Reading this morning’s post, "Florida newspapers: Romney is in big, big trouble" by Billionaires for Wealthcare, the bit about how Chuck Todd operates caught my eye. I went over to MSNBC to find video and saw him on Morning Joe, re Medicare.
Chuck, on the off-chance you read this, would you back up a few feet? I know you and Joe Scarborough love inside-baseball politics, but you can still get that tingly feeling from the thrill of the game or whatever while advancing useful talking points. It might catch on and truly help versus just adding more noise. Here’s the thing:
On Morning Joe, Scarborough and Todd agreed that the general public does not understand how broke Medicare and Medicaid are. They agree how these two programs will consume the entire budget. Chuck said that people need to be made to understand this. Joe said every legislator gets it. So what’s the hang up?
Joe, Chuck, the hang up is that Republicans won’t touch taxes/increase revenue or regulate health care or the financial industry. And I love how you threw in that no one wants to start with the basics: raise the enrollment age and implement means testing. You know as well as I do that means testing costs money. It’s expensive to implement, too. I’ll go back and check the video but I’m pretty sure you both dismissed it like it was no big thing. Like means testing wouldn’t eliminate any (Republican) voters, either.
The deal isn’t that people don’t “get” the seriousness of the situation; the deal is that people don’t see Republicans working in good faith. Medicare and Medicaid are not in a vacuum. You boys should take some baby steps and start talking about how we WILL be screwed if revenue and regulation aren’t addressed. Trust me, you can still have that political junkie fix even if you round out the discussion.