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RE :”The Democratic Party is urging Americans to choose Medicare as we've always known it rather than a new plan by Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) that would enroll seniors in private health insurance beginning in 2022. This choice is a hoax: Medicare as we've always known it is already gone. It was eviscerated by President Obama’s health law. Yet if the president and the Democratic Party successfully bamboozle voters, they may win back independents and registered Democrats who voted for Republicans in 2010. The 2012 election could turn on this falsehood. The truth is that the Obama health law reduces future funding for Medicare by $575 billion over the next 10 years and spends the money on other programs, including a vast expansion of Medicaid. In 2019, Medicare spending under the Obama health law is projected to be $14,731 per senior, instead of $16,162 if the law had not passed, according to Medicare actuaries (Health Affairs, October 2010). “

I agree. Democrats are making it politically a choice between current medicare and the Ryan plan. Well few would personally select the Ryan plan for themselves compared to today's Medicare benefits (that we pay for now with medicare taxes) if given the choice.

So Republicans need to EFFECTIVELY make the case for what the real choice is :

1) How much does medicare cost (with time)?
2) How much revenue can be collected to pay for it and where?
3) What are the real choices for medicare?
4) What are the real drawbacks/benefits of future medicare vs Ryan plan?
5) What problems will the higher taxes cause?
6) What about higher deficits, what problems will they cause
7) Why will Ryan's plan help me (average voters) personally?

Maybe they need to to have someone write a paper since this plan isnt going anyplace anytime soon. And some decent talking points so their members can defend it on TV and Townhall meetings.

The non-secret "secret" about the high cost of American health care compared to other nations is the billions upon billions we spend in essentially futile care during the last six months of life. Barack Obama, Don Berwick, and Paul Ryan would all agree with this if their names could be kept off the quote.

If the system is to survive the demographic shifts of the next decades, this practice simply has to stop.

It may be that Paul Ryan prevails, and that the Medicare HMO's who are put in charge will determine that quadruple bypasses for patients who've had two strokes are "clinically ineffective" as compared to some prescriptions and a walker.

It may be that Barack Obama prevails, and that the Medicare advisory panel decides that a hip replacement is not "indicated" for 90 year olds, and that a nice wheelchair is more appropriate.

But make no mistake, these decisions will all be cost motivated. Everyone who works in health care on the financial side has seen this coming for a decade.

The "golden age" of Medicare, when every new technology was covered, and when many weeks in the ICU preceded every death, are over.

Repeat - those days are over.

Common set of defend-able talking points would help.

Thanks sickoflibs.

None of this matters because Congress has already poured all the Medicare and SS money down a rat hole. I am just saying that we should cut all and i mean all pork before we look at other cuts. We got a guy here that has a monoply on communications in 3 counties and keeps getting millions and millions of dollars in grants and stimulas in an area so depressed that most cant afford 80 dollars a month for dsl and other companies cant get in here..the governement is helping him maintain the monoply. The little ghost town near here charges on average $80 per month water and sewer and the water is not fit to drink.they got grant money 3 times to to fix it. we got sidewalks and ramps to nowhere but no streets we can drive on..the list goes on and on..so why not cut the pork first and stop some of the slush funds that keep these jerks in office.

it would not take a smart person to write the talking points. seems like conservative congress critters are trying hard not to talk plain english.