Medicare Loses Out to the Wars and Tax Cuts for the Oligarchy

Author: Jeanette Borges

In a budget heaven sent for the oligarchy that Congress serves, the bold 2012 federal budget proposed by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) amongst other things will turn Medicare into a coupon program.

Under the Ryan-Rivlin plan, citizens who turn 65 in 2021 or later would not enroll in the current Medicare program but instead would receive a voucher to buy private health insurance. To put it another way, there will be no Medicare, as we know it for anyone who is under 54 now. Future Medicare recipients would get fixed payments to purchase private insurance.

To put it yet another way, anyone under 54 now, in 2021, will be given a coupon to help them purchase health insurance from the private market. Ryan would replace Medicare with premium subsidies (a coupon) that seniors would use to pay off private health insurance companies rather than doctors and hospitals. And if the subsidies fail to cover health-care inflation in the future?  Too bad.

The idea, we are told, is to inject competition into the system to lower costs so says the proponents of this plan. It will indeed save billions of dollars but it will end health insurance for retirees that mostly live on Social Security and even those that have some money put away.  

An insurance policy for a middle age adult now, costs anywhere from $300.00 to $450.00 a month depending on the benefits. Those prices are sky rocketing since Romneycare on steroids, called Obamacare, passed. It can cost up to $800.00 dollars if you are on COBRA.

Can you imagine what insurance companies are going to charge for policies for those 65 years or older? Can you imagine throwing seniors into the price gouging health insurance market? Can you imagine how many pre existing conditions an insurance company can claim you have? If you are a senior you are going to have a freaking life time of pre-existing conditions.

As the propaganda rages to convince the American people that the deficits and the debt are all due to entitlements, we all need to remember that Medicare and Social Security have existed for decades. It existed when Bush Jr. took office in 2000 and was handed a budget surplus by Bill Clinton.

We cannot let this propaganda brainwash us into forgetting that there was a surplus in 2000 and then the wars and Bush’s trillion dollar prescription drug gift horse to the drug companies, called Medicare Part D, turned that surplus into a deficit.

It was the wars that continued to raise our debt then and it the wars that continue to do raise our debt now.  

Neither Ryan’s budget, nor any budget presented by Obama and the Democrats will cut off funds for these wars and they will be paid on the backs of the American people, starting with Medicare.

While we are fighting these wars, Ryan’s budget will extend all the Bush-era tax rates. The oligarchy profits from the wars but they don’t want to pay for them. Why not? We can always pillage and rape the masses with a Congress so corrupt that their sole purpose is to take from us and give to them.

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