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Rationing

[ 21 ] August 28, 2012 | Scott Lemieux

Republicans are for it. But their version means that people who aren’t affluent just won’t be able to get health care, so it’s rationing by merit!

Comments (21)

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  1. DrDick says:
    August 28, 2012 at 7:34 am

    The Republican vision of a “just world” is one where the rich have everything and the poors (everyone else) have to beg for crumbs and do what they are told.

    Reply
  2. TT says:
    August 28, 2012 at 7:38 am

    You mean insurance companies will make out like bandits not just as they traditionally have, by screwing the poor and middle class, but now they’ll get the added treat of doing it to the elderly en masse as well? I guess we can’t accuse the GOP of not having its priorities straight. Well, at they’re Serious and they Have A Plan.

    Reply
    • Malaclypse says:
      August 28, 2012 at 7:41 am

      It does help if you think of the Republicans as Cylons, yes.

      Reply
      • David Hunt says:
        August 28, 2012 at 8:54 am

        They’re not cylons. Most of the cylons were entirely too hot to be Republican politicians. The Republicans are the rejected model designs that the cylons never used. It’s why they can never get over their victimization complex even when they’re in charge. It also helps explain why they want to destroy humanity via messing up the climate…

        Reply
        • Malaclypse says:
          August 28, 2012 at 8:59 am

          Most of the cylons were entirely too hot to be Republican politicians.

          I did think of that after posting. It seems clear that in this timeline, Cavil is the last surviving model.

          Reply
      • DrDick says:
        August 28, 2012 at 10:08 am

        I prefer to simply think of them as particularly nasty little sociopaths.

        Reply
      • ajay says:
        August 28, 2012 at 11:24 am

        It does help if you think of the Republicans as Cylons

        All about the forced pregnancy and nuclear war?

        Reply
    • Incontinentia Buttocks says:
      August 28, 2012 at 8:20 am

      Say what you like about the tenets of the Republican Party, Dude, at least it’s an ethos!

      Reply
  3. Charlie Sweatpants says:
    August 28, 2012 at 8:43 am

    I don’t know if was Digby or someone she was quoting, but a year or so ago she pointed out that when Ronald Reagan, blessed be his name, started dismantling the government of California, the reactionary middle class people who voted for lower taxes and less services figured he was just going to be taking stuff from spoiled kids and ungrateful minorities. Fast forward forty years and it’s the middle class, including a lot of elderly people who voted for Proposition 13 in their younger years, having their health care slashed out of existence and seeing their roads disintegrate.

    Now that same pattern is playing out nationally. Come November, a solid majority of 50+ year olds are going to vote for Ryan-Romney on the theory that those trustworthy looking white boys will only take stuff away from other people, not them. The difference is that these people won’t have to wait decades to see their benefits get immolated in favor of tax cuts worth pennies on the dollar to them. Much as I enjoy schadenfreude, that won’t even be close to worth it.

    Reply
    • BigHank53 says:
      August 28, 2012 at 8:46 am

      On the bright side, you’ll get to experience the economic miracles of Columbia without the inconvenience of travel.

      If Ryan gets in after Romney, you’ll get to live in Haiti, too.

      Reply
      • MPAVictoria says:
        August 28, 2012 at 9:15 am

        You know in a better world that comment would be funny. In this one it is just depressing.

        Reply
      • Matthew Stevens says:
        August 28, 2012 at 10:22 am

        On the bright side, you’ll get to experience the economic miracles of Columbia without the inconvenience of travel.

        I think you mean ColOmbia. Guys from Columbia are already running the place.

        Reply
    • Holden Pattern says:
      August 28, 2012 at 9:17 am

      First they came for the colored and the hispanics, and I did not speak out…

      Reply
  4. howard says:
    August 28, 2012 at 9:22 am

    i know the point you’re trying to make, but “rationing” isn’t the right term here any market-based economic transaction involves rationing: that’s the point of the pricing mechanism, to align supply and demand (that’s why the correct response when right-wingers complain that obamacare is going to “ration” medical services is “what do you think is happening right now? only it’s private insurance companies doing the rationing!”).

    as krugman writes in the column you link to, what we’re talking about here is voucherizing, which is to say, we would be moving from a “defined benefit” to a “defined contribution” plan that will be insufficient for most people.

    Reply
    • DrDick says:
      August 28, 2012 at 12:56 pm

      It is indeed “rationing” (limiting access to a resource) based on the ability to pay for it (which is actually central to capitalism and why it is antithetical to democracy).

      Reply
  5. Sherm says:
    August 28, 2012 at 9:23 am

    Yet, I heard this morning that a CNN/ORC International poll has Obama leading Romney 49 percent to 48 percent on who would best handle Medicare and that an ABC News/Washington Post poll has Romney leading 45 percent to 42 percent.

    It’s amazing how effective well-financed lies can be when the media doesn’t do its job.

    Reply
  6. Jesse Levine says:
    August 28, 2012 at 10:10 am

    Don’t worry. This weekend Fearless Leader toughly promised to compromise with them after the election.

    Reply
  7. Snarki, child of Loki says:
    August 28, 2012 at 11:18 am

    The GOP is in the forefront of innovative uses of rationing.

    They’ve been rationing the same 100 IQ points among their leadership for DECADES now.

    Reply
  8. Kurzleg says:
    August 28, 2012 at 11:37 am

    I know you’re just bringing the snark, Scott, but you’d find an overwhelming majority of GOPers agreeing with that statement.

    Reply

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