a higher medicare age means a lower quality of life

[xchrom]

http://www.nationofchange.org/higher-medicare-age-means-lower-quality-life-1354978956


It’s almost impossible to believe: With the private-sector economy struggling and politicians worried about government spending, the biggest proposal on the table is raising the Medicare age to 67. That would take far more out of household budgets than it would save in government spending – and the savings would be short-lived.

What’s more, it would impose terrible hardships on lots of people. Why do the truly terrible ideas always seem to become the really Big Ideas?

Oddly, John Boehner won’t come right out and say what he’s proposing. Instead he throws out a large figure – $600 billion in cuts over ten years – and says somewhat obliquely that he supports a proposal from former Clinton White House official Erskine Bowles. Since that proposal discussed raising the Medicare age, journalists and insiders have inferred (undoubtedly rightly) that Boehner is endorsing that option.

But he won’t speak the words. He’ll only say “$600 billion” and some mumbo-jumbo that comes out sounding like he’s saying “that thing that Bowles wants to do.”

[no_hypocrisy]

1. If the age for Medicare were to be changed to 67, there has to be a trade-off.

Single-payor healthcare.

Or mandatory employer health insurance with strict prohibitions against age discrimination. You want to work til you're 80? No problem. Your job is guaranteed as long as you can do it. And the courts really protecting seniors from age discrimination in employment.

[RKP5637]

2. Yep, there are tons of jobs available. This will work quite well to

kill off more people, and let's take SS up to say 75. That should fix things really well in USA, INC., where people don't count, just $$$$$ bringing to you a 21st century dystopia for America.

Ain't it grand! The solution in modern America, just take things away that benefit the majority, don't bother to fix things, they won't do anything anyway but just squawk some. Americans are docile lambs and lemmings, bred to be kicked around and say thank you.

GO USA!!!

[southernyankeebelle]

3. I have come to the conclusion this president and the dems are going to sell us out down the road.

We didn't make this mess. I think if republicans were the ones who contributed mostly to the debt by Bush and people who voted for republicans then they should pay. Let us middle class and poor people alone. I know am dreaming but if parties were made to pay for mistakes and the people who vote for them then people might pay attention what is going on. People in the know with the economy tried and lost this issue when Bush gave the tax cuts for the rich. Even my husband said everyone jumping up and down for them $300 or $600 we got back was a foolish thing to do because we didn't pay for it. We got that temporary high americans seem to want instead of thinking long term. Now this is what happens. As usual it's the dem president is the one who has to fix the problem. It's always been that way. Republicans steal the credit.

[RKP5637]

6. Yep, we see that pattern of behavior over and over again. Republicans screw up the

country, then the democrats get in and work to fix it, and the republicans sit on the sidelines blaming the democrats ... and eventually some voters forget who screwed up the country in the first place, so then they vote republican in the next election cycle. And the mess goes on and on. And the republicans pat themselves on the back claiming they had fixed things, but in fact it was the democrats.

Bush returning the cash had to be the dumbest thing I've ever witnessed in that area. Of course, Bush was far from the brightest tool in the tool shed.

What is severely lacking in this country is citizens that can actually think! Thinking is a lost art in the US for many. So, they become gullible, naive and easily led by lies, distortions, misinformation and deception. And, outfits like Fox News find this highly profitable in many ways.

[dotymed]

10. I am an FDR democrat, bordering on (by todays standards) Socialism.

Your post mentions the facts about how bush-co helped destroy our country. However it completely overlooks the role that corporate Dem's have played in this great American sellout. Yes, we severely need citizens in America who can think rationally.
Currently we have a Democratic President and a Democratic Senate and what is happening? Raising the SS retirement age. BTW, this has absolutely no effect on our deficit. This is money that we have paid, for decades, and will only receive a small portion of it back, even less of it now. That money will be spent by and for the elites.
We would not allow a rethug President to do this. Since we have a Democrat as President, he'll be able to pass the blame and screw regular Americans. Yes, I voted the "lesser of two evils" again and I hoped (stupidly) that 2nd term Obama would be much different from 1st term Obama. I don't see it.
Similarly, while Clinton was an extremely personable and popular President, he got by with things that a rethug could not have. He oversaw the elimination of Glass Steagal, implemented NAFTA and set the stage for more "free trade agreements."
We have almost 4 years to field a candidate who is for the people rather than waiting for our corporate masters to put their candidates forward and allow us to choose from their line-up.
As I said, I am an FDR Democrat. Unfortunately, I don't see any Presidential possibilities (in either party) that resemble FDR. While we are not supposed to support third party candidates here, with time on our side, if we can't field a politician like Bernie Sanders as a Democratic candidate, we should use this time effectively and if necessary, field a populist candidate on a third party ticket.

