Repubs offfering a new swindle/fraud yet still calling it Medicare

[merrill]

Let’s say you have a Ford and decide to replace everything under the hood with Hyundai parts, including the engine and transmission. Could you still honestly market your car as a Ford?

That question gets at the heart of the controversy over who is being more forthright about GOP Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan to “save” Medicare, Republicans or Democrats.

If you overhaul the Medicare system like you did your Ford and tell the public it’s still Medicare, are you doing so honestly?

As I noted last week, PolitiFact, the St. Petersburg Time’s fact checker, decided that the Democrats’ claim that Ryan’s plan would mean the end of Medicare was so blatantly untrue it merited designation as the 2011 “Lie of the Year.” Republicans, whose erroneous claims about health care reform garnered “Lie of the Year” prizes in 2009 and 2010, cheered. Democrats, as you might imagine, jeered — as did some journalists and pundits.

PolitiFact’s Washington-based editor defended the choice by contending that Ryan’s proposal to restructure Medicare by providing beneficiaries subsidies to buy private insurance would not “end” the program. It would still be Medicare, he reasoned.

What he’s missing is that Ryan’s proposal would change the program so fundamentally as to represent the equivalent of replacing the engine and transmission.

Ryan’s plan would be a continuation of what Yale professor Jacob Hacker wrote about in his 2006 book, The Great Risk Shift. As Hacker pointed out, big corporations, aided and abetted by their political allies, have been methodically shifting more and more of the risk of providing benefits from them to us.

Ryan’s plan would accelerate the trend and take it a major step further by gradually shifting much of the financial obligation of paying for benefits from the government to Medicare beneficiaries. Under Ryan’s blueprint, the government would be doing just what big corporations have been doing for several years now: off-loading risk.

The corporate world started doing this when big banks and multi-line insurance companies with financial services divisions persuaded them to phase out their pension plans and replace them with 401(k)s, so-called because of the section of the federal law that authorized their creation.

In the early part of my father’s career, 401(k)s had not yet been invented. Soon after he was hired as a shift worker at a Tennessee glass factory, he was enrolled in his employer’s pension plan. When he retired more than 25 years later, he began receiving a predetermined pension benefit every month until he died last December. The payments weren’t nearly as big as the paycheck he received while on the job, but it was an enormous help financially.

By contrast, when I went to work for CIGNA in 1993, pensions were an endangered species. CIGNA still offered one, but

con't
Healthcare-NOW! - When Medicare Isn’t Medicare

 

[merrill]

Turning over more and more of our tax dollars to fraudulent corp america is stupid to say the least.

 

[HUGGY]

Let’s say you have a Ford and decide to replace everything under the hood with Hyundai parts, including the engine and transmission. Could you still honestly market your car as a Ford?

That question gets at the heart of the controversy over who is being more forthright about GOP Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan to “save” Medicare, Republicans or Democrats.

If you overhaul the Medicare system like you did your Ford and tell the public it’s still Medicare, are you doing so honestly?

As I noted last week, PolitiFact, the St. Petersburg Time’s fact checker, decided that the Democrats’ claim that Ryan’s plan would mean the end of Medicare was so blatantly untrue it merited designation as the 2011 “Lie of the Year.” Republicans, whose erroneous claims about health care reform garnered “Lie of the Year” prizes in 2009 and 2010, cheered. Democrats, as you might imagine, jeered — as did some journalists and pundits.

PolitiFact’s Washington-based editor defended the choice by contending that Ryan’s proposal to restructure Medicare by providing beneficiaries subsidies to buy private insurance would not “end” the program. It would still be Medicare, he reasoned.

What he’s missing is that Ryan’s proposal would change the program so fundamentally as to represent the equivalent of replacing the engine and transmission.

Ryan’s plan would be a continuation of what Yale professor Jacob Hacker wrote about in his 2006 book, The Great Risk Shift. As Hacker pointed out, big corporations, aided and abetted by their political allies, have been methodically shifting more and more of the risk of providing benefits from them to us.

