medicare

This doesn't sound to good for the Mitt Romney campaign:

Mitt Romney is canceling a planned campaign stop Monday in Orlando after a whirlwind weekend in which the presumptive Republican nominee introduced Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as his running mate.

According to the Orlando Sentinel, the campaign said late Sunday that the presidential hopeful was "too exhausted to make the trip" after crisscrossing Virginia, North Carolina and Wisconsin over the weekend.

"We've been planning this bus tour for a while and had to adjust for stuff going on," Jeff Bechdel, Florida communications director for the campaign, told the paper.

Florida is one of the key battleground states this cycle and Romney is blowing off a campaign stop there because of "exhaustion"? Maybe he is truly exhausted, or maybe he is trying to figure out how to face the huge senior populace of Florida that depends upon Medicare, especially now that the man who wants to gut Medicare is his running mate. To see just how bad it is, checkout these headlines from Florida papers over the weekend.

During last night’s GOP/Tea Party debate on CNN, Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul if under his America would a sick man without insurance be allowed to die instead of receiving care. Before Paul could even answer, the Tea Partiers started chanting “yes”. Here’s the video caught by TPM:

It really hurts my brain to think about these people and how they go out and act like the righteous when it comes to religion, yet they ignore the most basically preaching's of God and Jesus. It also makes me want to break things when I think about these hypocrites. These are the same people that sat in town halls a couple of years ago telling politicians that the government better not touch their Medicare. These people believe that they are the ones entitled, but no one else.

Just check out the anger that is brewing over at townhalls:

Of course my headline is totally misleading. Instead of Healthcare and Democratic Townhalls, it's actually Republican Townhalls and the issue of taxes, but my headline might get the media to actually notice that the Republicans are getting heat at townhalls over taxes and Medicare.

So, in this case, Rep. Dan Webster (R-FL) was confronted by many angry voters over the denial of raising corporate taxes or taxes on the wealthy. At one point he even threatened to kick out a voter, who kept pushing him on a question he refused to answer.

Where's the media outrage? Where's the flashing red light on Drudge or hours of "First Amendment violation" rhetoric on Fox?

Simple - the media don't care! Think about why. All the media people stand to lose if corporate taxes are raised or the top 2% end up having to pay their fair tax burden. They don't want people to know that there is a majority of Americans who are frustrated with the lower 98% paying for everything and getting more and more taken away.

If we can't get news of this outrage out in the open, then people will continue to be complacent and think they are in the minority. We really need to push these stories so that everyone can take notice and the Republicans are forced to change their tune.

Paul Ryan has admitted that his Medicare plan is nothing more than a mandate for seniors. This is from a townhall Ryan held in Racine, Wisconsin:

Q: If Medicare becomes a voucher program, would you require seniors to purchase private insurance and if so isn’t that an individual mandate? If you will not require them to purchase insurance how do you propose to prevent a situation where the costs of uninsured seniors is very expensive and gets passed on to me as a private policy holder? [...]

RYAN: Its mandate works no different than how the current Medicare law works today, which is you just select from a wide range of different plans. It literally would be like Medicare Advantage…

Now how can mandates be unconstitutional for everyone but seniors? That just doesn’t make sense and it blows a big gapping hole into the GOP argument over the mandates in the healthcare reform bill passed last year.

But this isn’t the only problem. This is being billed as a way to financially save Medicare. This is from a GAO report done in 2008:

Though it was originally envisioned as a potential way to save the Medicare program money, the government pays on average 13 percent more to care for a Medicare Advantage enrollee than it would if that person were in traditional Medicare.

So the plan to save us money will actually cost our country 13% more? Here we go with the fuzzy GOP math again, and with forcing every senior into the program, costs will really skyrocket. Keep in mind that this isn’t some prediction from the OMB, this is based on the actual numbers from the existing program, as computed by the GAO.

The House has just passed the Ryan budget plan:

The House has passed a Republican budget blueprint proposing to fundamentally overhaul Medicare for future beneficiaries while combating out-of-control budget deficits. It would impose sharp spending cuts on social safety net programs like food stamps and Medicaid.

The GOP proposal passed 235-193, with every Democrat voting "no." The nonbinding plan lays out a fiscal vision cutting $6.2 trillion over 10 years from the budget submitted by President Barack Obama.

The “Medicare Overhaul” was described like this:

"It's exactly like Obamacare," said NRSC chairman Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) in the Capitol Thursday. "It is. It's exactly like it. Which strikes me as bizarre that you're seeing so much pushback [from Democrats]."

So when will we see all the outrage in townhalls? When will seniors be yelling to “stay of my Medicare”?

Perhaps they need a reminder that the last time the Republicans screwed with Medicare, they ended up going months without getting medication and then found out about the great “doughnut hole” the Republicans created as a giveaway to big pharma.

A new New York Times/CBS poll has some really interesting numbers when it comes to dealing with the budget. For example; 55% of respondents feel that cutting military spending is the right way to go, including 42% of Republicans, which was the winning cut for the GOP in the poll. That really goes against the budget proposal put out by the GOP yesterday.

Another interesting find is how Americans want to fix Social Security and Medicare. 48% feel the premiums should be raised on high-income recipients. That came in first, with raising the retirement age at second and with only 21% supporting it. Again, even the Republicans in the poll agree with raising the high-income premiums.

But most overwhelming is the results in the question “If you had to choose one, which of the following changes to Social Security benefits would you prefer in order to keep the program financially sound?”. Here are the results for that question:

Two-thirds of the respondents feel we should reduce the benefits on the higher income recipients. Again, a vast majority of Republicans also support this idea.

After having spent the past four years in the minority, you would think congressional Republicans could actually come up with some sort of plans. Instead they lay out their “wish list”, but never present any path to make these wishes a reality.

That was scene again last week with the Republicans new “Pledge to America”. They once again gave us their list to Santa Claus, but the logistics of bringing these gifts from the North Pole to under our trees is nonexistent. John Boehner more or less even admitted it.

Transcript via Huffington Post (emphasis added):

WALLACE: But forgive me, sir. I mean, isn't the right time to have the adult conversation now before the election when you have this document? Why not make a single proposal to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid?

BOEHNER: Chris, this is what happens here in Washington. When you start down that path, you just invite all kinds of problems. I know. I've been there. I think we need to do this in a more systemic way and have this conversation first. Let's not get to the potential solutions. Let's make sure Americans understand how big the problem is. Then we can begin to talk about possible solutions and then work ourselves into those solutions that are doable.

Just received this breaking news alert from the Washington Post:

President Obama signed an order Thursday night requiring hospitals to allow gays and lesbians to have non-family visitors and to grant their partners medical power of attorney.

The president ordered the Department of Health and Human Services to prohibit discrimination in hospital visitation. The memo is scheduled to be made public Friday morning, according to an administration official and another source familiar with the White House decision.

An official said the new rule will affect any hospital that receives Medicare or Medicaid funding.

That’s a step in the right direction, but I can’t wait to hear the response from the Catholic hospitals. I’m sure that’s going to be very interesting.