[RKP5637]

11. Agree!!! n/t

[amandabeech]

17. I call myself an FDR Democrat, too.

Thank you for your wonderful post. I was going to write in Bernie Sanders for president and Bill Black for veep on election day, but I had a nasty virus and didn't make it to the polls. I live in a dark blue state so it didn't matter.

The only thing I would add to your excellent list of Bill Clinton legislation is the failure to push legislation advocated by the great Brooksley Borne, who was head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission that would have regulated derivatives and possibly helped mitigate the derivatives end of the 2008 collapse. It was a boys club of Clinton, Rubin, and Summers that refused to listen to Ms. Borne, BTW, which didn't set well here.

I might vote for an economic populist as a third party candidate myself out of sheer frustration with the corporate Dems we seem to be producing and also because I fear that we will eventually (and maybe sooner than later) start to have serious social problems here that could get out of hand if people lose hope that their lot in life will go back to something normal. Look at the '30s. There was considerable unrest, but FDR brought hope and some very needed changes in the way the country does business and how it provides for its people, particularly the least among us.

[southernyankeebelle]

15. Your right and the blame can start right when the FCC handed the republicans all the breaks.

The Fox News channel has destroyed this country. They are like EF Huntington when they speak everyone listens to them and they repeat it.

[eridani]

4. Being dead would definitely count as "poor quality of life"

Raising Medicare age = mass murder, period

[byeya]

5. There are many Americans who are waiting to turn 65 so they can get expensive surgery

like knee replacements. They are in constant pain and lack mobility and their conditions get harder to treat. Making them wait an additional two years is torture for them.

Alternative: Let anyone buy into the federal employees health system if we can't have single payer.

[ProSense]

7. True, except

for at least one group:

How about raising the Medicare age on the top one percent?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021950247

[Overseas]

16. They hate The New Deal so they would love making it weaker like that.

Unless their pure greed would overrule their hatred of FDR.

[99Forever]

8. Some of us..

.. will not make it to 60. I guess it's easier when you've spent your life parked behind a desk watching "the little people" go about doing the menial tasks of actually building and producing things.

[byeya]

9. That's the goal these days, isn't it? Rise high enough in the structure that you don't do any real

work, avoid responsibility, and rake in the big bucks while people skilled at making and building suffer from inadequate pay; inadequate safety regulations; inadequate ability to organize.

Money for nothing; The Rise of the Leeches.

[RKP5637]

12. What we see today is the hallmark of capitalism. Rise and conquer others, take all, leave nothing,

bully ones way to the top, selfishness and greed are great. Yep, the grand dream of capitalism, all for me and none for you. And grow grow grow 'till we drown in our own garbage.

[Overseas]

13. We need our legislators to acknowledge that health care is a human right, most of us voters want

our tax dollars to go to providing health care for all, before they are allocated to our very expensive War Department.

We need our legislators to acknowledge that and stop going to the few social programs and earned safety nets we have to look for revenue.

Wall Street, Top Tax Rates and Privatized War Budgets should be the first sources of revenue.

Our legislators need to acknowledge that a majority of us now know that the Reagan concept of cutting taxes at the top has not created jobs. We have tried that again and again for 30 years and it has not worked. End of story.

Raise revenue from Wall Street that crashed our economy, with a tiny transaction tax that may be "a hassle" to implement at first but will be a useful tool for generating revenue in the future if a 0.025% transaction tax on each trade is too small at first. We will then have the system in place to raise that to 0.04% if and when that is necessary, such as when the cleaning up after climatic disasters overwhelms our treasury.

[leftstreet]

14. +1

[Honeycombe8]

18. Bowles says the Boehner plan is NOT the Bowles plan. Obama offered $400B in medicare

cuts (or "savings" - whatever you want to call them), so sounds like boehner's was just a counter offer of $600B.

I don't know if Obama's offer was specific, either. It may have been.

[limpyhobbler]

19. K&R nt