Once again, Jennifer Rubin nails it. In a roundup of conservative bloggers and pundits reminding Republicans to ‘man up’ on Medicare reform, she notes approvingly that despite Democratic demagoguery on the Ryan budget,
40 senators stood their ground yesterday in voting for the Ryan budget. Now they (and every member of the House who has voted for Ryan’s Medicare plan) need to explain why.
One Republican Senator, she reports, “shows how to do it”:
Simply put, the Ryan reforms are not about ending Medicare, but about saving it. With increasing evidence, as Senator Rubio reminds us, of the government program’s looming bankruptcy, Republicans need to respond aggressively to Democratic attacks, instead of ducking for cover as some have done. They need to ask Democrats who have criticized the Ryan plan, to put their own plan to reform the popular program on the table.
“Either show us,” the Florida Republican said at 2:20 above,
how Medicare survives without any changes. Or show us what changes you propose we make because anyone who supports doing nothing on Medicare is a supporter of bankrupting Medicare. Where is the House Democrat plan to save Medicare? Where is the Senate Democrat plan to save Medicare. Where is President Obama’s plan to save Medicare?
If Democrats fail to do so, Republicans need to call them out on it. Nice to see some Republicans going on the offensive so soon after the loss in NY-26.
UPDATE: Politics aside, Veronique de Rugy writes in the National Review, “Medicare has to be reformed“:
Anyone who still thinks that the Affordable Care Act has addressed Medicare’s insolvency problem hasn’t looked at the data closely. Based on the trustees’ report, despite a growing share of general revenue going to Medicare spending, the HI program will be insolvent by 2024 and registers $3 trillion in unfunded liabilities.
There ought to be a Republican ad with some physical manifestation of Medicare (a giant weight?) collapsing onto “grandma”. That, or “grandma” getting mugged by liberals for the $500 million they need to make ObamaCareless look like it won’t cost ass loads.
The Republicans must stand firm & lead; otherwise, it will collapse as the Democrats want. Medicare’s collapse will have us on European ObamaCare single-payer system that much faster; hence, the Democrats feel no need to pass an budget. They believe the Republicans are committing political suicide. However, to do nothing is much worse. President Bill Clinton knows this & wants the Democrats to come up with their own plan. But, at present, the Democrats are following Obama’s lead which is no leadership.
All the Democrats have in their quiver is “…Scare Grandma”.
Unfortunately, she panics, calls her daughter who rails at dinner that the “GOP wants Grandma to die…soon“, and soon the entire family is up in arms.
ObamaCare will kill Grandma.
Yes, ObamaCare already robbed Granma and Granpa of $500 billion in Medicare funding.
.
There is the theory that the Demonrats want Medicare to go belly-up as a segue to their dream of nationalized health care.
I keep wondering when the Republicans will start pointing out the rationing that will be taking place in Medicare, a system which ALREADY denies twice as many claims as private insurers, if nothing is done and that the rationing will be decided by a board of 15 bureaucrats in DC.
Or Medicare could get the proper funding it needs when its no longer being gutted to pay for wars -.-
Rubio’s speech gives me mixed feelings.
On the one hand, he says much that is right: Medicare as it exists today is unsustainable; anyone who says otherwise is lying; anyone who doesn’t want to change it, effectively wants it to be bankrupt.
On the other hand, he misses the morally proper solution: that we should end Medicare. Medicare is immoral: it is premised on using government to FORCE the prudent and/or productive to pay for the imprudent and/or lazy. Which is slavery. I don’t care if Rubio’s mom needs Medicare; her need is NOT a title to the product of my life. I am all for helping people voluntarily. But anyone who wants to force me (i.e. enslave me) can and should go straight to hell.
P.S. And if Rubio’s mom came here as a penniless immigrant, then she should rely on charities, friends and family – including one MARCO RUBIO, who makes good money as a U.S. Senator. He has no business waving his poor mom around to justify *coercing* me into paying for his family duties.
Thought on this more. Newt Gingrich has said before that Americans want government to work, and will vote for the party that can make government work.
As opposed to, Americans wanting government to be small. Newt did not say this last part explicitly. But I think it’s implied, in saying “Americans want government to work” and then distinctly NOT saying “Americans want government to be small.”
Rubio’s speech here puts him in the “Americans want government to work” camp, with Newt. They are not true advocates of small government, because they do not challenge the premise of Big Government as such.
This is why I say America is in fact a socialist country (while pretending not to be). One major party is thoroughly peppered with people who like Big Government if it can halfway “work”; the other party consists of nothing but people who worship at the altar of Big Government.
#9 Dooms really parrots those Soros talking points well, doesn’t he?