Ryan’s plan would accelerate the trend and take it a major step further by gradually shifting much of the financial obligation of paying for benefits from the government to Medicare beneficiaries. Under Ryan’s blueprint, the government would be doing just what big corporations have been doing for several years now: off-loading risk.

The corporate world started doing this when big banks and multi-line insurance companies with financial services divisions persuaded them to phase out their pension plans and replace them with 401(k)s, so-called because of the section of the federal law that authorized their creation.

In the early part of my father’s career, 401(k)s had not yet been invented. Soon after he was hired as a shift worker at a Tennessee glass factory, he was enrolled in his employer’s pension plan. When he retired more than 25 years later, he began receiving a predetermined pension benefit every month until he died last December. The payments weren’t nearly as big as the paycheck he received while on the job, but it was an enormous help financially.

By contrast, when I went to work for CIGNA in 1993, pensions were an endangered species. CIGNA still offered one, but

con't
Healthcare-NOW! - When Medicare Isn’t Medicare

Wouldn't ya just love to see the notes of the Jews from those cattle cars?

Abraham :

"Note to self"

"Perhaps we shouldn't trust these NAZIS"

 

[merrill]

Any new insurance for America should be presented in this manner:

Improved Medicare Single Payer Insurance for All is one substantial part of the solution.

- Easy to Implement: Medicare has been in existence since 1966, it provides
healthcare to those 65 and older, and satisfaction levels are high. The
structure is already in place and can be easily expanded to cover everyone.

- Simple: One entity – established by the government – would handle billing
and payment at a cost significantly lower than private insurance companies.
Private insurance companies spend about 31% of every healthcare dollar on
administration. Medicare now spends about 3%.

- Real Choice: An expanded and improved Medicare for All would provide
personal choice of doctors and other healthcare providers. While financing
would be public, providers would remain private. As with Medicare, you choose
your doctor, your hospital, and other healthcare providers.

- State and Local Tax Relief: Medicare for All would assume the costs of
healthcare delivery, thus relieving the states and local governments of the
cost of healthcare, including Medicaid, and as a result reduce State and
local tax burdens.

- Expanded coverage: Would cover all medically necessary healthcare
services – no more rationing by private insurance companies. There would be
no limits on coverage, no co-pays or deductibles, and services would include
not only primary and specialized care but also prescription drugs, dental,
vision, mental health services, and long-term care.

- Everyone In, Nobody Out: Everyone would be eligible and covered. No
longer would doctors ask what insurance you have before they treat you.

- No More Overpriced Private Health Insurance: Medicare for All would
eliminate the need for private health insurance companies who put profit
before healthcare, unfairly limit choice, restrict who gets coverage, and
force people into bankruptcy.

- Lower Costs: Most people will pay significantly less for healthcare.
Savings will be achieved in reduced administrative costs and in negotiated
prices for prescription drugs.

Healthcare-NOW! - Organizing for a national, single-payer healthcare system.

 

[merrill]

A detailed description:

Medical insurance cannot get any better than this:

A family of four making the median income of $56,200 would pay approximately $2,700 a year for all health care costs.

IMPROVED Medicare Single Payer Insurance for ALL would cover every person for all necessary medical care 24/7 to include:

* Wellness
* prescription drugs
* hospital
* surgical
* outpatient services
* primary and preventive care
* emergency services
* dental
* mental health
* home health
* physical therapy
* rehabilitation (including for substance abuse)
* vision care
* hearing services including hearing aids
* chiropractic
* durable
* medical equipment
* palliative care
* long term care

No deductibles No Co-pays

A family of four making the median income of $56,200 would pay approximately $2,700 a year for all health care costs.

Allow IMPROVED Medicare Single Payer Insurance for ALL to be available now to all taxpaying consumers and let them make the choice. The mechanism is in place as we speak.

 

[occupied]

A voucher that is tied to the core rate of inflation would quickly be outstripped by costs, they knew it when they proposed it and did it anyway. Entitlement reform is easy when you don't care about the people.