Democrats are understandably freaked out. Polls (one with justifiable demographics)at this point in the game have shown the race even or with an edge to Romney. At this stage, a re-electable Obama would expect to be safely ahead.
The selection of Paul Ryan as Romney’s running mate has just exacerbated the freakout and it has brought to the fore the Democrat’s only hope this November, THE BIG LIE.
The underlying principle of most of the Democrat criticisms of conservatives is simple, the choice is between All government All the time, and NO government services AT ALL.
That is it, they want you to believe that instead of trying to save the safety net now with reasonable changes to the growth of government, that conservatives want NO government safety net. That is a lie.
You see it in the demagoguery over Ryan’s budget and his proposals on Medicare. They suggest that he is trying to gut it by changing it when even the most ardent liberal will admit that doing nothing will certainly destroy Medicare. Tim Carney points out
Ryan’s budget would not change anything about Medicare for people over age 54 or anyone younger who wants to go onto traditional Medicare. Ryan’s plan, crafted with Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden — who earns gushing praise from self-styled wonks on the Left as a serious legislator (which he is) — merely allows some people to opt instead for a voucherized version of Medicare.
The Big Lie.
Take for instance this hissy by the New York Times Editorial board:
As House Budget Committee chairman, Mr. Ryan has drawn a blueprint of a government that will be absent when people need it the most. It will not be there when the unemployed need job training, or when a struggling student needs help to get into college. It will not be there when a miner needs more than a hardhat for protection, or when a city is unable to replace a crumbling bridge.
And it will be silent when the elderly cannot keep up with the costs of M.R.I.’s or prescription medicines, or when the poor and uninsured become increasingly sick through lack of preventive care.
Ryan has proposed all that government entirely? Of course not. It is the big lie.
The only way to save the safety net is to mend it before it rips completely, but the Dems treat anyone with a needle and thread like a hockey-masked chainsaw salesman.
A stitch in time, saves trillions.
August 14, 2012 at 3:10 am
Why job training when there are no jobs? "And it will be silent when the elderly cannot keep up with the costs of M.R.I.’s or prescription medicines, or when the poor and uninsured become increasingly sick through lack of preventive care." When the premium for Medicare reaches $500.00 per month and Obama takes all of our Social Security there certainly will not be enough money to pay for any doctor bills.
August 14, 2012 at 5:21 pm
You know, when people scream about how grannies will be left out in the cold, do they ever stop and look at what Medicare actually covers? They seem to assume that it pays for any and everything a senior would ever need. In reality, there is actually quite A LOT of stuff that Medicare either won't pay for, or will only pay a small amount towards. And heck, even stuff it's supposed to cover isn't guaranteed. They turn down a lot of procedures and medications, etc, because some bureaucrat somewhere in DC has decided it wasn't necessary. What do people think happens to those seniors who get turned down by Medicare for payments on treatment?
If you want to know what government run health care is like, look no further than the military. Anecdote: my brother, who is active duty, was refused diagnostic testing for his wife who is exhibiting severe MS symptoms. The Army doctors don't have a clue what's causing it and Tricare refuses to allow a referral to an outside provider for diagnostic testing to find out if she has MS or what. Know why? They told her she could just manage the symptoms with pain pills and didn't need a diagnosis to do that. And after talking to my grandparents, and my in-laws, and many of my fellow parishioners (we live in a senior heavy area of Florida, so we've got oodles of seniors at church) all of whom are on Medicare, they've all had similar experiences with that system.
Bottom Line: Medicare, as it is, is very, very far from an ideal solution for our seniors. I for one appreciate Ryan's attempts to not only save the program for me and my children, but to improve it and add choices to the upcoming generation of seniors. And I most certainly do NOT appreciate Mr. Obama and company's whining and complaining about Mr. Ryan's proposals when they've cut $700 billion for the Medicare budget in addition to proposing absolutely nothing to try and save that program. It's disingenuous demagoguery at its worst.