Here’s Debbie Wasserman Schultz getting tripped up when Wolf Blitzer tries to get her to admit that the Ryan Medicare plan doesn’t change anything for those over 55 (via). DWS wants to filibuster around that point because she knows that it is a clever bit of politics that hurts her with the olds in her home state.
If there ever were a time for a Democrat to say “class warfare”, this would have been one of them, e.g., “Ryan and Romney are cynically turning parent against child by encouraging parents to deny children the same Medicare benefit they now enjoy. This is especially unjust since their children have spent most of their lives paying into Medicare.” The point is to get past the over-55s quickly to transition to the under-55s. Nobody under 55 should want to vote to turn their Medicare into vouchers, and if you have 4 minutes on CNN, at least 3 of them should be spent hammering that point home.
I also like the idea of heaping a little shame on the Tea Party over this one. Ryan’s plan is calculated to appeal to them because most of them are old and selfish. They’ve fabricated a bullshit story where Medicare is their God-given right, because God smiled on them, but, for some inscrutable reason, God is not smiling on the next generations, so the kids get vouchers and fuck-all else. As part of the generation right after the Baby Boom, all I heard growing up was Generation Gap this, Generation Gap that, Generation Gap the other, so let’s pull that hoary old meme out for another romp around the park and turn it around. I think the majority of the over-55s are old and unselfish, and a little shame will separate some of the ones who might be inclined to be selfish from the rest of the teabagger pack.
Svensker
Watch who yer calling “old,” sprout.
beltane
I wouldn’t count on the Silent Generation’s lack of selfishness. However, their selfishness might not be so extreme that they are willing to screw over their own middle-aged children, let alone their grandchildren. There is also a little bit of a ghoulish element here, as Ryan’s plan promotes the idea that old people are like vampires sucking the lifeblood out of the young in order to obtain something like eternal life.
El Cid
I’m under 55 so I have no problem with being utterly screwed over by turning the social insurance program I’ve been paying into massively for the last several decades’ worth of work, into some sort of IOU coupon system (‘we promise we’ll pay you an insurance company decent money in your name up to a small limit! we promised! whoops we ran out of money too bad so sorry, best of luck!’), because people tell me it’s better for me in the long run.
Valdivia
Yes I totally agree that the message has to change into–your child has been paying into Medicare all his/her life and now you want them to be at the mercy of predatory companies without regulations (that Ryan rolls back from ACA) when they will most need it?
Somewhat related to the messaging issue: I saw a lot of aggro online yesterday re Obama’s ‘failure’ to come out of the gate with a tough Medicare ad (not on the web, on tv) thereby losing the advantage on the issue. I must confess reading all these frantic screaming comments made me get truly nervous for a moment. But after seeing the totally unhinged Romney performance last night and seeing the consistency of the talking points from all the Republicans in these 2-3 days I think (hope) that the O team was just letting these people coalesce around a stupid message they can destroy. Letting them play their hand to see where they were going with Ryan of the ticket may be really smart if they kill this message as well as they did Romney in the months of July and August.
Or maybe I am still totally freaked out and wishful thinking. The strident tone from Romney last night left me totally shocked.
Eric
The proper response is “if the plan is such a win then why exempt people over 55? The answer is because the GOP wants to play those over 55 against their own children and grandchildren to win votes in florida. NO one is going to fall for that”
Dear dnc please send my consulting check to john and tunch
Suffern Ace
@El Cid: Hmmm. No one said it would be better for you. Better for someone, sure. But the people who receive the benefits aren’t really the concern here.
mistermix
@Eric: Yep, that’s a better way to put it.
AdamK
I’m over 55, but I have family and community, many of whom are under 55. I don’t happen to be a selfish idiot. I’m hugely offended by Republicans assuming I am a selfish idiot because I’m old.
