Will the Romney / Ryan Plan End Medicare (as we think they think we know it)?

The Republican plan to end Medicare: A Coupon and a Prayer.

Yes, the Romney / Ryan plan is to end Medicare. They will have a voucher program that is branded as Medicare, which is just like hiding rottens apple in Florida Orange wrapping paper.

The Republican plan for Medicare: It’s as if I own a good, reliable car – but they take away my car (I paid for that car) – and in its place give me a coupon for a $500 discount to buy a $5,000,000 private jet. A discount on the unattainable is worthless.

Turning Medicare into a voucher system is like saying:
“Here’s $100 dollar discount to buy a ticket on a Russian rocket to space.” … “Here’s a $20 coupon to buy a house on the beach in Malibu.” … “Here’s a $300 voucher to buy a $4500 health insurance policy.… if they approve you for the health coverage in the first place – because they don’t have to, and won’t if they don’t think they’ll profit off your policy.”

The Republican plan is to end Medicare, create a voucher system, which conveniently increases profits for health insurance companies – call it Medicare – and hope people don’t notice until it’s too late… the whole point (literally the meaning and purpose of conception) of Medicare, the guarantee, is destroyed.

It doesn’t matter what words you use to describe the Republican plan: end Medicare, kill Medicare, chop, slice and dice Medicare, destroy Medicare, voucher, coupon and privatize Medicare… the fact at the end of the road is: they take away Medicare, hand you a coupon and a prayer – and call Medicare. It’s worse than New Coke.

Currently, Medicare is a guarantee. It was created as a direct result of private health insurance companies refusing to cover seniors in America because of the costs that are related to, let’s face it, being old and needing a lot of health-related services. Yet that’s the exact system the Republicans are proposing: senior citizens relying on private health insurance companies. Romney, Ryan, and the Republicans want it to become a coupon circular that arrives in your mailbox once a year so you can get a discount (“premium assistance” ) when buying your own private (privatized) health insurance… IF you can get a private insurance company to give you coverage at all.

If you can’t get insured by a private insurance company because of a pre-existing condition or because you are “older” and therefore need a lot of health care, then having a coupon doesn’t do you any good – it’s totally worthless piece of paper… You are literally left holding a coupon and have no health insurance coverage.

What Romney and the rest of the Republicans keep trying to focus on is the short term only. They have been given the talking point “changes in Medicare will not have an impact on current seniors.” Over and over and over they say it. In the first presidential debate, Obama’s response was overlooked due to all the post-debate spinning, “Well, so then if you’re 54 or under, you better listen up…”

No kidding!

(And don’t forget about the instant increase in medication expenses for those people who ARE currently seniors.)

It’s also important to note that the other side of the isle doesn’t argue that point. The Republican party is counting on the old, white vote to win the election. That’s why they keep saying over and over and over again, “Medicare changes will no have an impact on current seniors.” They are hoping beyond all hope that will be enough for all the “current seniors” to say, “well OK, then” and cast their vote for the Republican ticket…

But what about all the rest of us? Are senior citizens as selfish as the Republican Party hopes they are? I don’t think so. My parents and grandparents always seemed to care what happened to me on any given day. I don’t think seniors in this country are as selfish as the cynical Republican election strategy assumes.

Of greater disbelief in this stupid debate is that the whole point of Medicare; why it was created in the first place has been lost: when people get old and can no longer work, their health care costs go up while their income goes down, so without a guarantee (which is what Medicare provides) they do not get health insurance.

Again, overlooked is what Obama said and I’ve been ranting about from the beginning: Private insurance companies MUST MAKE A PROFIT, and as such they are always more expensive and do not insure people who will incur high pay outs for them… that’s seniors! Medicare was created BECAUSE THE PRIVATE INSURANCE INDUSTRY WAS NOT ACCEPTING SENIORS! How soon we forget.

What about all those people (including me) who are under 54 years old? Do people under 54 still get Medicare? … No.

Under the Romney / Ryan plan absolutely not. They get a coupon to “help pay” for private insurance… IF they can get private insurance to cover them at all. The guarantee, which is what Medicare currently is, is totally eliminated and replaced with a coupon and a prayer.

Does the Romney / Ryan plan kill Medicare?: yes it does. It’s a voucher program, a “premium assistance” program which is nothing more than a coupon that people use to help them pay… FOR PRIVATE INSURANCE… so private insurance companies make a ton more money, health care costs stay high, and the coverage for all Americans who are currently not seniors – but will be – will no longer be guaranteed coverage… just like it was before Medicare was created… when health care for seniors was terrible… which caused us to create Medicare in the first place.

Follow the money, follow the logic, and accept that other countries have dealt with this problem as well and have found a solution and IT’S NOT privatizing health care, it’s the exact opposite…

HEALTH should never be contingent on PROFIT.

It’s perfectly fine for Mitt Romney to say (and he did in the first debate) that he wants to be able to fire one health insurance provider and hire another one if he doesn’t like the services… well yeah, Mitt… that’s fine if you have a hundred million dollars in your IRA! What about the rest of the country? What about all the people who do not have the money to pay for the very, very high insurance costs for senior citizens? Health insurance costs for seniors are prohibitively high, even for people who had good jobs and saved all their lives. Again: they are totally ignoring why Medicare was created in the first place. What we need to do is reduce costs, not simply “create a competitive market” for health insurance providers. The whole reason we are even having this debate is because PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE DOES NOT WORK because it’s too expensive.

For Mitt and the Republicans profit for the health industry is more important than health of the population . They will turn the Medicare guarantee into a clipped coupon and say “good luck finding coverage that will accept you with this little discount card.” The Romney / Ryan plan is immoral and absurd. They’re counting on short-sighted manipulation of seniors to win their votes “because it doesn’t have an impact on current seniors” while it will totally screw all the rest of us. How about this, Mitt and Paul: let’s not screw over anyone… not merely the people you need to win the white house.