And now, a rant.
How f**cking stupid could Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon be? Well, to this activist the answer is pretty damned stupid.
Today he and Rep. Paul Ryan are going to unveil a new plan that they say will “save” Medicare. This plan still undermines Medicare like the Ryan plan does but it has a couple of softeners that will make weak Democrats like Wyden suseptable to being rolled by the Republicans one more time.
This plan is so dumb it actually shares aspects with Gov. Rick Perry’s “You pick” flat tax plan where the tax payer would pick if they want to pay 20% flat tax or stay on the current tax system.
The craptasitic Ryan-Wyden plan would allow seniors to pick if they would like to stay on Medicare (a hugely successful and efficient program) or get vouchers for private insurance. To make the voucher system work they would tie it to the same kind of increases that Medicare is getting, or just a little bit over inflation.
To say that this plan is bad is an understatement along the lines of calling the destruction of Hiroshima by nuclear weapon a minor property dispute.
The reason that just about everyone, with the exception of deranged Republican lawmakers, excoriated this plan is that it the vouchers are very nearly guaranteed to not keep up with inflation. Even the small amount this plan would exceed inflation is unlikely to keep up with medical inflation which has outstripped the national inflation rate by three to one for most of the last two decades.
The notional benefit of this plan is that it would contain costs by letting seniors shop. There are a lot of problems with this meme. First off, Medicare is already less expensive than traditional coverage.
Second, there is the issue that insurance companies don’t want these older, more expensive folks on their plans, it really makes the bottom line less not more attractive.
We have seen with Medicare Advantage that there is has been exactly no cost savings by brining the insurance industry into the picture. Just like most dumbassed Republican plans it loves the market but completely misses the fact that the market is there for companies to make money not to provide services that the nation needs.
Yes, health care costs continue to rise and that is a problem when one looks at the amount of money that it will cost to continue to offer a safety net to our aging population, but this solution does nothing to fix the problem. If anything it will exacerbate it.
The way to fix our out of control medical costs is to get the profit motive out of the administration of health care. It is that simple. As long as the insurance companies are involved there is going to be a desire, hell a charter requirement, that they make money and impulse to make as much money as possible. It is just no compatible with cost containment.
The good news is that there is a way to make it less expensive, national single payer. If Sen. Wyden (and a hell of a lot of other elected Democrats) had the sense that God gave a turnip they would recognize this and stay for fuck away from any proposals that involve more not less private companies in the business of health care administration.
Maybe Rep. Ryan used voodoo on him or has pictures of him in erotic poses with goats and other barnyard animals (apologies to the goats for impugning their reputation)
Of course for Ryan and his cohorts it is not about Medicare and what is best for seniors at all, it is just any time they can undermine the social safety net they are going to take it.
Which brings us to the political aspects of this. This is where Sen. Wyden shows that he well and truly has his head lodge 3/5 of the way up his ass.
The whole New Deal and Great Society ideas are the winningest and best ideas that have ever been produced by the Democratic Party. The damage that Ryan and the House Leadership did to the Republican brand by forcing a vote on the original plan to end Medicare was huge.
To agree to let Ryan rehabilitate the political malpractice he perpetrated on the House Republicans by giving a “bi-partisan” plan before a tough election cycle is beyond belief. Here is a hint Senator Wyden, when you hear bi-curious, is doesn’t mean being interested in working with Republicans.
It is this kind of shit that makes it hard for Democrats to get elected and to show that there really is a difference between the two parties. Meeting someone halfway on an issue that should be a non-starter is not good politics and it sure as hell is not good policy.
Sen. Wyden (Dipshit, OR) says that he wants to protect seniors. I actually believe that is what is in his heart. The problem is that the best way to protect their access to Medicare is not to join with someone who proposed ending the program as we know it, under the guise of saving it.
If the Senior Senator from Oregon wants to help seniors on this issue he should be telling Ryan to take all of his voucher plan, and as we say down on the farm at harvest time, stick it where the Sun does not shine.
Just by agreeing to put his name on this Rube Goldberg contraption of a bill he has undermined the system itself and taken one of the issues that the Democrats will be running on and muddied the waters.
If you are one of the Senators constituents you might want to drop him a line and let him know how you feel about him totally fucking over old people and the Democratic electoral effort in one fell swoop. You can reach him here.
As for me, I think I’ll just start calling him the Honorable Dumb-fuck from Oregon, Senator Ron Wyden.
The floor is yours.