Barone: NY-26 Proves Republicans Have To Go On The Offensive Against MediScare Campaign

Interesting breakdown of the numbers. I'll leave those in the article, but long story short, MediScare probably depressed conservative turnout from a high Bush 2004 level down to a low-ish McCain 2008 level. Note that had Jack Davis not been in the race, we probably would have won, but even adding his numbers into our pile, MediScare does seem to have dented our support.

So I agree wholeheartedly with my Examiner colleague Conn Carroll, Republicans need to go on the offensive on Medicare. Or as the Washington Post’s Dan Balz wrote in his analysis: “Republican leaders believe in their agenda and are not likely to back away from it just because they lost one House seat, particularly one that they could very well win back in 2012. But they have not yet won the argument over how best to deal with the country’s fiscal problems. They have accepted the responsibility to propose. Now they will need to learn how to persuade.”

I was just talking with someone -- Drew, maybe -- about the need to start hitting the point, hard, that MediCare "self-corrects" in 8 years if nothing is done, and by "self-corrects," I mean Seniors automatically get less money in health care, price controls are automatically imposed, and doctors and hospitals are paid less.

And they're already being paid less.

If you like your doctor, you get to keep, instead, a doctor who got his degree in the Belgian Congo, because guess what, there is a limit to how low doctors are willing to go.

They will simply stop taking MediCare patients, or rushing them and giving them crap treatment, given that they're not being paid crap money for each Medicare patient.

That's not the Ryan plan. That's the current plan. Or not even a plan-- that's what's going to happen.

That is a fact.

Oh, you can keep your Medicare, but it's not going to look like it looks today. Instead of doctors being paid something like 90% of the going rate, they'll be paid 80% and then 75% and then less, and you get what other people are willing to pay for.

And if you think "Oh we'll just raise taxes on younger voters to cover the difference," well, all I can tell you is no one has won on a platform of raising taxes on the middle class, ever, and I'll personally fight my heart out on that particular hill.

You can have Medicare as is, but don't say you weren't warned when the automatic rationing kicks in.

Paul Ryan notes this fact in Part 2 of his public lecture on our collapsing entitlement system, which I think really should have been Part 1.

posted by Ace at 05:10 PM

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