“It’s not a budget. This is a cause.” A direct quote from Republican Paul Ryan, the Eddie Munster lookalike who heads up the House Budget Committee on his budget… er… cause.
The thing that everyone needs to be screaming/blogging/talking about is the fact that Ryan’s budget cause would do to Medicare what George W. Bush wanted to do to Social Security – kill it! W failed in that quest. Thank goodness. Because if he had been successful in privatizing Social Security, he would have killed it – along with millions of seniors who would have lost everything when the banksters crashed our economy with the help and blessings of that administration.
Now the Republicans want to do it again. This time, they want to kill off Medicare – along with the millions of seniors who depend on it for their health care.
The question I keep asking is why the lack of non-stop messages explaining to the masses what, in this case, privatization would mean: MORE PROFITS FOR THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY, LESS HEALTH CARE BANG FOR OUR BUCK!
Sorry for shouting, but this should be shouted from the rooftops. The Republican noise machine constantly touts the private market as the be-all and end-all of fixing our problems. Seriously? If our seniors’ social security dollars were in the hands of private Wall Street firms in 2008, your grandmother would be eating cat food right now.
If Medicare is privatized, the insurance industry would get yet another massive taxpayer gift or even more customers required to purchase their overpriced, shitty service… which will cost more (cuz the crooks at the top of the leech chain need to make their zillion dollar salaries and stock options), and provide less and much worse actual health care! Less efficiency, more bureaucracy as layers of people who’ll make a profit on the backs of our elderly and infirm who NEED real health care.
What don’t the unwashed Fox viewers get? Privatization = fewer, more inefficient services at a higher cost so the bosses can take even more of your money. Get it?
That’s their cause. Break you, break government, give more money to the already rich by bilking the poor and the going-broke.
Today on the Show
In light of the latest cave from the Obama administration, I invited Kristen Breitweiser on the show this morning. Kristen, whose husband was killed in 9/11, is a mother, attorney and activist, and wrote “The Sad Defeat of our Constitution” for Huffington Post in response to Eric Holder’s announcement earlier this week that Kaleed Sheik Mohammed and the other alleged 9/11 co-conspirators will be tried by Military tribunals in Gitmo rather than in our US criminal courts.
The Nation’s Ari Berman joined in to talk about Obama’s progressive problem, which he so frighteningly spelled out in his latest missive, “Jim Messina: Obama’s Enforcer“
And DC Douglas, the voiceover artist who gained national notoriety for drunk-dialing Freedomworks and leaving a detailed message with his thoughts on the Dick Armey, a move that led to his being fired by Geico, is back with a new video!
I asked him to join in after watching his newest video: A Sarah Palin/Michele Bachmann Ticket
And here’s that Don’t Drunk Dial Freedom Works PSA…