Get the Medicare Out of My Medicare

During the 2010, a youtube clip went viral with a teabagger telling someone that they wanted to "get the government out of their medicare". Everyone had a laugh, until many Republicans won seats by successfully convincing people that the Democrats wanted to take away their medicare.

Now that Republicans are in power, they've made their plans for the program known; they want to destroy it.

No exaggeration here: On Tuesday, the GOP will officially propose eliminating the current Medicare system by 2021, replacing it with a system of subsidized private insurance in which Medicare beneficiaries would get the equivalent of vouchers to cover a portion of their premiums.

At least on paper, the proposal would save money, but only because it increases voucher funding more slowly than the cost of health care, guaranteeing that at some point, seniors wouldn't be able to afford to get insurance—assuming that they could even find an insurer interested in covering the elderly.

So there we go.

In a world were the Republicans had a competent opposition party, they would be crushed in the next election for proposing the destruction of an extremely popular government program, and which also happens to be the only thing we have resembling a sane health care system in the United States.

But as we all know, the Democratic party isn't exactly a well coordinated machine, and only qualifies as an opposition party because there isn't anyone else around.

One thing we have going for us is that there were tweaks to medicare in the clusterfuck that is Obama's health care bill, and changes to that bill seems to be one of the only things Obama will go to the mat for.

How will the Democrats respond? Whose the fuck knows, but considering their willingness to embrace social security cuts, I'm not all that optimistic.