Don't mince words. 'Repeal and Replace', the Republican mantra, isn't reserved for the Affordable Care Act, but any program they disfavor.
The Republican budget seeks to not transform Medicare, but to 'Repeal and Replace' it. They seek to 'Repeal and Replace Medicare'. And what they wish to 'Repeal and Replace Medicare' with is a vastly different system which funnels billions from guaranteed government accounts direct to insurance companies while guaranteeing further billions from the elderly themselves.
Their designs will so drastically alter Medicare, as well as Medicaid and Social Security, as to have essentially repealed those programs and replaced them with unpalatable 'private market alternatives'.
A simple truth which
is also true for any
number of programs
the Republicans would
reconstruct to the liking
of their corporate
sponsors and
beneficiaries.
Ever gluttons for power and money, the Republicans, with two simple votes on one misguided plan, have broadcast their intentions clearer and louder than they have in a decade, and in doing so have given Progressives an opportunity to roll back the agenda they have inflicted upon the nation.
Medicare-Ending GOP Budget Dies In Senate With 5 Republican Defectors
The Senate killed the House Republican budget, authored by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), that would effectively end Medicare. The bill passed the House in April with only 4 Republicans out of 242 voting against it, but in the intervening weeks, the plan proved to be extremely unpopular, as demonstrated by numerous confrontations at constituent town halls, devastating polling, and most recently, by the an upset in a special election that hinged largely on the Medicare plan. When the bill finally came up for a vote tonight in the Senate, five Republicans out of the 47 voted against the plan, making the final vote 40-57.
http://thinkprogress.org/...