With pretty boy Paul Ryan's draconian and savage cuts to Medicare in his budget proposal, we have to ask ourselves: Is America still beautiful without Medicare?
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Granny Off the Cliff
Everything Medicare from around the web.
The government fails at almost everything it does, take the obamacare website for example
Thank’s : Zsi
the epitome of a cruel scare tactic by democrats who are disrespectful to seniors. Attacking Paul Ryan in this way only shows everyone in the world that democrats are afraid of him, so they try to dupe seniors to vote for the democrat, thinking they are stupid enough to believe that Republicans and other conservatives hate them. Old tactic, and no, most elderly folks I know don’t buy it. Give it up democrats.
I just explained that to you. Good job. I think you’re beginning to understand.
Now take the next step of understanding: When you regulate extensively, slap high taxes on the business and redistribute the company’s earnings, that’s socialism.
I know, a lot of people think socialism is being pro gay, pro Muslim, anti Christian, pro-choice, and against the 1% wealthiest, but that’s not socialism, that’s a democrat rouse for gathering special interests together for votes, so that they can take over the country and turn it into a socialist state.
What you described in your fourth sentence isn’t actually socialism. I think you are confusing progressivism and socialism. In general, socialists believe capitalism exploits the working class. They want the working class to play an overpowering role in shifting society away from from capitalism. Progressives, on the other hand, believe that capitalism is the most expeditious way to grow the wealth of society under a regulated business environment. They want to attain social change gradually and reject radical disruption.
Back to the issue of health insurance and capitalism: free market principles break down in allocation of health care risks and costs.
There are several reasons I can identify:
(1) Patient demand for services happens at unpredictable times and may rise to an existential threat from life-threatening illness or injury. This shifts buyer priority concerns away from costs toward quality (and of course buyer choice is eliminated if they are unable to act).
(2) Buyer demand for services does not simply respond to the desires of buyers due to lack for information. Costs instead are determined by the professional judgment of physicians about the medical needs of their patients.
(3) There are significant limitations on the entry of providers into the market resulting from the high costs and exacting standards of professional education.
(4) There is a relative insensitivity to costs and a near absence of price competition.
(5) There is significant buyer market uncertainty because of the great asymmetry of knowledge between provider and buyer for a particular service, and the consequences of a course of action.
+Mike Miller – Rather than using the boogeyman words “socialism” and “communism” and concluding that such systems are, by definition, unacceptable, I’d recommend actually taking a close look at how the health care systems of other nations compare to the United States. “Comparisons of Health Care Systems in the United States, Germany and Canada” by Ridic et al (2012) is a very good resource worth studying closely. Here, we learn that the Canadian and German systems are superior in many different ways:
“The data suggests that the Canadian and German systems appear to be more effective than the U.S. system in several respects. Costs are lower, more services are provided, financial barriers do not exist, and health status as measured by mortality rates is superior. Canadians and Germans have longer life expectancies and lower infant mortality rates than do U.S. residents.”
Let’s take a look at some of the data.
Citizen satisfaction with the health care systems is much greater in Canada and Germany:
“Completely rebuild system”: United States – 29%; Germany – 13%; Canada – 5%
“Fundamental changes needed”: United States – 60%; Germany – 35%; Canada – 38%
“Minor changes needed”: United States – 10%; Germany – 41%; Canada – 56%
What’s especially astonishing is that this is the case despite the fact that the United States spends significantly more, per capita, on health care than does Germany or Canada:
Health care spending per capita: United States – 4,178; Germany – 2,424; Canada – 2,312.
Health care spending (% of GDP): United States – 13.6%; Germany – 10.6%; Canada – 9.5%.
And life expectancy is higher in Germany in Canada, whereas infant mortality is higher in the United States:
Life expectancy (males): United States – 73.9; Germany – 74.5; Canada – 75.8.
Life expectancy (females): United States – 79.4; Germany – 80.5; Canada – 81.4.
Infant mortality: United States – 7.2; Germany – 4.7; Canada – 5.5.
So basically, in the United States, we pay significant more for health care of a lesser quality that leaves our citizens much less satisfied. Furthermore, a significant portion of the United States population simply lacks health insurance:
“[The United States’ health care system’s] most glaring weakness is exemplified by the fact that more than 42 million people are without health insurance. The lack of health insurance creates medical access problems and subjects a family’s income to the vagaries of health status.”
There are a few criticisms of the health care systems of Germany and Canada worth mentioning. First, there are the oft-cited waiting lines of Canada:
“Waiting lists for certain surgical and diagnostic procedures are common in Canada. Nationwide, the average wait for treatment is 13.3 weeks. The average waiting time in more than 80% of the procedures is one third longer than Canadian physicians consider clinically reasonable. If care required diagnostic imaging, waiting times are even longer.”
