Ryan's Issue with the 'Medicare subsidy'...
Next, the issue of the 'Medicare subsidy,' is lumped together with Social
Security 'reform' as the other major cause of our looming financial crash.
Furthermore, Ryan places the Medicaid program under 'welfare reform,' yet
according to Ezra Klein at the Washington Post, some 67% of all Medicaid
payments are for seniors and disabled persons, not welfare recipients, in spite
of the fact that the combined number of seniors and disabled constitute a mere
25% of Medicaid's members. (Source : Ezra Klein, Cutting Medicaid means cutting
care for the poor, sick and elderly, Apr. 5, 2011, Washington Post) Klein adds
that since Medicaid is 20% cheaper than most private insurance plans; replacing
Medicaid with block grants is designed to reduce benefits and eligibility,
leaving the claim of reduced costs to the taxpayers totally disingenuous.
(Source : Ezra Klein, Cutting Medicaid means cutting care for the poor, sick and
elderly, Apr. 5, 2011, Washington Post)
Ryan continues on the 'virtue' of the plan as he explains how the GOP will help
all of us trim our fiscal waistlines--through starvation.
The GOP 'targets corporate welfare?'
Ryan's plan emphasizes the elimination of corporate welfare as we know it. I
believe Ryan and the GOP would love to rid our country of low and middle income
homeownership. While it is acknowleged that home loans were made to applicants
which would not have qualified in more fiscally cautious times--those loans were
made and pushed by lending institutions practically wetting their financial
panties--over the 'homeowner revolving door.' Simply put, the bank pushes a
loan using numbers which are pure fiction to qualify a prospective applicant on
a loan which this same bank KNOWS will never be repaid.
In theory, once Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac monies are used to subsidize these
loans--the foreclosure process is only a matter of time. The lending
institution can then 'sell' the bad defaulted loans, keep the property in
question and resell it to another financially unfit applicant. In truth, the
banks aren't in the home loan business, they are in the 'foreclosure and resell
the same property in a vicious cycle' business. Some of the more politically
aware Attorney General's in various states would simply call it--LOAN SHARKING
AND FRAUD.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that is costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of
dollars. It gets rid of the permanent Wall Street bailout authority that
Congress created last year. .."Ryan calls this 'targeting corporate welfare.'
I call it meager 'cover' for crimes against the taxpayers.
In conclusion...
The GOP's plan to destroy Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security has been
heralded in the mainstream media as 'serious' and 'responsible.' Nothing could
be further from the truth. This plan financially eviscerates the only health
coverage available to all aged 65 or over. Without the public accountability
which can be demanded of a public plan such as Medicare and the combined public
investment--most seniors will find themselves with a dire choice, whether to pay
for private coverage which will take some 70% of their social security checks
and eat catfood--or die early from denial of medical care. To blame our
nation's financial troubles on these entitlement programs which all of us have
paid into--is the height of hypocrisy when faced with the plain truth of Wall
Street thievery as widely documented in films such as Capitalism : A Love Story
and Inside Job. To relegate the nation's seniors, the very people who raised
political brats like John Boehner, Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor, to a system of
'medical apartheid' or face hunger and homelessness in an attempt to pay for
private insurance...is patently evil.
When Eric Cantor proclaimed that these programs cannot exist ..."if we want
America to be what we want America to be;" I wondered what kind of America
Cantor and the GOP envisioned. I never imagined they would be so cold blooded
as to invision an America with seniors having to choose between paying medical
insurance premiums or eating.
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