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They have your best interests at heart, honest.
Turning Medicare into a voucher program or a “premium support” program, as Rep. Paul Ryan would describe his plan for Medicare, is highly unpopular with basically all segments of the American people, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation poll. The poll found 58 percent want to keep Medicare as is, including 55 percent of Republicans. From Kaiser Family Foundation:
Which of these two descriptions comes closer to your view of what Medicare should look like in the future?
58%…. Option A: Medicare should continue as it is today, with the government guaranteeing all seniors the same set of health insurance benefits
36%…. Option B: Medicare should be changed to a system in which the government guarantees each senior a fixed amount of money to help them purchase coverage either from traditional Medicare or from a list of private health plans 36%
This is probably the most generous way to describe Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan, which Mitt Romney has now seemed to fully embrace, and it is still opposed by a solid majority of the public.
The simple fact is that even the basic idea of voucherizing Medicare is unpopular and it is only likely to get much less popular when people understand the negative effects of specific proposals.
I can only assume that if the question mentioned that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, under Ryan’s plan, the voucher amounts would not grow as fast as insurance costs, and that would result in seniors paying more out of pocket for the same amount of health insurance, support for it would be significantly lower than this poll found.
Looking at the poll, it is easy to understand why Democrats are very happy that the national debate is focused on whether or not to turn Medicare into a voucher program. What is less clear is why the Romney campaign thought it was a good idea to take the focus off the economy and put it on Medicare by selecting Paul Ryan as his running mate.
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According to the NYT, the choosing of Ryan switched the subject of the campaign from the economy to ideology. Bad mistake on their part because that plays right into the hands of Dems who, I hope, will use it in every race.
A premium support program? Sounds like Obamacare. No wonder people don’t like it.
Ask Ron Wyden…
Mitt Romney just threw John Sununu (sp) under the bus after his insistence with Soledad O’Brien the other day that Mitt’s plan and Ryan’s plan are “different.” Soledad must be smiling a bit today.
The truth is Mitt never had a plan and it is just the lazy way of saying my plan is the exact plan of my VP.
Now go ahead and explain that $716B that Ryan put into his budget and how it differs from Barack Obama’s. Good luck with that one.
Someone else said this first but I agree totally, every person that votes Republican should pick up their voucher as they leave the booth.
There is a picture here. Flashing red light saying “don’t forget to pick up your voucher before you leave today…”
Don’t you worry. The Tea Party will be whipped into shape come November, and they will reliabley tramp into their local poling station and pull the lever for RMoney/Granny-Starver. This kind of fact-y-ness will have no impact whatsover on the “average” conservative voter. Plus, I hear-tell that Ryan is “deeply” anti-abortion…. where do I check off my vote???
I just heard a radio show in which a Republican consultant, one J. David Woodard said, when asked if the language in a Romney ad about Obama “raiding” Medicare was honest, “It’s enough to win the election. That’s all that matters.” See? Sometimes these guys do tell the truth, but only when it’s about not telling the truth.
Republicans have no intention of “winning”. They have everything they want now. Romney’s campaign is just twisting the knife in the body politic.
This survey is silly because the question purports to explain how the system would be changed and yet ignores a host of relevant details. A better, but still imperfect question would be simply:
1) Keep Medicare the same.
2) Change it.
Of course the American people–regardless of which side of the political fence they’re on–don’t want to see Medicare gutted. It is and always has been an enormously popular program, and for good reason. It bears repeating, however, that Obama wants to kill Medicare, too (just more slowly). Such is the grim reality of the corporate-owned two-party system.
Since both parties are united in their belief that the chief role of Government in a deep recession is deficit reduction, it’s crystal clear that this is a setup for a Grand Bargain.
Yep, it is easy to understand how the Democrats are delighted that they get to pretend that they care about Medicare during an election year.
On one side you’ve got the 2-party system and their owners/sponsors. On the other side you’ve got people who work for a living. Gee, I wonder how this will turn out.