“To avoid delays in treatment, many Canadians travel south to the United States for more advanced treatment.”
However, this doesn’t appear to be a necessary byproduct of this approach to health care, given that this is not a problem in Germany:
“[Germany] has a publicly funded system with virtually universal coverage but has avoided queues and extensive government intrusion.”
Another criticism is that there’s a scarcity of certain high-tech medical equipment when compared with the US:
“In 1997 Canada’s 53 MRIs meant one for every 572,000 citizens (contrast that figure to 2046 MRIs in the U.S., one for every 130,800 Americans). Access to open heart surgery and organ transplantation is also restricted.
That same year the 245 CT scanners in Canada meant one for every 123,500 citizens. The United States had 3667 CT scanners, one for every 73,000 Americans”
However, this is a problem that could be dealt with in a number of different ways, as could the waiting line problem. Here’s one such example that deals with both problems:
“In an effort to reduce waiting lists, some Canadian provinces (Alberta, Nova Scotia and Ontario) have established about 30 private MRI and CT clinics, some of which offer non emergency services to be paid for by private insurance.”
Plus, once again, this scarcity issue also doesn’t appear to be a necessary result of these health care systems, as Germany is comparable to the United States in this area:
“Germany has 22.6 percent fewer MRI units per million compared to the United States…[and] 17.1 [CT scanners] per million population compared to 13.7 per million in the United States ”
I’d also note that it’s better to wait in line for treatment than to lack health insurance altogether, be forced to go to the ER when the condition worsens to the point that it can no longer be ignored, and ultimately be forced into financial ruin and medical bankruptcy, as often happens in the United States.
Interestingly enough, one area of “criticism” of the German system arguably, in fact, showcases its superiority:
“Germans see their doctors more often, are provided more prescription drugs, have a higher hospital admission rate, and stay in the hospital longer than citizens of the major developed countries in the OECD. The average lengths of stay in the hospital are much longer in Germany than in the United States (12.0 days compared to 7.1 days).”
Nobody argues that the Canadian or German health care systems are perfect. Of course they have their flaws and there are areas where improvement is desirable. But an overall comparison between these three nations makes absolutely clear that their systems are vastly superior to that of the United States.
On the other hand, it helps to know that socialism and communism are threats to our society, and healthcare is a primary road they use. Far leftists are fascists, and use all of the special interests and “free” government programs to creep in. See Hitler, who used government run healthcare to begin exterminating people with special needs.
+Michael Miller – Your logic is extremely junky. First off, if I recall correctly, Hitler, after coming into power, became the de facto dictator of Germany. Such a system of one-man rule is hardly comparable to the systems of governance, replete with checks and balances, that exist in present-day Canada or Germany.
Second, assuming that history could repeat itself, and that we could see another such program of mass extermination, or something comparable, committed by a developed, well-educated nation—educated specifically on the history of and circumstances which led to the Nazi genocide—in the age of internet, smartphones, and social media, is virtually inconceivable.
Most importantly, just because government programs can be perverted and exploited by monsters in power doesn’t mean the programs themselves become necessarily unethical or otherwise faulty. By analogy, the fact that a tyrant can use the military to brutalize the home population doesn’t make the very concept of a government-run military unethical or something to be opposed altogether. So it is with health care. “X can be used to do A” doesn’t necessarily lead to “X should therefore be opposed.” I can use my car to run over pedestrians. I can beat someone to death with a heavy textbook. That doesn’t mean we should therefore oppose the driving of cars or the publication of textbooks. What matters is how you use things.
Furthermore, if I make the case that the systems of health care in Canada and Germany are superior to that of the United States according to several key metrics, and all you can come back with is “But aha! If we go down that road, it’s only a matter of time until something like another Hitler-esque program of mass extermination comes about!”, I think that’s a concession of a sort that you simply can’t argue in favor of the United States health care system in terms of practical reality. Instead, you’re forced to retreat into the land of spooky hypotheticals to conjure up a ridiculous spectre. And in doing so, notice that you’ve done absolutely nothing to refute the points that I’ve made. Instead, you utterly dodge them all and say “Oh yeah? Well what if this terrible, scary thing happens?!” (Edit: Looking back at the comment thread, I see that you might have actually been responding to another poster, and not me here. My apologies if that’s the case. Consider typing out who you’re responding to to avoid confusion in the future!)
