To Participate on Thurstonblog

email yyyyyyyyyy58@gmail.com, provide profile information and we'll email your electronic membership


Saturday, July 25, 2015

Jeb, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are not entitlements-- we pay in advance for those!

...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
*  Republicans always want to start solving a problem with the elderly, sick, children or the middle class.  NEVER with the wealthy, CEO class or the 1%'ers.  I wonder why.
*  His father tried, his brother tried harder and now he wants to kill medicare and social security all over again. Proves that stupidity does run in the Bush family.
*  So I'm still working at 69 because I can't afford to retire for a few more years. Does that mean the money I have been forced to pay into the system is now never to be returned to me in medical services? When is John Ellis going to send me a check for over 50 years of contributions. And if the son of Babs, the succubus from hell, who spawned the anti-christ, expects my vote, then I'm LMFAO.
*  entitlement???? what the heck did I pay into since I was 16 yrs old with my first job????
*  I see nothing wrong with admitting we've got a problem coming down the road and trying to fix it before it gets here. It's his solution I find objectionable. If we take care of our government during our working years, it is not an entitlement that they provide for us in our golden years. It is a common sense social contract. Efforts should be made against those who gouge the costs and not those who need the services.
*  If the government pays back the 2+ TRILLION dollars they have "borrowed" over the years when Social Security was more solvent, I'm sure the program would do better. First, they embezzle the funds, then want to change the rules. Not much different than corporate raids on pension funds.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Bush Stung by Backlash to His Call for Overhauling Medicare
By Eric Pianin, July 24, 2015

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush got a practical lesson this week on the political risks of venturing into entitlement reform – especially when it has to do with reforming Medicare healthcare benefits for seniors.

Bush, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and a handful of other Republican presidential candidates have begun addressing the need for reforms of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security to avert a return to massive budget deficits in the coming decade. But in the process, they are drawing fire from liberal Democrats and senior advocacy organizations.

During a discussion sponsored by the conservative advocacy group Americans for Prosperity Wednesday evening, Bush rebuked liberals for refusing to talk about entitlement reform and gave the example of Democrats' response to Rep. Paul Ryan's proposal to overhaul Medicare. Ryan’s proposal would preserve Medicare coverage for the current senior population but would move towards a voucher system to help finance health care coverage for future generations of elderly Americans.

"The first thing I saw was a TV ad of a guy that looked just like Paul Ryan ... that was pushing an elderly person off the cliff in a wheelchair. That's their response," Bush said derisively.

"I think a lot of people recognize that we need to make sure we fulfill the commitment to people that have already received the benefits, that are receiving the benefits,” Bush said. “But that we need to figure out a way to phase out this program for others and move to a new system that allows them to have something, because they're not going to have anything."

Democrats seized on the comments, saying they show Bush is out of touch with middle class families. At a town hall in Gorham, N.H., on Thursday, Bush attacked Democrats for not being willing to have a grown up conversation about unsustainable entitlement promises. He assured a woman accused him of attacking seniors and threatening to do away with or change Medicare that his plan would not change Medicare for seniors who are currently receiving the benefit.

"No, no... I didn't say that," Bush responded. "I said we're going to have to reform our entitlement system." 

Bush, who served two terms as governor of a state with a huge population of seniors, said his comments on reform had been taken out of context.

Ray Buckley, chair of the New Hampshire Democratic Party Ray Buckley, told reporters that Bush and other Republicans would face strong opposition in his state’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary next year if they try to “destroy Medicare."

He added that Bush is highly mistaken if he thinks phasing out Medicare will be a winning argument during the campaign for the GOP presidential nomination.  I'm happy to take that bet,” he said. “Not here in the Granite State.”

After month of silence, many of the 2016 presidential candidates have begun talking about how the government’s $18.6 trillion in long-term debt could threaten the U.S. economy, and what they would do to address the mounting problem if they win election, as The Fiscal Times reported earlier this week.

A combination of factors, including the international debt crisis in Greece and the Congressional Budget Office’s repeated warnings that the U.S. could be headed for a return to trillion-dollar-a-year deficits, may have caught their attention. 
...................................................................................................................................................................

No comments: