Protesters outside Ryan town meeting (
CBS News)
Republicans are going out of their way to assure today's seniors that they wont be at all affected by the voucherizing of Medicare for anyone who is now under age 55. Age warfare has been one of their stocks in trade, trying to convince younger generations that the greedy old people are sponging off of them and are going to suck up all of the Social Security without giving a thought to those who follow them.
The reaction among seniors to the Republican budget plan turns that notion on its head.
(AP) WASHINGTON - The Republican plan to privatize Medicare wouldn’t touch his benefits, but Walter Dotson still doesn’t like the idea. He worries about the consequences long after he’s gone, for the grandson he is raising.
"I’d certainly hate to see him without the benefits that I’ve got," said Dotson, 72, steering a high school sophomore toward adulthood.
The loudest objections to the GOP Medicare plan are coming from seniors, who swung to Republicans in last year’s congressional elections, and many have been complaining at town-hall meetings with their representatives during the current congressional recess. Some experts say GOP policymakers may have overlooked a defining trait among older people: concern for the welfare of the next generations.
"I remember the days when we had poor farms and elderly people on welfare, before we had Social Security and Medicare for seniors, and I’m afraid it will lead right back to that situation," added Dotson, from the village of Cleveland in rural southwest Virginia.
About that, Rep. Paul Ryan says "Seniors, as soon as they realize this doesn’t affect them, they are not so opposed. I really don’t run into that much opposition. I run into some confusion. As soon as people understand what we are talking about, that clears the air." Apparently, that "clearing of the air" doesn't always work for him, since he was forced to run away from those seniors at a recent town meeting, ducking out the back door.
It’s too early to tell how seniors’ views will settle out. The House budget could go down as a political blunder that costs Republicans the support of seniors in the 2012 elections. Or, since the budget has no chance of passing the Democratic-controlled Senate, it could be a wash.
It’s already changed the political dynamic, said Robert Blendon, a Harvard professor who tracks public opinion on health care. Last year, nearly three out of five people 60 and older voted Republican, reflecting concern over Medicare cuts to finance Obama’s health care overhaul. Now Republicans are on the defensive. "It’s a way of Democrats taking the health care issue back to their side," Blendon said.
Seniors’ skepticism cuts across party lines, a problem for Republicans....
Dotson, who owned a machine shop before he retired, says he’s a lifelong Democrat. But Sharon Bergeson, 68, a Republican, is also uncomfortable with privatization.
"What worries me is if something not as good as what I have was to come along for my children or grandchildren," said Bergeson, from Idaho Springs, a small town in the mountains west of Denver.
Medicare has its flaws, she said, but on the whole it has worked well for her. Bergeson said she’d have to know a lot more about how privatization would work for future generations, including how much they’d have to pay and how secure it would be. Her children and grandchildren deserve the same she has, or better.
"I don’t want to put the future generation into a situation changing their program when it’s something that’s working for me at this time," she explained.
Take that, Alan Simpson.