LOGO: Truthdig: Drilling Beneath the Headlines. A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman. Winner 2013 Webby Awards for Best Political Website
May 25, 2013

 Choose a size
Text Size

Trending:     chris hedges     economy     elizabeth warren     politics     robert scheer
Most Read

British Terror Attack Suspect Had Watched Friend Cut to Pieces

Three Questions Left Unanswered by Obama’s Counterterrorism Speech

Truthdigger of the Week: Medea Benjamin

How to Make a Million Dollars an Hour

Taking Gay Hypocrites to Task Over Bradley Manning

Most Comments
Most Emailed

Reports
 * NEW! * A Cooler Century? Wait and See

Ear to the Ground

A/V Booth

Arts & Culture
A Call to Action
Act of Congress

Digs

Truthdig Bazaar more items

 
Ear to the Ground

Michele Bachmann and the GOP’s Anti-Medicare Bluff

Email this item Email    Print this item Print    Share this item... Share

Posted on Apr 30, 2011
AP / Jim Cole

On Friday, ultraconservative free-market booster Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) suddenly came out as a supporter of government-run Medicare. But this potential presidential candidate’s break with the official Republican Party line was not surprising. The GOP has been under attack by its own base for the past few weeks, ever since House Republicans voted to pass the radical Paul Ryan budget “reform” bill, which would double the cost of health care for seniors, among a lot of other nasty things. As they are being berated by their own constituents at town hall meetings all across America, right-wingers are simply trying to minimize the damage and figure out a way to backtrack on their plan to privatize Medicare and Medicaid without looking like the political frauds that they are.

You can rest assured that, right now, some of the best political minds in America are working to solve this problem.  —YL

The Raw Story:

The tea party darling, an unabashed supporter of hard-right causes, took to the conservative blog RedState.com on Thursday to sound off on the tax-cutting virtues of House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) proposal—and then she reminded people how much she values Medicare, the government-run, single payer health insurance program for seniors.

“I supported that budget blueprint, though I’ve expressed caution about how we approach the issue of Medicare,” Bachmann wrote. “We must keep our promises to those who receive Medicare benefits, and those who are nearing the age of Medicare eligibility. Our challenge is to reduce the soaring amounts that government spends on health care, without burdening those who are most vulnerable.”

The words are a notable departure from the traditional Republican talking points about the Ryan proposal. GOP lawmakers from top to bottom have insisted the privatization plan will “save” Medicare, and that the new “premium support” subsidies will leave seniors with health insurance plans that are as good as what members of Congress enjoy (a disputed claim).

Read more

More Below the Ad

Advertisement


New and Improved Comments

If you have trouble leaving a comment, review this help page. Still having problems? Let us know. If you find yourself moderated, take a moment to review our comment policy.

By labman57, May 1, 2011 at 10:58 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Ryan and his fellow health insurance lobby lackeys in the Republican Party have
taken a “General MacArthur” approach to destroying our nation’s Medicare system. 
They won’t make it immediately die—they simply want it to slowly fade away.
… and with it the ability of future senior citizens to obtain affordable chronic
condition treatment and preventative health care.

Report this

By ribbie149, May 1, 2011 at 7:35 am Link to this comment

This lunatic, who barely squeaked out a victory in a
supposedly “safe” district in the last election, sees
the handwriting on the wall and knows she will LOSE to
Tarryl Clark next time around if she doesn’t back off
her anti-Medicare rhetoric.  You’re going to see a lot
of Republican’ts back-peddling in the next few months.

Report this

By TDoff, April 30, 2011 at 4:51 pm Link to this comment

Wolfgang Schpritzer, the Harvard-educated psychiatrist who was hired to ‘consult’ with all the GOPer presidential candidates, beamed with satisfaction as he read Bachmann’s ‘expression of caution about how we approach Medicare’. Wolfgang, also a ‘Tea Party darling’, said Bachmann’s statement was ‘a first tiny step, a sign that she might be responding to my treatment for the intensive psychotic struggles her inner demons force upon her 24/7’. ‘However’, Wolfgang cautioned, ‘This is not a sign that she is approaching a mental state any sound person would think of as acceptable, or ‘normal’. It is merely an indication that, though she has a long, hard road to follow to approach a rational approach to life, she has taken the first ‘baby steps’ away from her obsessive destructive rage against herself and the human race’.
Asked if his other GOP candidate/patients were making any progress, Wolfgang stated, ‘Professional ethics prohibit my commenting on specific patients. I did commence treatment with the two worst-cases. But I no longer work with or speak with Paul Ryan, he is irrecoverable, a lost, frantic, destructive, ill-formed child, in my opinion. And while Bachmann may be past the self-immolation phase of her psychoses, though we still have her under 24/7 surveillance as a precaution, she is facing mandatory life-long counseling if she expects to approach a productive life.
As far as the others, I am looking forward to examining the weird complexities of the twisted neuroses of the one called ‘Santorum’, which, I understand, is the Latin for ‘a**hole’. And if the one known as ‘Simple Sarah’ were to announce, and thus qualify as one of my patients, I look forward to the lifetime’s worth of in-depth analytical papers on ‘Feminine Mental Aberrations’ I’ll be able to publish in the psychiatric journals.

Report this

By berniem, April 30, 2011 at 3:23 pm Link to this comment

What’s with this “conservative” BS? People like Bachmann are reactionary, neo-fascist demigogues whose only desire is to return power and societal control to those of wealth and ideological purity meaning that those not anointed by the fundamentalist, right wing, evangelical christian taliban have no right to engage in any meaningful way with the governance of this nation! I defy anyone to show me what these people would “conserve” other than a benighted and regressive society!FREE BRADLEY MANNING!!!!!

Report this
Newsletter

sign up to get updates


 
 
 
 
Join the Liberal Blog Advertising Network
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.
© 2013 Truthdig, LLC. All rights reserved.