I kind of get the idea behind floating Paul Ryan’s budget plan. It shifts the conversation to the right, and all that. But it still seems like a reckless political move. After all, we already can see Paul Begala, who ran Bill Clinton’s successful 1996 Mediscare campaign, calling Ryan the “Dr. Kervokian of Medicare.” People are not happy about the idea of messing with Medicare and Ryan isn’t just touching around the edges. He’s proposing that we kill Medicare completely and throw uninsurable elderly people on the mercy of the insurance corporations. It just seems stupid. I understand it as a negotiating tool, but I am still amazed the Republicans signed off on this plan.
What we be interesting is to see what Obama proposes to do about Medicare. He has a very wide opening now. Obviously, he can fall into the same trap if he proposes doing something unpopular and then can’t even follow through with a bill that cuts into the long-term deficit. It goes without saying that almost any proposal to cut Medicare will get criticized from the left. But he can dampen the criticism in a variety of ways. He’s definitely going to ask for cuts in defense spending and he’s already signaled that he’ll try to repeal Bush’s tax cuts again. I don’t see the Republicans going along with either proposal, although he will have at least some support from the right on defense spending.
No matter how I parse it out, I don’t see this Congress agreeing on a plan to rein in our long-term deficit. I also don’t see them passing a budget. I don’t see them enacting an alternative energy bill. I don’t really see them doing anything.
Whatever Obama does he can count on two things. First, the nutty republicans will oppose it. Second, the nutty progressives will oppose it.
This Congress will not do anything, as you say. Obama’s speech on Wednesday will be aimed at the Presidential election not on actually doing anything.
Second, the nutty progressives will oppose it.
And who would those “nutty progressives” be? Or do you like flinging poo like a zoo animal?
It seems pretty obvious Obama’s going to propose cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Instead of picking a popular issue to fight on in 2012, he’ll capitulate and compromise with the Republicans. Following that, no doubt, you’ll chastise liberals for not supporting him.
Yes, he does have a wide-opening, and guess what: he can take it from his own deficit commission. They recommended a public option and/or an “all-payer”.
That’s the choice we have. Either cutting Medicare and putting more debt onto seniors, or expanding it to address the actual issue: costs. One works to fix it, the other just kicks the problem to private citizens.
Indeed, he has a wide-opening. Now will he take it? I’m not confident.
Decided anything the deficit commission proposed was DOA before they even saw the final product. If only the blogosphere embraced the good recommendations and rejected the bad ones instead of derisively and too cute by half calling it the catfood commission from almost the day it was announced. Huge opportunity lost there.
And that’s exactly what the Ryan proposal is and why it’s out there – it’s a trap.
The Republicans have figured out Obama’s psychology. Obama wants to be the guy who fixes things. The guy who brings the two fighting parties to the table where they sit around, have a few beers, and work out their differences. The guy who takes on the serious issues the country is facing and comes up with a solution for them.
The way to destroy a guy like that is to put him into situations where “fixing” things involves staking out an unpopular stance. If you can play into that psychology, you can get him to make all sorts of unforced errors.
That’s what the Ryan plan is. It is not a serious plan, but it’s enough to force Obama to respond to it. And he’s going to respond to it as if it is a serious plan and come out talking about cutting benefits and whatnot.
And at that point the Republicans chortle with glee. Because Obama would have grasped the third rail with both hands and they wouldn’t even have had to sacrifice a pawn (Ryan) to get him to do it.
I swear if he comes out with anything – anything – that says that benefits need to be cut he’s toast. The 2012 election will be run on the fact that Obama wants to destroy Medicare slightly less than the Republicans want to destroy Medicare. That’s not where any Democrat running for President should want to be, but that’s where he’ll be if he takes this thing “seriously”.
Ryan is not a pawn, he is at least a knight, possibly a rook. Bachmann is a pawn.
If you think that any of the yahoos they have in suits in the House of Representatives rise to a level above pawn, then they’ve done their job quite well. If Ryan didn’t exist they’d just find another one to go out, spout ridiculous nonsense and try to lead people
There might be a few knights and bishops in the Senate, maybe, but that’s about it. Every other piece on the board is way too expendable to be from the back rank as far as the movement conservative leadership is concerned.
I think Matt Taibbi’s take on Ryan is pretty much accurate:
He’s a tool – a pawn. He’s just the latest iteration of this game that the conservative leadership plays to push the discourse to the right.
how can you expect Obama to defend medicare when he won’t even defend his signature issue:
It would be to laugh if it wasn’t so sad. Pathetic weakling.
The Republican goal is to get rid of ACA.
Also Finreg.
Apparently Tyler Cowen has criticized the Ryan plan for cutting Medicaid as well.
Tell them to run a serious candidate NOW against Ryan. Ryan is in WI-1, a semi-rural district in the south-east corner of WI, which includes Racine and Kenosha. This is probably R+3 or so. A serious candidate who raised STRONG OBJECTIONS to this fool and his attempts to kill seniors might do well. They need to start now and tell it as plain as day – Ryan’s got YOU in his gunsight if you are over 50.
In the state-supreme court race, we won it 60-40. Rock County:
Wisconsin County Votes
That is real interesting. Ryan is NOT a lock in this district. I have seen newspaper stories which have quotes like “I’ve always backed Ryan, but I see no reason to make seniors the losers in the Medicare discussion.” But we need the COURAGE to take it STRAIGHT AT HIM, and call a spade a spade.
Medicare operates like an insurance program and pays on presentation of provider claims. There are three places to cut: the benefits to the elderly, the amount paid to providers, and the operating costs of processing claims.
There has been a law on the books for years cutting the amount paid to providers, but the power of providers (especially specialists) is so great that that has been kicked down the road every time with a so-called “doc fix”. Would Republicans support not having a “doc fix”?
A great part of the claims processing expense has to do with the fact that the Reagan administration’s system for cost controls involved a system of micro-managed fee for service. The information processing load for this claims process is immense. The transactions in a typical end-of-life hospital stay can easily result in a 200-page statement being sent to the family of the deceased. Because of co-payments, depending on other coverage there might be significant out-of-pocket costs passed on to the family. All of which has to be settled in order to settle any estate. The companies that have the contracts for this IT processing are generally the same ones who were opposing cost-containment provisions of the affordable care act. In other words, Republican constituency.
Who is left is the elderly, currently with deductibles and co-payments and relatively expensive pharmaceutical coverage. What happens to changes in deductibles and copayments will be making even Medicare out of reach for use by elderly whose sole income is Social Security.
Any change in Medicare that affects benefits to the elderly (as opposed to cost controls on the Tom Coburns, Paul Brouns, and Sam Brownbacks of the world) should be a non-starter with the President and a bright line in the sand beyond which he absolutely positively will not cross. The fear is that is not the case.
The debt ceiling bill must be enacted or you see a major financial catastrophe. As the date inches forward, you might even see creditors start to put the screws on. Who is going to blink on this item?
And if the debt ceiling gets passed, in October there will need to be a continuing resolution.
Just how far can they kick the can on this?