El Cid
I think that anyone who believes that they’d actually receive for any significant amount of time the actual vouchers / coupons promised by those wishing to
raid the entitlements muneesreform the system is a complete sucker.If somehow this were to take place, how long do you think it would take until those vouchers went unfunded, or were reformed into a system in which the funds were just channeled straight into the hands of companies without yielding you benefits, or were fucked with in any necessary way to make sure you got nothing out of it?
mamayaga
As has been pointed out by some of us senior citizens in other threads, this little Repub trick is likely to have very limited appeal. There may be a lot of self-centered oldsters in the Tea Party set, but I do not know other old person who doesn’t care passionately about what happens to their children and grandchildren. In other words, it’s designed to get the votes Repubs were going to get anyway, and will just convince the rest of us that they are heartless bastards.
Most of us are well aware, from watching the obstacles our children face, that they have a really rough time: the cost of tuition through the roof, the cost of housing through the roof, and jobs few and far between. Many of us are still helping our adult children in various ways because the current environment is just not conducive to getting yourself launched.
That said, it does not help to see how much hostility there is expressed by some of the younger commenters here and elsewhere toward older people. I have to imagine that these are the children of the teabaggers, and if their parents have turned their backs on them, I am truly sad for that. But I personally do not know ANY older people who want their children to face destitution in old age, and I strongly believe that that is the majority of us.
El Cid
@Eric: No, no, no, it’s because the over-55’s are old and fragile and not used to change, whereas the under-55’s are hip, youthful, energetic, and looking for rad changes in vision.
c u n d gulag
How could she be unprepared for that question?
FSM, sometimes she sucks during interviews.
And let’s come up with a nickname for those born from the late 1930’s to 1957. They were:
Too young for WWII.
Too young for Korea.
Some were too old, many too young, for Vietnam. And some, like Mitt, and Newt, and Dick, and W, and Rush, found a way not to serve when their nation called them – unlike their poorer, usually browner, cohorts.
Just old enough to get what they paid into their whole lives, unlike the rest of us.
How about “The Luckiest Generation?”
NonyNony
Wait – why is 55 the cut-off point for “old”? Near as I can tell, old is somewhere north of 70 these days.
Class warfare is out in this country, but I think a few clear ads run during the Jeopardy/Wheel of Fortune dinner hour time slots with a youngish 45 year old “kid” talking with his/her mom/dad about exactly what these kinds of plans do would go a long way towards helping. There’s still a societal taboo against selfishness towards your own kids, despite the growth of Randian libertarian selfishness ideology.
beltane
@El Cid: I cringe when I hear the word “voucher” in any context because I’ve never experienced vouchers as being anything other than a complete hassle at best, and some sort of rip-off at worst.
@c u n d gulag: Yep, this is the generation that reaped the full benefits of post-war prosperity without having to fight in WWII or suffer through the Depression. Their reaction to having so much abundance thrown their way was to make sure their own children and grandchildren will live the same kind of hard lives as their own parents did.
How about “The Moocher Generation”?
Princess Leia
Not to mention that it isn’t just those under 55- I am 56 and it would apply to me too. The cutoff is anyone who qualifies as of Jan 1, 2021. It is the misdirection that pisses me off. As the goal of the Ryan plan is to screw EVERYBODY at least we should be clear so people can’t think they’ll be ok and it is only others who will be massively affected.
4tehlulz
hey mom, I’d like to help you with hospice care and all, but I have to save money to make up for my medicare that you voted to kill.
Betty Cracker
@mamayaga: You may be right, Mamayaga. I live in God’s waiting room (FL), with snowbird in-laws who reside up near The Villages, a hotbed of teabagger activity. But the vast majority of seniors I know think Medicare and Social Security are great for themselves and want it for their middle-aged children and the following generations too. I’m not just talking about Democrats either; non-crazy Republicans as well.
This can be a huge winning issue for the Dems if they frame it right. I like DWS, but she flubbed this interview. Let’s hope she and the rest of the Dems learn from it. But even with her screw-up, the message gets out that Romney-Ryan are pandering to 55+ and perfectly willing to screw the rest of us. At least I hope so.
4tehlulz
And another thing, if the “olds” think Ryan won’t come after them, they are the Dumbest Generation.
Suffern Ace
@NonyNony: Well left out of the equation is that at 55, you have 15 -25 years left to save for retirement needs. Whereas those who are 56 have only nine.
