Health Care Destruction (Krugman / NYT)

[struggle4progress]

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: October 5, 2008

Sarah Palin ended her debate performance last Thursday with a slightly garbled quote from Ronald Reagan about how, if we aren’t vigilant, we’ll end up “telling our children and our children’s children” about the days when America was free. It was a revealing choice.

You see, when Reagan said this he wasn’t warning about Soviet aggression. He was warning against legislation that would guarantee health care for older Americans — the program now known as Medicare.

Conservative Republicans still hate Medicare, and would kill it if they could — in fact, they tried to gut it during the Clinton years (that’s what the 1995 shutdown of the government was all about). But so far they haven’t been able to pull that off.

So John McCain wants to destroy the health insurance of nonelderly Americans instead ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/06/opinion/06krugman.html?bl&ex=1223438400&en=f895f0fd514c47fb&ei=5087%0A

[johan helge]

1. Great column by Krugman

- shows how truly mad the Repubs are. The only way the can get away with it, I assume, is that people are simply not aware of this.

[OakCliffDem]

2. Kick

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. The only thing is: McCain *does* plan to slash Medicare too:

see:

McCain Plans Federal Health Cuts
Medicare, Medicaid Spending Would Be Reduced to Offset Proposed Tax Credit

John McCain would pay for his health plan with major reductions to Medicare and Medicaid, a top aide said, in a move that independent analysts estimate could result in cuts of $1.3 trillion over 10 years to the government programs.

The Republican presidential nominee has said little about the proposed cuts, but they are needed to keep his health-care plan "budget neutral," as he has promised. The McCain campaign hasn't given a specific figure for the cuts, but didn't dispute the analysts' estimate.

In the months since Sen. McCain introduced his health plan, statements made by his campaign have implied that the new tax credits he is proposing to help Americans buy health insurance would be paid for with other tax increases.

But Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Sen. McCain's senior policy adviser, said Sunday that the campaign has always planned to fund the tax credits, in part, with savings from Medicare and Medicaid. Those government health-care programs serve seniors, poor families and the disabled. Medicare spending for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30 is estimated at $457.5 billion.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122315505846605217.html#printMode

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. The comments from readers who have had bad experiences with insurance companies

tell me that the only barrier between America and national health care is political cowardice.