Couple great video’s out about the Ryan pick and Romney/Ryan team:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3y6hYhL8yAs[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Add2VY0FM7U[/youtube]
Meanwhile the Obama camp tells outright lies, as usual:
“[Ryan’s] plan also would end Medicare as we know it by turning it into a voucher system, shifting thousands of dollars in health care costs to seniors,”
The latest version of the Ryan Medicare reform plan allows future retirees use a premium support payment to buy private insurance or buy into traditional Medicare–a proposal endorsed by Democratic senator Ron Wyden of Oregon. Medicare will end “as we know it” under Obama’s plan of rationing and/or bankruptcy. But the most dishonest part of Messina’s statement is that it leaves the impression that the Ryan plan would affect current seniors. That is not true. Ryan’s Medicare reform doesn’t affect current seniors or those 10 years away from retirement.
Ryan justifies the delayed implementation of the plan because retirees or those near retirement have planned their lives around Medicare in its current form, and those under 55 will have more time to plan for some modest changes necessary to avert a fiscal crisis. Delayed implementation is also what makes Ryan’s plan politically viable. Voters 55 and over won’t be affected at all, so they really shouldn’t have anything to worry about. And the vast majority of voters under the age of 55 don’t believe big entitlement programs will even be around to pay them a benefit when they retire, as this Gallup poll on Social Security revealed.
While 69% of Americans age 55 and older think they will receive Social Security benefits, a mere 22% of 18- to 34-year-olds and 32% of 35- to 54-year-olds think the program will even be around when they retire. Changes to Medicare–even the modest changes Ryan and Romney favor–might spook current beneficiaries or those close to retirement, but it’s hard to imagine why younger voters would vote against a candidate for altering a program from which they don’t expect to benefit. If anything, Ryan’s plan offers the under-55 crowd the best hope that these programs will still be functioning when they reach retirement.
John McCormack then asks why are journalists not reporting on these lies?
the job of journalists is to provide context that politicians leave out. And when it comes to Medicare reform, the press does a pretty shoddy job of providing essential context that would allow an adult conversation about how the country can avert a fiscal crisis. See, for example, the New York Times report on Romney’s vice presidential announcement. Reporters Jim Rutenberg and Jeff Zeleny describe Ryan as “an advocate of reshaping the Medicare program of health insurance for retirees.”
No, Ryan is not in favor of reshaping Medicare “for retirees”–he wants to reshape it for Americans who are 55 years old and younger. It shouldn’t be too difficult to mention the very basic fact about which Americans would actually be affected by the Romney Ryan plan. But the word “Medicare” appears five times in the New York Times report, and not once does the report explain that Ryan’s reform takes effect for new retirees starting in 2023.
It shouldn’t be too difficult, but they won’t. They weakly called out Obama on his ‘Romney murdered my wife’ baloney…and it remains to be seen if they will even attempt to call them out on this latest lie.
I’m not holding my breath and neither should the Romney/Ryan campaign. They need to fight it themselves and they have the very best person for the job to do just that. Paul Ryan.
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@retire05:
If anyone is trolling, it is you with your name calling.
@Ivan:
Waaaaahhhhh…………………………..
Try being honest and backing up your own opinion if you want respect. Hell, I don’t agree with any liberal, but if they are willing to explain their position, I am willing to debate it. You, you just want people to substantiate a point you don’t make.
Oregon’s age of consent is 15, and was put into place back in 1983 with the advocacy of the Oregon Developmental Disabilities Advocacy Center. That statute actually prohibits any sterilization for children under 15 – even *with* parental or guardian consent.
CNS tried to reconcile the two agencies – i.e. as to whether the more vague description of the female’s coming of age, defined by menses (which can happen as young as 12) altered Oregon’s current law INRE sterilization. The OHA could only state that which is Oregon’s law. The HHS said no one was available to answer the question INRE 12-14 years of age in Oregon.
The HHS regulatory power does not have the ability to usurp Oregon’s law in particular. Federal preemption has been ruled upon many times in the SCOTUS and federal courts. If the text of the regulation or federal statute is susceptible of more than one plausible reading (i.e. age not specifically defined in the HHS regulation), then federal preemption is disfavored.
Then you can add Clinton’s 1999 EO 13132, , which would also make it difficult for a vague, non-age specific definition to usurp Oregon’s law.
Lastly, I would bet that a 13 year old, seeking sterilization, would never find a medical practitioner in Oregon who would perform that sterilization because of the Oregon laws. This is not a “do it first, and sort it out later” type procedure.
@Ivan:
You claim Ryan’s plan is “unworkable” (your word).
What, precisely, is “unworkable” about the Ryan plan?
Here’s the link to Ryan’s March 2012 Path to Prosperity proposal. You know, the one that Greg says doesn’t exist? That’s just in case anyone involved in the love fest … er, mud slinging… wants to elevate their “debate” to something more than kindergarten barbs.
I believe the consensus was that this was more austere than Erskin-Bowles, Obama’s own assembled group of experts (whose findings he promptly ignored), and far superior than Obama’s proposal. While none balanced the budget in what is likely to be my lifetime, this one was the earliest projection for that goal.
Course it doesn’t matter much since Romney is busy distancing himself from it daily…. Today’s rendition of Romney backpedaling from Ryan’s budget proposals are brought to you by Robert Shrum at the Daily Beast.
Needless to say, the Dems are happy to point out that Romney picks Ryan, then takes plenty of opportunities to disassociate himself from Ryan’s hallmark proposals.
I sure hope Ryan knows what he’s doing, accepting the #2 slot. If Romney has plans for neutering a man who is currently a powerful influence in our Congress by making him a highly placed consultant that he intends to ignore – whether stated plainly as such to Ryan, or misrepresented – I’m going to be one PO’ed puppy.
Ryan’s plan is (fill in the blank with your choice from the list below) for the reasons stated in post #1.
unworkable
illogical
infeasible
unrealizable
impracticable
bogus
silly
ridiculous
a fraud
a travesty
a mockery
a sham
a travesty of a mockery of a sham
etc.
Greg, you know what they say about opinions… being as common as a particular human orifice?
I never said that Ryan hasn’t proposed a solution. What I said was that he has proposed no viable solution. His Medicare and Social Security schemes were Dead On Arrival, owing to the logical flaws mentioned in post #1.
If someone can explain how it is that they’re not fatal flaws, I’ll be only too happy to listen. The way I see it, they bring Ryan’s entire plan down.
Please refer to my comment above. I’d say this round robin of discussion has concluded, yes?
Is this an admittance that Social Security is operated like a Ponzi Scheme, just as Medicare is? That would be progress.
It would be my suggestion that all the funds that were robbed by Congress via their accounting egg shell game over the decades, turned into T-notes and spent on anything but SS, are redeemed if there is a shortage. That was how they were supposed to do it… invest the excess funds from years into T-notes, and redeem them if there was a shortage in the Trust Fund.
Problem is they’ve spent so much on whatever program suits their whims, and expanding the costs of operating a federal behemoth government, that any cashing in is likely to be a loss, and require more borrowing in the short term. The point is, as a Ponzi Scheme foundation, it is unsustainable long term. It will always be painful to reverse it, but reverse it, it must be.
It’s operated like an insurance program. Republicans seem to prefer the gambling casino model.
@MataHarley: I agree completely. Third grade barbs are so much more sophisticated!!
Curt,
We have to look at the campaign like the democrats are: If they tell the truth, none of them will get elected. Since the propaganda media wants democrats in office, they can’t tell the truth either.