Lastly, notice the irony of the original poster lambasting the scare tactics used by Democrats when it comes to health care debates, and here we are, 50 comments deep, with you telling us to be very, very afraid of the demonstrably superior health care systems of Canada and Germany, “because Hitler and fascism.”
This ad actually shows how dumb and despicable the left is.
I know right
Truth hurts. Instead of tossing someone off a cliff directly, you just want to cut the funding that is paying for someones cancer treatment that can’t afford it so you can get a few extra percent to tuck away in your investments.
Vicious little vultures of human beings hate being called out, own your priorities.
Well—-I guess that’s one way to save Social Security.
+jack johnson You will never be rich enough to avoid the same fate, because this does NOT “save” social security for you, but for the pushers.
Everyone needs to calm the hell down. Discuss politics, but do it civilly, not “LIBERALS ARE EVIL REPUBLICANS ARE DISGUSTING THE ONLY OPINION THAT MATTERS IS MINE.”
4 years later, still rings true
I’m not discussing the politics I’m just saying this video is fricken funny!
jeff belli slack your a moron
It’s real!! Once grandma & grandpa can’t physically or mentally care for themselves, they end up in Nursing homes because their children can’t take care of them. If they didn’t have medicare/medicaid this is more or less what would happen. No one else is going to care for them at the end of their lives. It may be disgusting but this is the world we live in. You must be young or haven’t been faced with this yet! This admin is telling us that not only do they not care, they don’t want to do anything except collect their Billions in tax cuts because old people don’t contributr anymore. Even though they paid into the system.
Creating these entitlement programs led us to this diaster. The polls and surveys tell us that people lost the insensitive to raise childern to take care of them when they become old. Why would you invest your earnings into stocks and bonds when you’re taxed $500 a month and told the government will take care of you?
Amen
Republican Party member and atheist Ayn Rand disciple Paul Ryan “Granny Off The Cliff” video, that you can view right here, is interesting. “Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard.” Proverbs 21:13. Free King James version Bible – just click on my photo – then the link below.
Congratulations! Religion, statism and collectivism! The superstition Trifecta!
lol. just herd this on Republic debate.
I’m a Conservative..and this is funny as hell!!
This is fucking disgusting!
Ryan is pushing Uncle Sam off the cliff this week.
Traitor Republicans.
I don’t understand what’s wrong with pushing granny off a cliff
congratulations, you will now become president of the united states of america!
That’s DEMOCRATIC to you! JERK! You are CLUELESS!
+LoneMyth You disgusting piece of crap.
Congratulations LoneMyth, you have taken your first steps to becoming a republican/libertarian.
For chan my man
He saves the wheelchair. How very fiscally conservative of him!
He plans to do this again, so of course he needs the wheelchair. Now he’s trying to kill severely handicapped poor people living on life support, that are kept alive by Medicaid. Most of the Republicans in Congress are bonafide psychopaths, who pass bills that will kill their own constituents with out any shame, guilt, or remorse.
BF99
What’s the number of the bill? I’d like to read it.
Ha!
Lol he even keeps the wheelchair, in typical republican fashion.
He’s gotta use it to go pick up more grandmas to push off the cliff
You know that’s not actually a real Republican, right?
Chairman Meow Not only can they *not* tell reality from TV. They trust TV more.
I just hope and pray that Obama doesn’t take my Social Security away to pay down the $20 Trillion National Debt.
If he takes your money he is not going to pay a debt, he has never done that, he will just go on vacation and give the rest to any other Muslim terrorist organization.
Right on
President Obama?? you must be kidding! trump will take it!
If you think Obama will take it, you’re a fool.
Scott McKinney your a brainwashed little sheep. So very trusting.
The Republicans shriek of indignation shows why this ad is so spot on!
“Shriek”? That’s a risible bit of projection.
Spot on???? Wow, that doesn’t begin to tell the story… It’s foolish and not representative. If you want to know what is “spot on”, take a look at the last election.
Says the person who backed the financial murder of the poor, the old, and the sick.
Trump – creator of Republican death panels
A 30 second version of this needs to start running in Ryan’s district NOW, along with rural districts in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio. This is what they voted for.
This needs to go back on the airwaves NOW!!!!
Paul Ryan and his cronies are in attack mode.. and plan to put Medicare, Medicaid and social security on the chopping black as soon as Trump is inaugurated! It these earned benefit programs are important to you or a loved one, call Washington and state your strong opposition to making *any* changes to them! The elderly are among the poorest segment of the population and cannot afford to go to a “voucher Privatized program” where wall street controls their money!!
It’s 2018 and Paul Ryan is still trying to push old ladies off the Medicare cliff.