Saturday, August 11, 2012

So Now It's "Vulture" + "Voucher"

Was it what we used to call a Freudian slip when Mitt Romney this morning introduced Paul Ryan to the nation as "the next president of the United States"?

It's funny because it's true? Ryan so clearly outshines Mittens, has values he won't compromise on, knows what he thinks, stands firm for his beliefs, and will be the real Director General of the Romney/Ryan administration?

Shades of Dick Cheney and his vice-president George W.

Ryan is young, attractive, articulate, and, according to the famous "Ryan budget," dedicated to the proposition that the rich need to be richer and the poor can learn to eat wallpaper and like it.

The choice of Paul Ryan as Willard's running mate will be extremely popular with Romney's right wing, the Tea Party, but the necessity of bucking up his base here 90 days from the election also serves to highlight just how weak Romney is. He might have broadened his base instead, reaching out to the moderate middle via Tim Pawlenty or to the growing Hispanic population via Marco Rubio.

Ryan accentuates Mittens' weakness.

Let the dissection of the "Ryan Budget" commence!

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Under Ryan's budget Elderly people get a voucher instead of Medicare, healthcare. The voucher can be used to purchase private insurance; how's that going to work out especially since Ryan and Romney will repeal the affordable care act and its provisions like preexisting conditions so the elderly will be at the mercy of Insurance companies that have no rules stopping them from denying service, selectively choosing what they will pay for and of course as history is our guide, increasing premiums annually.

Meanwhile, Medicare continues to be the best bang for the medical buck around, beating all comers in cost of administration and outcomes.

Under Ryan, Medicaid goes away; going to be very long lines at the emergency room and at the undertakers.
No food stamps, either.
And of course a new plan to invest Social Security in the stock market; and we all know how safe the market was in 2007-8, millions lost all they had in their 401k retirement plans, but they did not lose their life-long investment in Social Security.

Ryan said this morning that the U.S. is a nation of nature and God's law; scary statement; well sorry to disagree Ryan, the U.S is a nation of laws governed by a constitution

His plan does pay down the deficit for more than 28 years and hardly then, where is his fiscal responsibility?
He lowers taxes for the rich and raises them on the working class and poor while simultaneously, cutting services common Americans depend upon every day.

Go Rich team,Romney/Ryan, and congrats teabaggers, your savior has appeared.

Anonymous said...

Jerry Wayne- I have looked at your latest posts and only one comment that I can see. It must be that you are not getting much attention these days up there in the mountains. It must be that the folks are getting bored with your drivel. I hope you and Pamela are having a good day.

Anonymous said...

Don't think I could have laid it out better than Anon 2:33. The Ryan VP pick makes the choice for voters this fall very stark: do we want to make major cuts in social services in order to finance tax cuts for the wealthy, or do we want to try to preserve education and medical care for everyone, and ask the richest Americans to pay a fair share of taxes?

Anon 10:43, was that snarky personal attack on JW really necessary? I look at this blog regularly but rarely post replies. I have a feeling that there are plenty of others like me.

Anonymous said...

And mostly we don't post because of snarky responses in place of thoughtful dialogue.

Anon 2:33 - my fave is the idea of vouchers for the elderly to find their own insurance. That's going to be so easy for my nearly blind 92-year-old mother, especially given her memory issues.

Anonymous said...

Anon:259, from your statement, are we to infer the government has to help your grandmother because you are to lazy to get off your butt and help her with her voucher?

Not Really said...

Anon 9:21 said:

"Anon:259, from your statement, are we to infer the government has to help your grandmother because you are to lazy to get off your butt and help her with her voucher?"

No. What a reasonable person might take from this statement is one example of why a complicated insurance voucher system would not be ideal for our senior citizens. I used to live next to a woman in her late 70s whose children lived far away. She sometimes sought my help in reading and interpreting things that came in the mail, and frequently was taken in by deceptive advertising in both mail and over the phone. It was an issue both of poor eyesight and perhaps of mild dementia; I don't know. But I do know that having to navigate a voucher program and having to deal with insurance companies who are out to make a profit above all else would not have been good for her. Or for many other older Americans.

If you'd like to get the pulse of the nation on this topic, I'd suggest looking at these reports from the Kaiser Family Foundation, a non-partisan groups that studies health care:

http://www.kff.org/kaiserpolls/8281.cfm

If you click on "findings" you'll see 70% of Americans support keeping Medicare as it is rather than switching to a private insurance system. And for people over 65, support for keeping Medicare as it is now jumps to 76%.

Anon 2:59 said...

How about....finding insurance that will cover her is impossible. Insuring the health of a woman of her age doesn't fit a smart business model - and will not happen. I don't care how much time I put into it.