Steve
I’m not the first to point this out, but think about it: once the people who are currently younger than 55 stop paying taxes into Medicare, the idea that the program will magically stay the same for everyone currently older than 55 is a pipe dream. Where will the money come from?
Celeriac
I don’t understand why nobody is turning the rethugs deficit “leveraging the future of our children and grandchildren!!1!1!!” right around and smacking them across the face with it re: doing exactly fucking that with The Ryan plan.
El Cid
@beltane:
Note how so many consumer advocates in the media complain about store gift cards being a ripoff, and each year around the Winter Baby Jesus Holiday get on their high horses saying you should just give cash instead of gift cards.
And yet the same conservatives I have heard repeating this advice talk about how smart this type of ‘reform’ would be for Medicare.
beltane
There is another interesting angle to this and it is a racial/ethnic one. The Ryan plan will produce a situation where a cohort of pampered white retirees whose comfortable standard of living will be paid for by a young workforce which is far less white. Not only will these not-so-whate workers be paying for benefits that exclusively go to a group of people who hates them, but these same pampered retirees will do everything in their power to hurt the workers and their children by gutting education and childrens’ health care programs. Eventually, some not-so-nice leader will come along to exploit this situation in ways that will make the teabagger crowd crap their pants.
Remember the “Whitey Tape”? Well, the real Whitey Tape has not been made yet but Romoney/Ryan are going to ensure that one does get made in the future.
Quincy
@c u n d gulag: She ranges from mediocre to terrible. The Dems need to do better. On the Today show this morning Lauer said to her “at least Ryan has a plan, the Democrats don’t.” Her response was word salad. I would’ve said “Ryan doesn’t have a plan, he has a tax cut for the wealthy. He just calls that a plan. We’ve already passed a law that will reduce Medicare spending by as much as Ryan hopes to. We also have a jobs plan which the Republicans don’t have. Invite me back on when you find a Republican proposal that doesn’t include massive tax breaks for rich people and then we can talk about how serious they are.”
beltane
@Quincy: Say what you will about Howard Dean but he excelled at this kind of policy discussion. We really need someone who can come across as something of an aggressive dick on this very important issue.
Suffern Ace
@Steve: Well seeing as the elderly also rely on Medicaid if they get very sick, I think they’ll find out sooner rather than later that they haven’t saved enough. Hopefully, a married couple will have had the foresight to get sick and die simultaneously, and not linger too long.
Valdivia
The way the Reps are trying to square the circle is by making the Olds believe evil Obama stole from them to give to the undeserved through ACA. The Dems have to flip this and make the olds focus on how their own families are being robbed by the Republicans and not to benefit anyone else but the 1% and the insurance companies.
Seth Owen
Steve, you are exactly right. Anybody over 55, especially the 55 to 65s, who think everyone else is going to keep paying for THEIR traditional Meficare while they’re stuck with crappy vouchers is too stupid to breathe. One of two things will happen. Either the changeover date will be changed every year (see the annual AMT and Medicare doctor cuts dance for how that works) so it becomes nothing more than a budget accounting trick to hide deficits OR the surviving older seniors will be outvoted down the line and made to have bouchérs just like everybody else.
Hill Dweller
Even the people who are over 55 will be affected, because the Medicare pool will continue to shrink, weakening its bargaining power and raising individuals’ prices. Congress won’t step in to cover the rise in costs because the political strength of Medicare will also shrink.
As an aside, Wolf Blitzer is a know-nothing hack.
chopper
@Valdivia:
the ads aren’t too hard. some old guy and his son talking around the breakfast table about the ryan budget, and the 50-year-old diabetic son reminds his dad that he’s been paying into SS and medicare his whole adult life and if he has to buy insurance on the market, he’s going to have to move back in with his parents to be able to pay for it.
Schlemizel
so, because I am 55 or older I should be OK with fucking over my kids & grandkids in order to fund more tax cuts for Rmoney and friends?
How big a sociopath do you have to be to think this is acceptable? How big of a fungus do you have to be to not know Wolfie would go there & be prepared to ask him if HE wants to screw over his kids & grandkids?
Cassidy
A Republican.
beltane
@Suffern Ace: Everyone who is not extremely wealthy will end up needing Medicaid if they have to go into a nursing home because the cost of this type of care is something that even relatively well-off people cannot afford for any length of time.
