Ayn Rand acolyte Ryan singing the same old 'class warfare' crap, 'empowering' seniors with vouchers

[flpoljunkie]

(Emphasis mine)

There is widespread, bipartisan agreement that the open-ended, fee-for-service structure of Medicare is a key driver of health-care cost inflation. Medicare is not the train being pulled along by the engine of rising costs. Medicare is the engine — and the rest of us are getting taken for a ride.

The disagreement isn't really about the problem — it's about the solution to controlling costs. Our budget would achieve this by letting seniors act as value-conscious consumers in a transparent and competitive market. Our plan is to give seniors the power to deny business to inefficient health care providers. The Obama plan is to give government the power to deny health care to seniors.

The House-passed budget also rejects the president's call for permanently higher taxes. Instead, it calls for scaling back or eliminating loopholes and carve-outs in the tax code that are distorting economic incentives. It does this, not to raise taxes, but to create space for lower rates to provide incentives for businesses to create jobs in America. By contrast, the president says he wants to eliminate deductions, but he also wants to raise rates, including raising the top rate to 44.8 percent (where the hell does Ryan get this figure? Clinton era top rate was 39.6%). That would amount to a $1.5 trillion tax hike on families and job creators.

The president says that only the richest people in America would be affected by his plan. Class warfare may or may not be clever politics, but it is terrible economics. Redistributing wealth never creates more of it, and sowing class envy makes America weaker, not stronger. Playing one group against another only distracts us from the true sources of inequity in this country — corporate welfare that enriches the powerful and empty promises that betray the powerless.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/ct-oped-0516-budget-20110516,0,3799859.story

[HelenWheels]

1. This is one senior who disagrees

I don't want to be "empowered" this way. What a phony Ryan is. "Empowered" must be the new talking point.

[OHdem10]

2. But Seniors do not want that kind of power, Mr. Ryan.

[66 dmhlt]

3. As a senior, I know JUST the place where you can stick that Voucher, Mr. Ryan

[daa]

5. And if I ever see that punk I will help him put it there.

I am sick and tired of people calling this a-hole and his proposal "serious." Take from the seniors and give t the rich is not serious it is fkng stupid.

[Thrill]

4. How about he pull any Senior on Medicare to the side and ask them how they

feel about being empowered by vouchers.

[livetohike]

6. My Mom is 80 years old and my m-i-l is 85 years old

They each still live in their own homes (are widowed), however, having to make a decision on their healthcare with a voucher would be a huge emotional burden for them. Neither have a computer...they would have to make phone calls to "shop around", receive numerous mailings and the end result would be total confusion and an inability to make a decision. It would cause unneeded stress. It's a ridiculous plan.

I realize this may not be the case for many who are over 80 years old, but this is what I see in my immediate family.

[guruoo]

7. If Ryan doesn't like class warfare, then he should quit waging it. nt

[flpoljunkie]

8. Right on! When all the money's at the top, the rich have won the class war.

[Enrique]

9. say that in front of a crowd of seniors

if you have the guts. they're not buying it.

[Brigid]

10. Like I keep saying, Mr. Ryan . . .

A "coopin" is a voucher to buy beer in a Ron White joke, not a way to deliver and pay for health care. Good Lord. :banghead: