Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
And they can take the default zero cost plan and get exactly the same thing they're getting now.
Only if Medicare is the second-least expensive option.
Um... By "exactly the same thing they're getting now" I mean that they'll get a set of health benefits provided without cost to them. You get that medicare benefits change over time anyway, right? Do you think that medicare in 2030something will be exactly identical to medicare today? Actually, there wont be a medicare system in 2030something if we don't adopt something like the Ryan plan. So let's stop quibbling over silly semantics.
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So you get to keep your traditional Medicare if it's the second-cheapest and it will almost certainly NOT be the second-cheapest due to the results of Ryan's plan.
So Medicare is overpriced, right? You get that these are
bids for insurance coverage. All of them will presumably be required to meet some minimum coverage requirements equivalent to what Medicare provides today (otherwise I could bid a price of $50 and provide coverage for one bottle of Tylenol and have that count as the low bid, which is ridiculous and you know it). Your argument is like saying that we should just continue to give the same contract to the company we've been using because if we opened it up to bids it probably wont be the lowest bid (or even the second lowest!).
Do you know what happens every single time when you open stuff like this up to bidding? You discover that the guy you've been paying all along has been massively overcharging you.
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It's an obvious ploy to dismantle and privatize "Medicare" over time, not "Save" it as Ryan-Romney protest.
Let's not get caught up on labels Joph. The objective here is to ensure that people who've been paying payroll taxes their entire lives under the promise that they'll receive health care coverage when they retire in return will actually have health care coverage when they retire. You can play games with what is "Medicare" and what is privatizing and what is saving, but at the end of the day what matters is that people actually get back what they were promised when they paid that money.
Right now, Obamacare directly steals from those people and gives that money to those who haven't (yet) paid. Isn't that a violation of that promise? Hasn't he already "changed medicare as we know it"? He has violated that trust. He has taken away from those seniors the money they paid into in order to buy votes for his party among a large and younger crowd. You don't think seniors are aware of this? Ryan's plan, while I'm sure not perfect, is at least an honest attempt to undo that damage and restore the promise of health care to those people.
So all those false cries from the left really do seem hypocritical. Where were you championing the defense of medicare funding when Obamacare was being passed? I know you were aware of this. We discussed it on this board. So forgive me if I don't believe you really care about medicare recipients and whether they're getting a fair deal. You care about supporting a liberal agenda. You honestly don't even seem to care what that agenda is. If the person saying something has a (D) after their name, you defend it. There's just no other explanation for how you can support such a strange array of positions with seemingly incompatible rationales behind them.
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Of course, this was Ryan's second plan after his real dream -- directly dismantling Medicare and turning it into a voucher program -- was crushed under public outcry. Going around the back door will have to do for second place, I guess.
Ah. But directly stealing funds from medicare by distracting people into supporting Obamacare and ignoring the costs (how often does that happen on the left?) is ok, right? At least Ryan has the honesty to say exactly what he's doing and why and argue for that. Your guys have to conceal what they're doing behind something else. Oh no! Don't look at the money we're taking away from Medicare! Focus on the fact that we need to provide health care for folks in their 20s. That's all that matters. Don't look behind the curtain. Don't ask the price. Don't think for yourself. Just be a good liberal and do what we tell you.
Wow. I mean, for the left to say that Ryan is hurting Medicare? That's rich. I guess if you're going to lie, lie big. But... Wow.
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This isn't even mentioning the fact that it requires an annual review of the insurance language to ensure you're getting the plan you want and the coverage you need at the "zero cost" price versus knowing you'll be covered via Medicare -- the exact thing I just said they wanted to avoid.
Yeah. Because you speak for all seniors, right? You're so compassionate that you know they don't want to be bothered with making choices. Hell. They probably can't even understand them anyway. So you should just make them for those people. You're really doing them a favor. Of course, it's not you making the choices for them, and it's not even a member of their family. Because those people can't be trusted. Nope. The government will make those choices for them. It'll decide what's best for them and just tell them what they must accept.
Cause the Left is all about freedom and individuality, right? It's just funny how every once in awhile you guys can't help but reveal just how much your ideology isn't about freedom at all, but about thinking you know better than everyone else what's best for them, and then forcing them to accept your solutions. And you wonder why us conservatives want small government. Just look at what you think we should do with big government. It would be laughable if it wasn't for the fact that it's really not very funny at all. You guys really do want an authoritarian government to run your lives. And it's not the punchline to a joke.