health care industry gets to make bank more than ever!-
On the other hand...
Here we go, time to put the spurs to the Socialists!-
in 2010, the President and his Congressional allies passed through a health care law which cuts more than 500 billion dollars from Medicare.
Hey, I got political donors from the insurance industry to keep happy. Bigtime donors. I was a doctor for twenty years, I know who to keep happy if I want those big checks to keep rolling in. Let's not ever mention that this was mostly about the insanely wasteful practice of willfully paying for-profit insurance companies one and a half times what standard Medicare services cost for the exact same services so that Doctors had an incentive to prioritize seniors enrolled in plans like "Senior Dimensions" which puts preserving free market at all costs ideology over all other considerations. Hey, in the future, can I call you 'dude'?-
Moreover, they also put into place an unaccountable, unelected, board of fifteen bureaucrats, known as the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) and they gave it the power to deny care to seniors. The IPAB will be charged with making coverage decisions on health care. These decisions cannot be appealed, and the board is not subjected to oversight. THIS IS THE CURRENT LAW!
Death Panels, baby! I went there. Boom! They are gonna kiiiiillll youuuuuuu. Blam! Don't you see the genius in this? I'm gonna tell you I was a doctor for decades. A doctor. So, you know I'm totally serious and not at all like I have tea bags dangling off a tri-corner hat on my head waiting for Glenn Beck to walk on stage... and then... boo!!!! I let you have it.
'You are gonna be sooooo dead. They want to kill you!!!! Star chambers, black helicopters, and camps in the desert! Who knows what's next?!? Maybe they make you get pregnant, just to force you to have a forced old people abortion! Did I mention... Death Panels, baby!' All Caps. Bam! CURRENT LAW! God, I am so good at this. IPAB. Menacing alphabet soup tag. I only wish I could call it Al-IPAB. Sounds... Jihadi.-
Democrats have elected to end Medicare as we know it.
Yeah. That's how big my pair is. I have a set of big brass ones. I actually dropped this one on innocent old people, with a straight face, after voting for the Paul Ryan Plan to end Medicare and turn it into a Corporate Welfare Voucher System!-
'It's Democrats who are trying to destroy Medicare, the program they founded as the medical version of Social Security only because the sacred free market and for-profit medical industrial complex simply wasn't willing to provide affordable health care services to the elderly... because sick and old people are not good for the bottom line!'
House Republicans have put forth a plan that results in both a secure and stronger health care system for generations to come. There are positive solutions and I'll keep fighting to enact those principled reforms so that you and your doctor are able to make medical decisions -not an unelected, unaccountable board of fifteen bureaucrats in Washington.
In closing... Us="Grandchildren Hugging Kittens." them="DEATH PANELS!!!!!" You know, kind of like that ad all over the tv, "Don't get a grandson with a dog collar". Heh. I really love that ad.
Sincerely,
Dr. Joe Heck
Joe Heck, D.O.
Member of Congress.
Did I mention that I was a doctor? I'm a doctor.
P.S.
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P.S.
Trust me. I so totally came up with all of this on my own. No way in heck did I get a hotlist of prepared talking points to serve up to you that's exactly like an avalanche of these extremely similar 'Letter from your Congressman' letters that just went out all across the U.S. as if they were all sent out on cue. No way. No how. You and me? What we have is really really special. So now that we're cool, just drop me your info so I know that it's kosher to send you more crap to bamboozle and scare the shit out of you before I hit you up for some cash.