A relative by marriage of mine lived to be 104. Her corporate executive husband left her with several million dollars, almost every penny of which ended up going to pay for her very extended stay at an assisted living facility. If she had lived another few months, even this (formerly) wealthy widow would have been forced to go on Medicaid.
raven
I’m 62 and I never even thought about any of this shit until about 10 years ago. Of course not having kids may be part of it.
El Cid
I’d like to see more people defending Medicare as a great and successful program to be proud of rather than mostly defining it as necessary and that vast majorities of people support it.
Todd
They’re incapable of shame, and you have a much higher opinion of that demographic than I do.
beltane
On the bright side, the Ryan plan will mean that wingnut old-age ghettos like The Villages will simply fade out of existence as the supply of retirees dries up into nothing. Communities like this have been a great source of the Republicans’ strength, and by starving these places of residents, the GOP will go a long way towards eliminating the mindset that made them successful in the first place.
There is no room for the philosophy of Ayn Rand in a world where extended families are forced to care for each other.
Valdivia
@chopper:
totally agree. the sooner the better, the O team can’t afford to lose time with this.
Ash Can
@mamayaga: Well said. Percentage-wise, there really aren’t that many genuine, active Teabaggers, but they’re aided enormously by poorly-informed voters. I do believe that an all-out, general-election campaign that’s being fought on Medicare and that features Dems talented and disciplined enough to repeat their message often and consistently, coupled with a press corps that just might get abused badly enough by Romney that they end up doing a sub-par job shilling for him, could very well cut into the white Boomer demographic to a substantial degree.
sherparick
DWS again has unfortunately been bathed constant “Government is bad, private is metter” meme of the last 30 years and Democratic politicians immediately go fetal.
1. Medicare is a great program, it is cheaper than private insurance, as demonstrated by the fact that the Medicare “Advantage” program was more costly than straight Medicare, and it succeeds in making sure all seniors get the health care they will all need at some point up to the end of life.
2. In defending Medicare as currently established for all, we defend it for the over 65. If the Ryan plan becomes law, the immediate next step would be to extend it to all seniors. After all, why should people who will no longer be getting that benefit pay taxes for those who are.
Ash Can
@Quincy: She has good and bad moments. In a perfect world, Barney Frank would have her job.
japa21
My problem with Dems attempt to defend their position, not just attack Ryan’s is multifold:
1. The Dems do have a plan and it was highlighted in ACA. Reduce waste, go after fraud, strengthen Medicaid, strengthen Medicare with extra funding, get rid of the doughnut hole which allows seniors to stay on their meds, thus reducing other expenses, free preventative care and checkups which also reduces other expenses, have end of life counseling which reduces that average amount spent on the last six months of care by over 30%.
2. Yes, by all means point out that seniors care about their kids and grandkids, it matters.
3. Talk about hopw the Ryan plan affects seniors negatively. Hit on the reappearance of the doughnut hole, the ending of free preventative care and checkups, the massive hit to Medicaid which affects not only nursing home care but also a lot of in-home services seniors currently get that Medicare doesn’t cover.
Instead what I hear some Dems saying when challenged is just to “filibuster” the challenger and talk about RW talking points.
It isn’t that hard to attack Ryan and defend Dems’ plans at the same time.
jrg
Anyone who thinks they’re going to screw me out of the benefits I paid for, while keeping theirs, did way to much acid back in the 1960s.
chopper
@Todd:
right now a lot of people near retirement are freaking the fuck out. many lost large parts of their retirement in the financial crisis and the housing bubble. many are over 55 and lost their jobs and don’t even know how they’ll make it to retirement with what they have. despite many being not-selfish, there is a voice in the back of their heads telling them that they need someone to shore up their retirement even if it is at the expense of others.
that’s the voice the GOP is trying to talk to with this line of advertising. it’s cynical, and it’s class warfare, which are two things the GOP is well-versed in.
luckily the president is well-versed in campaigning. and the GOP picked a ticket with blatant out-in-the-open disdain for the social safety net. i mean, gutting medicare is right there in black and white. if obama and the dems can’t get in front of this one they deserve to lose.
