Political Irony

Many of the Republican talking points during the Health care reform debate accused the Democrats of trying to ration health care, cut Medicare, and even institute “death panels” that would decide your granny didn’t deserve to live. Well, the death panels were a complete fabrication, and cutting Medicare turned out to actually be making it more efficient so that it could save money (without cutting actual health care). And rationing? That was a total red herring, since every health care system in existence has to ration care, since you can’t possibly provide infinite amounts of health care.

Well, it turns out that the Republicans weren’t actually against rationing, Medicare cuts, or death panels. In fact, their new “Roadmap for America’s Future” actually includes those things. They were just against the government doing it. Instead, the Republicans want to “privatize” Medicare. In their plan, seniors will be issued vouchers to purchase private health insurance. The catch? The vouchers won’t be big enough to pay for the care that seniors get from Medicare! And they won’t keep pace with rising health insurance rates, so the situation will get worse over time.

Ironically, in presenting the plan, Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI) actually admitted that “Rationing happens today!” — doesn’t that mean that their earlier accusations that the Democrats wanted to ration health care were simply lies?

Republicans are all for rationing as long as it is done by private health insurance companies. And as for Medicare, the Republicans don’t want to just cut it, they want to gut it.