Congressional Republicans intend to present a plan to overhaul Medicare, calling for voucherlike “premium supports” to steer people 65 and over into buying commercial health insurance, and to transform Medicaid, which would be cut and turned into block grants to state governments. They also intend to set up a new commission to study options on Social Security, while relying on what one House Republican aide called “the solid foundation” of the Ryan budget plan. These are all very bad ideas. Medicare works, and works quite well. Here in the retirement community where my mother lives, the people who have been screwed over medically are the ones who relied on private plans like Blue Cross. Medicare has served the rest admirably. Medicaid also works quite well -- the only real frauds in the system are the insurance companies that have taken advantage of the program. Today I read in the paper that 44 percent of Marion County households do not earn enough money to pay for basic expenses, which is 1 percentage point better than the state average. Nearly half of all Floridian households cannot pay their basic expenses! They need things like Medicaid or they will go under. If the balancing the budget is so important, why balance it on the backs of the poor? Why spend trillions on the War Machine, when you could save a few billions, and spend a smaller but adequate amount on social programs, thus building this country back up? I will say this: all the people who have criticized Obama, often rightly, for cozying up to the military and to Wall Street are going to change their tune when they realize that he is the only thing standing between their precious retirement resources and the depredations that the Conservatives have planned for them.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Nov 2014 16:33:51 +0000
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