Jose Padilla
The reason they pick 55 as the cut-off is because 1957 was the peak year of the Baby Boom. They “save” a lot more money by picking 55 as the cut-off and it makes the arithmatic easier.
Njorl
People 55 and older should realize that if Ryan’s plan is enacted, their exception won’t last. In 12 years, when someone who is 66 with crappy medicare coverage sees someone who is 67 with great medicare coverage, there will be a rebellion. When enough of the older contingent die such that they are no longer a critical electoral component, they will get shafted like the rest of us.
Bailey
The ads are REALLY easy to produce: a series of people doing nothing but spit-takes when they hear the details of the Ryan plan.
wrb
I guess if you trust the like of Ryan & Romney to stick to the compromise they offer now, then this could be fine for those over 55.
However Ryan’s original plan gutted SS & Medicare for everyone. That remains the goal.
So elect them, suckers.
wrb
I guess if you trust the like of Ryan & Romney to stick to the compromise they offer now, then this could be fine for those over 55.
However Ryan’s original plan gutted SS & Medicare for everyone. That remains the goal.
So elect them, suckers.
beltane
@jrg: If, and it’s a big if, the Silent Generation wants to stick it to the under-55s, the logical course of action would be to make sure they themselves are the laboratory for this nasty little social experiment.
If they want vouchercare for others, they should be forced to accept it for themselves.
Mino
Any over-55s who believe their benefits will be immune to the safety- net cutters is as stupid as a teabagger. Oh, wait.
Cacti
As mentioned above, the question should be, if Ryancare is such a winner, why is he afraid to give it to existing Medicare beneficiaries?
bemused
@Todd:
As a member of the over 55 crowd, I’ll take a wild guess that the percentage of selfish over 55’s willing to throw their kids and grandkids under the bus is about 27% particularly when more Republican “oldsters” learn what this grand coupon care plan/plot does. I also would not be surprised if that percentage dropped some when the “hands off my Medicare” tea party mob figures this out. Of course, that depends on Dems pounding hard on this so the reluctant media has to talk it constantly.
Donut
@Betty Cracker:
I like DWS as a legislator and party leader, too, except for one thing – she is always AWFUL on live TeeVee. I think it’s unfair to say the whole of the party is screwing up the messaging in response to the Medicare attacks. While I’m a huge fan of negative attacks, I actually think it is ok to ramp that up slowly. It’s not as if people haven’t been hearing this crap from the GOP already, and it’s been ongoing since health care reform was in the sausage grinder. I say give them a little time to get messages together and see if these GOP attacks actually stick. I don’t think they really do. And it’s worth remembering that we lost tuna house in 2010 not because of healthcare, but because of the economy.
Too many people are willing to hit the panic button way too soon, IMO.
Jennifer
Obama’s the right one to carry this message, because it so well fits his speaking style:
“They say, we’re gonna keep Medicare as it is for those 55 and older – because they need your votes. But what they’re counting on is the idea that you don’t care about what happens to your kids and grandkids when they’re no longer able to work. They think you’re like they are – selfish. They think you don’t care if your kids and grandkids spend their golden years with constant anxiety about how they’re going to pay for medical care, the way they – and a lot of you – spent your working lives. They think you don’t care if your kids and grandkids lose years of their lives and end up dying in pain because they can’t afford to pay for medical treatment that will prolong and improve their lives. They talk about how we have to fix things for future generations, and in the next breath, talk about how we need to take away Medicare from those same generations, so they can give tax breaks to people who don’t need them.
But I know better. I know that you can see that a future without health coverage for retired people is not a fix. I know you care about what happens to your kids and grandkids, even after you’re gone, because I know how I, and Michelle, feel about our own kids. They think you only think about yourselves. They’re counting on it, because that’s the only way you would vote for them, and in favor of their plan.”
Obama is really good at delivering this kind of message. Also, I can’t wait until Biden debates Ryan. I predict he’ll stick the shiv in pretty deep on this issue – and twist it.
