In their quest to gut all spending for Main Street to spend more for Wall Street, Republicans seem to believe that Americans, especially elderly Americans, don’t need a safety net. If they have their way, they may prove themselves right. After we die, the need for a safety net disappears.
Having secured “draconian” cuts in a last-minute budget deal last week, House Republicans are hyping House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) new “Path to Prosperity [Murdoch delinked]” plan. The proposal professes to reform programs like Medicare and Medicaid to rein in spending by $6.2 trillion over the next decade. But as the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein notes, Ryan’s Medicare and Medicaid plans “rely on the same bait-and-switch: They use a reform to disguise a cut.” By making Medicare a voucher program and Medicaid a block grant program with $750 billion less in funding, Ryan’s plan forces seniors to pay more for the same benefits, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, and jeopardizes vital health care services for millions of low-income Americans.
Today on Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace questioned House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) support for a plan in which Americans “pay more out of pocket.” Defending the proposal, Cantor argued that these programs sometimes provide a “safety net” for “people who frankly don’t need one” and that the shift of the burden from the government to the beneficiary will teach government “to do more with less”…
…Watch it:
In reality, the Medicaid cuts will actually force states to do less with less. As the Wonk Room’s Igor Volsky points out, Ryan’s block grant idea would actually “destroy Medicaid” because the annual federal appropriation would be less than projected growth. States would thus make up the difference “by increasing spending or (more realistically) capping enrollment, cutting eligibility, limiting mandatory benefits and lowering provider reimbursements.” Numerous GOP governors are already itching to do so. And for Medicare beneficiaries, not only would low-income seniors end up paying more for the same benefits, but health insurers “will likely cherry-pick the healthiest enrollees” thereby increasing the costs for sicker individuals… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Think Progress>
Can you imagine what the RepubliCare Death Angel, Jan Brewer, would do if Medicaid becomes a block grant? She has already proven willingness to kill Arizonans in need of transplants by pulling their Medicaid benefits in addition to cancelling coverage for thousands of poor children. Could Scott Walker be trusted to administer such a program. In most red states block grants would find a way to become tax cuts for the rich. Medical insurance companies are the heart of the health care problem today. Can we afford to turn Medicare over to them? No!
8 Responses to “The Safety Net We Don’t Need?”
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Medicare works— that alone seems to me reason to leave it alone ; Reform a system that works– makes no sense– Agreed the insurance companies are the big problem; Turn health care over to companies that have out shored most of their work already ? So health care decisions can , in effect, be made by a clerk in downtown Mumbai India ? And will cost a lot more ?
Phyllis, decisions should ne based on health, not profit.
Ryan can take his Path to Disaster and shove it so far up his _ _ _ so far he’ll never get it out! Bend over everybody, and don’t expect any lube, either!
Jack, has Vaseline fallen into the category of socialism for the rich only?
Medicare does work and it works a lot better than any state program would work. Do they realize the systems that would have to be put in place to prevent fraud and administer the program themselves? States are broke too – they can’t afford that kind of stuff. Medicare and Medicaid cost the Feds 1% of all the programs they have. Insurance companies need a profit of 20%; that’s 20% right off the top. No way insurance companies can match that.
Lisa, do you mean Medicaid? That’s the one Goopers want to farm out to the states. You’re right on.
Here’s the flaw in their reasoning: The circular flow of money in an economy. Households are responsible for approx. 70% of the GDP through consumer spending. If the money isn’t available for spending due to high insurance premiums and medical bills guess where all the money goes? And that’s where it stops too. It doesn’t get back into the economy because the insurance companies pay it out as bonuses to CEO’s and toss a few bucks to stockholders. This is something akin to hijacking the economy not helping it.
Reason number 2 — Japan had a deep recession during the 1990’s. The government slashed taxes and almost tripled spending. They went into deep debt. Yet from about 2002 until the tsunami they had one of the most stable economies on the planet.
And just for added interest — what entity holds the power to regulate business, environmental health, consumer safety, job equality, fairness in housing, etc. The government of course. Hobble the government with pauperism and you hobble its ability to enforce any of the social programs that have made our country a better place to live. Nice, huh?
Blue, that makes perfect sense. That’s why a dollar of tax cuts to the rich generates under fifty cents in economic activity, while the same dollar of unemployment benefits generates over two dollars.