Lies tick me off. And a lie doesn’t get any bigger than the Ryan/GOP one purporting they will “save” Medicare. But what do you say of dissembling, deceiving and lying media fronts?
Tuesday night ABC’s Jonathan Karl pretended to fact check the Obama-Biden claim that Paul Ryan’s Voucher Plan would “end Medicare as we know it.” The Obama-Biden claim is completely true.
So when he endorsed the GOP deception, Jonathan Karl’s pants were on fire. The GOP, Ryan and Karl pretend those 55 and over can keep traditional Medicare. It is a malicious lie intended to divide the old from the young while gutting the entire program. They know that. This is the truth about privatizing Medicare.
1. Any insurance plan relies on younger, healthier subscribers’ inputs (premiums) to pay for the less healthy older subscribers. The younger usually need less care.
2. By giving the younger seniors a voucher, the GOP effectively siphon off funding in the form of vouchers for younger seniors, de-facto defund traditional Medicare and cause the system to collapse financially. So, no, older seniors cannot “keep it.” It won’t be there.
3. For those currently under 55, it would no longer BE Medicare, but rather private insurance. Thus the end of Medicare as we know it for the younger seniors too.
4. Medicare was designed because of the failure of the private system to properly cover seniors.
5. With the profit motive, health care will cost more and seniors won’t be able to buy it on the “open” market.
6. Seniors who can afford it at first, also won’t be able to afford the ever-rising cost of private insurance.
7. The GOP won’t protect people against discriminatory insurance practices regarding pre-existing conditions. They will revoke “Obama Care,” remember?
8. By employing a draconian limit to the amount of GDP the federal budget can be, the Paul Ryan Budget eliminates every domestic program, including Medicare. He would only fund defense and (supposedly) Social Security. But he has talked out of two sides of his mouth on the subject of Social Security too. Yet he benefited from it as a child when his father died. He got survivor benefits. Talk about hypocrisy.
But there is more deception by Ryan-Romney.
Additionally, while the Ryan-GOP budget cuts 3/4 of a Trillion dollars from Medicare, they do not use it to make Medicare more efficient and effective, while the Obama plan does.
The Obama Health Care plan cuts overpayments to Medicare Advantage programs, overpayments to hospitals and fraud. In the case of Medicare Advantage, the overpayments were designed to lure seniors out of Medicare AND to bankrupt it by paying private carriers MORE than the patient would cost them.
Importantly, the so-called Obama “cuts” really improve Medicare and strengthen it. The monies used bring solid return on investment. Some monies spent on staffing and for software will bring back bigger returns in fraud detection than the programs cost. They also mean there is more money in the system to fund legitimate claims when people are sick.
More importantly, in addition to the positives mentioned above, much of the monies saved by the above, are funneled back into Medicare to close the prescription drug “donut hole,” include preventative care and screenings, extend best practices and standards of care, and to reduce infections. A lesser portion of it goes to expand health insurance availability for low-income Americans.
That’s not all. Medicare has very low overhead. Insurance companies take roughly 20% or more for themselves. The Affordable Health Care Act, which the GOP wants to end, would have contained excessive overhead. Putting greedy insurance companies in charge will cost more. The GOP and their lying liars in the media know it.
As I indicated above, the lie is a scheme to divide and conquer. The GOP gamble is to make those 55 and older think Medicare will be there for them and hope the older beneficiaries are either too old, too tired, too sick or too self-interested to support those younger than themselves. Ryan-Romeny are not right about that. Seniors know full well what voucherizing Medicare will do. AND they care about their children and grandchildren.
Privatizing Medicare will sink it. The GOP knows it and so should everyone else. The Obama-Biden claim is completely true.
President Obama needs to talk to the nation about the above, so everyone understands what is really going on. If he doesn’t, then perhaps Stephanie Cutler, his Deputy Campaign manager, can do a video on the subject. Her others are outstanding. Meanwhile, tell everyone you know the truth about GOP lies.
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