AnonPhenom
The answer is:
“this is just the Republicans first step in de-funding and privatizing the guaranteed benefit of Medicare at the bidding of their Health Insurance political donors? Todays 55 year old will find himself at 65 being told ‘sorry, it didn’t work. here is your coupon’ . And if after betraying their children and grandchildren by supporting the Ryan/Romney plan, they find themselves alone with no one to turn to, they will have no one but themselves to blame”
Please forward to DWS. Attribution unnecessary.
Carl Nyberg
It’s a two-step process to end Medicare.
First the Republicans divide Americans and voucherize it for people born after 1956.
Then, at some point in the future, they get people born after 1956 to take it away from people born before 1956.
It’s not particularly subtle. And it shouldn’t be hard for Democrats to handle the messaging.
Uncle Cosmo
@beltane:
QFT. Even basic long-term care insurance is ruinously expensive these days.
And under the Lyin’ Ryan plan, when the time comes that The Greatest Degeneration (my own nickname for my Boomer cohort) needs that support, forget it. After having screwed the younger generations to fund our pampered retirements while they struggled, they’ll shove us freeloaders out of sight into warehouse gulags & let whatever loved ones left who give a damn queue at the front gate to bring us food parcels to stave off starvation–& it will serve us all right.
AnonPhenom
Question for the group;
Would referring to the Ryan/Romney plan as the The Changeling Medicare Plan be too obtuse?
Uncle Cosmo
@raven:
I’m 62 with no kids, & I’ve been thinking about it since the 1980s. Maybe it helps to have been trained as a mathematician–all I had to do was look at the Baby Boom bulge in the demographics to realize we’d be in deep kimchee right about now. I planned for my retirement on the presumption that SocSec would be severely means-tested, but even that didn’t help–I should’ve been able to retire in comfort at age 55 but little things like the dot-com & housing bubbles fixed that. Now I’m out of work & unlikely ever to find a paying gig again, but per my financial advisor I’m OK–so long as SocSec is there, & until such time as I need long-term care…
Uncle Cosmo
@AnonPhenom: How about the MediCareLess plan?
McJulie
@Uncle Cosmo:
And why is that? I’ve never quite figured it out. Based on my experiences visiting older relatives in such places, most of the people working there are nearly-minimum-wage and the food is terrible. Is it really so expensive having doctors around 24/7 whether you need them or not?
Jennifer
@Carl Nyberg: It’s a move that could be referred to as “the Medicare Two-Step.”
Or to put it in Underpants Gnomes parlance:
Step 1: Voucherize Medicare for those 55 & under
Step 2: 55 & unders vote to end Medicare for current retirees
Step 3: More tax cuts for the MOTU while the poors die in the gutter
Suffern ACE
I guess the question the under 55 middle class and working class voters is how much are they willing to be taxed to continue to pay for medicare and medicaid support. If the answer is “not much”, then “Please accept this voucher because we aren’t going to be cutting back military spending (except personnel costs) and in fact are going to be increasing it. Thank you.”
If middle class voters respond like they have in the past to “Rah Rah Military and no taxes for me”, you will be looking at vouchers sooner rather than later. We are not going to be able to support military expansionism from an economic base that is 30% healthcare services if that healthcare is also funded from tax reciepts.
The reason the Dems don’t talk about their plan is that there will be cuts to federal expenditures, but not as severe because there will also be revenue increases (taxes!) and cuts to military committments. Its easy to say that the Bush Tax Cuts should expire (All of them. Including the middle class ones). Harder to sell that idea. It also is hard to sell the public on the idea that perhaps the middle east isn’t as strategically important as it once was and we should concentrate on China for awhile-when the public has come to believe that it should be able to do both and much more no matter what the cost. Rah Rah.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
The GOP has been leveraging the racial divide since Nixon. With that strategy nearing the end of its usefulness, they now move on to leveraging the generational divide. I expect them to try this tack every 2 years until they finally get a Boomer cohort selfish enough to fuck over the rest of us.
At 44, I don’t have time to start over. If they change the rules now, I am well and truly fucked. And I’ve been saying this openly to my Boomer relatives/circle-mates (which I wish more liberal Xers would do– make it personal).
