Abolishing Medicare = “Saving Medicare”
Let’s remember what this is about. Using the deficits created by the financial crisis to eliminate Medicare, Medicaid and if at all possible, Social Security too.
It’s actually quite analogous to what happened in Wisconsin over the last couple months. The state faced a serious budget shortfall. Cuts were necessary on various fronts. Some of those certainly had to come from the state’s public workers. Bigger contributions to health care coverage, pensions, etc. The state’s public employees union basically agreed. But in addition to the budget retrenchment that was necessary, at least to some degree, Governor Walker said, “Hey, as long as we’ve got a budget situation why not just abolish the unions and say it was necessary to balance the budget? We’ll never get a better chance to shut them down?”
Rep. Ryan, an ally of Gov. Walker, is trying pretty much the same thing.
