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The American people love their Medicare and overwhelmingly oppose the idea of turning it into a voucher program or a premium support system. From the Kaiser Family Foundation poll:
In Kaiser’s February tracking survey, 70 percent of Americans say “Medicare should continue as it is today, with the government guaranteeing seniors health insurance and making sure that everyone gets the same defined set of benefits,” while 25 percent say “Medicare should be changed to a system in which the government would guarantee each senior a fixed amount of money to put toward health insurance. Seniors would purchase that coverage either from traditional Medicare or from a list of private health plans”. There is remarkable agreement on this issue by age, with at least two thirds in each age group supporting keeping Medicare as is. Even among Republicans, a narrow majority (53 percent) say they would prefer to keep Medicare as currently structured, rather than move toward a defined contribution model that offers the choice between traditional Medicare or a private plan. But, Republicans remain the most open to the change: 39 percent support this concept, compared to 24 percent of independents and 14 percent of Democrats.
Not only is the original Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) plan to privatize Medicare, that most Congressional Republicans voted for, deeply unpopular but even the “compromise” plan Ryan later created with Senate Democrat Ron Wyden is also overwhelmingly opposed by the American people. The vast majority of Americans don’t want Medicare turned into a premium support system even if they still would have the option of choosing traditional Medicare.
Both the original Ryan voucher plan and the newer Ryan-Wyden Medicare plan are, in reality, fringe positions radically outside of the mainstream.
Currently, the Republican position on Medicare is a huge political vulnerability. If only Democratic leadership, instead of working for months to reach a grand bargain to cut Medicare benefits, spent that time defending the program that is one of the Democrats most popular and successful achievements of all time, Democrats wouldn’t be suffering from an enthusiasm gap right now.
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About FDL Action
Anyone who can read a newspaper knows President Obama is in “lockstep” with the Republicans on cutting Medicare and Social Security:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/27/us/politics/obamas-unacknowledged-debt-to-bowles-simpson-plan.html?
It is a one party system, whether it is about bombing Iran or nuking Seniors.
That’s right. Keep your gubmint hands off my Medicare!
By the way, if Paul Ryan is an intellectual, then I’m a first-ballot inductee into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Were they informed that in order for it to continue as it is today payroll taxes would need to go up?
The projected date of Medicare Trust Fund exhaustion is 2024, at which time dedicated revenues would be sufficient to pay 90 percent of costs. The share of Medicare expenditures that can be financed with dedicated revenues is projected to decline slowly to 75 percent in 2045.
What I truly don’t understand is why there aren’t rank and file members of the Democratic Party which are screaming bloody hell, no, we won’t let you Top Dogs undermine and destroy the accomplishments and principles of the Democratic Party….
Most Dem Party people are not making out like bandits and Congress Critters — why won’t they reclaim their party?
Or are they ignored just as we the little people/voters are?
Will of the people Overwhelmingly disregarded by Oligarchs and Kleptocrats.
President Obama (Oligarch in Chief) Overwhelmingly approves turning Medicare into whatever sort of program Banksters and Hedgefund managers want.
Obama also approves allowing the pay roll tax cut to be used as justification for stripping Social Security at a date yet to be determined.
The Obama Administration is so concerned about the deficit that they have offered to slash corporate taxes by 20%…..with many corporations paying zero taxes, this should Really help the deficit and ensure Medicare’s solvency for many years to come. NOT.
Rather than raising the payroll taxes, why not raise the cap or expand where the taxes are raised. There is nothing sacred about the income cap.
You just don’t understand what will happen by reducing the taxes on the corpses. They will be so relieved that it will actually raise the amount of tax income to the government. It would be just like lowering the taxes on individuals to increase the amount paid in. I guess that you haven’t read the memo very closely.
There is no income cap.
Since when? The last I heard it was about $106k.
Since 1993.
applause.
Courtesy of our friends at the Hoover Institute, the dispensers of wingnut welfare to such traitors as Scooter Libby ….The payroll tax is 12.4% for Social Security (capped at $106,000), and 2.9% for Medicare (no income cap)……
Makes it pretty obvious that the “dispute” over the payroll tax “holiday” was nothing more than kabuki. It was a bi-partisan effort to defund Social Security and Medicare.
I’m late to this thread, but I wanted to add a short comment:
Hey Paul Ryan: You’re a lowlife scumbag.
(Yes, I sugar-coated it.)
Ryan is an intellectual like Newt, they are what a stupid person thinks is smart.
(Belaboring the obvious), Raise the S.S. cap to $250,000 at least; Repeal the Bush/Obama tax cuts for everyone (not just the rich); Single Payer National Health Care. Presto, S.S. and Medicare/Medicade saved and solvent, National Debt erased. Such an easy start, it will never happen.
I love Charles P. Pierce’s description of Ryan: “a zombie-eyed granny starver.”
That, and offer medicare coverage to everyone else, at an affordable monthly premium. Our government health plans would likely be more stable if we started to offer these plans to the general public, rather than the highest risk groups like the elderly, the very poor, the incarcerated, active military and poor veterans. The American health insurance companies make their money off the government’s (our) expense, who takes the highest risk groups in the country.
Yes, the payroll tax will have to be raised even more for those “70 percent of Americans who say “Medicare should continue as it is today, with the government guaranteeing seniors health insurance and making sure that everyone gets the same defined set of benefits,””
But I’m sure the Kaiser’s February tracking survey didn’t point that out. It’s easy to get people to say they want continued benefits if they don’t know they have to pay for them.
Nothing you suggested would by itself have any impact on Medicare/Medicade.
True – and for HI there is even a small HSA attempt to pull a tiny piece of your investment income in to be hit with a “payroll tax” – not quite treating wage and investment income equally – but a start.
But for Social Security and Disability income and survivors benefits other than the tiny life insurance benefit, the law caps the wages subject to the payroll tax at a little over $110 k this year – and does not touch investment income. All SS financing problems – even under the worse assumptions – go away if we have no cap for both the wages used to calculate the tax and to calculate the benefit – which is why the means test is so evil. The means test for the benefit is just a way to build a defense to the end of the cap on wage income. God forbid we ever treat investment income to the same taxes as wage income.
Bullshit.