And yes, I travel frequently to take care of Mom's business, putting my family and my life and my job on hold to do so - I'm damn lucky I'm able to do it. Not all 92-year-olds have someone who could, and they will get cheated and ignored and die.

Thanks for the "lazy" comment - I took 15 minutes for lunch, and it reminds me to forget the rest of my cup of coffee and get on to my next job.

Anonymous said...

It is not my responsibility to take care of YOUR mother. I certainly took care of mine.

The voucher is more than enough.

It is good to know that 70% of Americans oppose Obama's robbing Medicare and Medicade.

Henery said...

Hey, Bubba (a.k.a., Annonymous 2:21), do you not know (in your obvious all-knowingness) that the Ryan-Romney budget ALSO cuts $700 billion from Medicare PLUS even more? It IS dangerous to be so uninformed.

Anonymous said...

Anon 2:21....willful ignorance and intolerance. Willful, willful, willful.

Anonymous said...

Henery, you need reading comprehension classes. I said nothing abut the Ryan plan. I only mentioned Obama did it too and that I took care of my own.

Not being able to understand what you read is very dangerous, indeed. Talking about your erroneous opinion is worse.

Not Really said...

Since Anon 2:21 can't seem to be bothered with actually reading the findings, let me clarify this: the poll asked people if they wanted to maintain Medicare as is OR if they wanted to go to a system of insurance vouchers like what Ryan is proposing. This has nothing to do with anything Obama has proposed. This is a poll presenting a simple choice between Medicare as it is today and the semi-privatized Medicare that Romney/Ryan envision.

Here are the first paragraphs from the study for Anon 2:21 and any others who might find themselves so sadly mistaken in their assumptions:

"In the midst of a debate on the future of the Medicare program, most Americans, including seniors, are currently taking the side of
the status quo, though budgetary arguments about the program’s future solvency, as well as arguments about the effects of any
change on seniors, have the potential to sway opinion. At the center of the current debate are proposals put forward by both
Republican presidential candidate Gov. Mitt Romney and the House‐Senate team of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan
(R‐WI) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D‐OR). Though the plans are not identical, the core of each is a major shift in the Medicare program, from having the federal government guarantee to pay for a certain portion of a defined set of benefits to a system in which the government guarantees each person on Medicare a fixed payment that would be used to buy health insurance. Both plans, which
some term “premium support” and others call “voucher,” differ from a high‐profile proposal introduced last year by Rep. Ryan in that they would permit seniors to apply their fixed amount toward the cost of coverage under either a private plan or traditional Medicare.

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.

And honestly, Anon 2:21, do you really believe that seniors should be dependent on the presence and good will of their grown children for their well-being? What about the older Americans whose children passed before they did, or who had no children? This whole "You take care of YOUR mother; I took care of MINE" stuff you're spouting sounds like a grade school recess taunt. There's no easy answer for reining in the costs of Medicare but I don't think the right answer is to push seniors into a complicated set of decisions that threatens to disrupt their care. And it seems a majority of Americans agrees.

Anonymous said...

I beleive that you take care of yourself and your own along with others you feel need help personally. Churches and other organizations also do their part.

The nanny state is only a political entity. If it was not stealing money from you, you could afford to be much more charitable personally.

Anonymous said...

Damn people, look at your paycheck, money is withheld for HEALTHCARE and Social Security. It's is not a nanny state, it's realizing individual's lifelong investments.
And if the rich will belly-up to the table and pay their fair share, everything would be OK.
Pancake breakfasts can't raise enough money to cover expensive care, but collectively, we have the wealth to provide healthcare, education, even higher education and lots more, it's a matter of political will.
Bottom line,
The rich don't want to pay and the Republican party supports the rich.
The rich don't want to pay.

Anonymous said...

The rich don't want to pay and the Republican party supports the rich.
The rich don't want to pay.

The rich pay from 70 to 90 percent of all taxes depending on your definition of rich. Forty percent of the population pay no taxes at all, but these are mostly entitlement recipients, not the rich.

amused said...

Anon 5:09, the money taken out of your paycheck was never meant to benefit you. You got robbed by a Ponsi scheme.

Anonymous said...

1013 Rush's bullshit numbers. I have a bridge in London to sell people like you.
Republicans, the party of the rich and they don't want to support schools, the community, the state or the U.S. government.
The rich don't want to pay taxes, that's the bottom line and Republicans can not lie their way out of this simple truth.

Anonymous said...

The numbers did not come from Rush. Even if they did, you haven't shown them to be wrong.

Google the issue and see the various theories.