Look someone in the eye, and politely tell them that a vote for Mitt Romney is a vote to fuck me over, personally. You might as well hack into my accounts and steal my savings from me, because that’s what you support, objectively.
No matter which way the conversation goes after that, the glib, well-trained responses almost immediately lose their power. That alone makes it worth it.
shortstop
Doesn’t the Ryan plan revive the donut hole? That sure as hell affects today’s over-55s.
@Betty Cracker: I hope you guys are right. My own in-laws live in The Villages and love Ryan. Of course, my father-in-law skipped out of 15 years of child support when he and my husband’s mother divorced, and there’s never been a school referendum he didn’t vote against (“I don’t have kids in the schools anymore so I don’t care”–excellent long-term thinking there, and like you cared when you did have young kids), so he may just be a sociopath. But I worry very much that there are too many like him whose tribalism exceeds their ability to reason this out.
Deb T
With statements like:
“I also like the idea of heaping a little shame on the Tea Party over this one. Ryan’s plan is calculated to appeal to them because most of them are old and selfish. ”
you promote the very class/ageist charge you level against the opposition. I agree that’s the intent of the Repubs, but let’s not do the same thing.
I’m one of the olds of course, but I care about a lot of ‘youngs’. I want to make sure I don’t end up on the catfood subsidy, but I’m not willing to throw the young folks to the wolves to accomplish that. You can make your point without throwing around charges against the olds. I’ll bet most of the Tea Party old folk don’t even realize the upshot of Paul Ryan’s plan. The ones I’ve talked to are frustrated and scared of the future. And of course, there are just as many selfish, ignorant ones as there are selfish, ignorant young folks. It’s just that the young don’t vote.
Deb T
With statements like:
“I also like the idea of heaping a little shame on the Tea Party over this one. Ryan’s plan is calculated to appeal to them because most of them are old and selfish. ”
you promote the very class/ageist charge you level against the opposition. I agree that’s the intent of the Repubs, but let’s not do the same thing.
I’m one of the olds of course, but I care about a lot of ‘youngs’. I want to make sure I don’t end up on the catfood subsidy, but I’m not willing to throw the young folks to the wolves to accomplish that. You can make your point without throwing around charges against the olds. I’ll bet most of the Tea Party old folk don’t even realize the upshot of Paul Ryan’s plan. The ones I’ve talked to are frustrated and scared of the future. And of course, there are just as many selfish, ignorant ones as there are selfish, ignorant young folks. It’s just that the young don’t vote.
catclub
@McJulie: “I’ve never quite figured it out.”
I think the fact that Medicaid pays for it is part of the explanation — see the discussion of for-profit colleges.
BTW, Doonesbury is doing yeoman service on the for-profit college story.
ruemara
@Deb T: If you’re not a Tea Party type, this is not an insult to you.
bg
Many people age 55-65 have brothers or sisters younger than 55. I want my kid brother to have social security & medicare, not vouchers. I want my kids to have social security and medicare, too.
All they really need to do is raise the cap on the amount of income that is subject to the payroll tax. Really. It’s not that hard, and folks making 6 figures can afford it.
brantl
Shultz wasn’t tripped up, she was talked over, incessantly. Blitzer is a dick.
Jennifer
@brantl: Yes, Blitzer is a dick. At least he looks like a dick, only smaller.
But Shultz screwed the pooch by not putting it bluntly to him: “so, Wolf, as long as you get yours, you’re not worried about what happens to your kids, grandkids, nieces & nephews, etc when they’re old?”
smintheus
Has probably been said before: How long do the over-55s think their full benefits Medicare will survive if they cut a sweetheart deal with the Republicans to give the rest of us the shaft? Can they really think we’ll continue to subsidize their genuine Medicare while we’re prohibited from having it?
karen marie
@Valdivia: What did Romney say stridently last night? I just woke up to Romney’s whining that the President is being meeeaaaaaaannnnnnnn!!11! I missed something else?
mark k
DWS is lame-o. Can’t they find someone better?
th
@McJulie: There aren’t any doctors on site, just on call. The nursing homes call 911 like anyone else. The money goes to ruling class whether it’s for profit or not. It really sucks. And they will disappear without Medicaid.