Oh--we'll only go after Medicare for those under 55. We'll leave current recipients strictly alone! [View all]

[eridani]

Surely if you give the school bully your lunch money on the first day of school he'll leave you alone for the rest of the year. If Dems don't make big politial hay out of this, we deserve to lose.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-republican-mediscare/2012/03/16/gIQAfoWYGS_print.html

But DeMint and his colleagues think the time to end Medicare is now — with a cold-turkey conversion to a private program, effective in 2014. “I think if Americans actually find out the truth about what we’re doing, it will be a very big positive for Republicans in the fall,” DeMint forecast.

All the details aren’t out, but Paul says his plan would cut funding of Medicare by $1 trillion over 10 years and reduce Medicare’s liabilities by $16 trillion. It would do that by enrolling Medicare recipients in the health plan now used by federal workers. The government would pay 75 percent of the insurance premium on average but 30 percent or less for those who earned more than $100,000 a year. The eligibility age would gradually be raised to 70 from 65. If seniors can’t afford their share of the premium, they can apply for Medicaid, the health program for the poor.

With each answer, the senators seemed in danger of sparking an all-out Mediscare in the populace. No, seniors could not opt to keep Medicare as it now exists. Yes, this would sharply increase insurance costs for federal workers.