[J]ust as the president's "mission accomplished" speech on the deck of the Abraham Lincoln last May 1 now seems a premature declaration of success...
Love the circumlocution! "Premature declaration of success","exaggeration" ...
... in Iraq, he may be minimizing both the political and policy obstacles to a Medicare victory worth celebrating.
The most contentious issue for the conferees may well be the role of private insurers. House Republicans want to move seniors from Medicare into private plans. They propose heavy subsidies to lure insurers into a marketplace whose costs seem risky to many actuaries.
aWol's corporatist administration, of course, only believes in taking on risk for corporations. It's entirely acceptable to them to force your grandmother to take the risk of moving into an HMO to get the prescription drugs that keep her alive.
Key Senate Democrats are prepared to fight -- perhaps even to filibuster -- ...
Good for them! With the Republicans, we either get nothing, or worse than nothing. So why conduct business as usual?
... provisions that go much further than the modest incentives to insurers in the Senate bill.
Why even a little privatization? Are the Beltway Dems believers in secondary virginity?
Robert Blendon of Harvard, who polls on health care politics, said he expects that by 2006, when both bills would begin drug benefits, "it will become very clear" to seniors that "this is inadequate."
First (before 2004) the bait, then (in 2006) the switch. Republican tactics 101.
UPDATE: Polling on Medicare (thanks to alert reader MB). Looks like the seniors aren't taking aWol's bait. They don't accept the overall goal of the Republican plan, which is to drive as many seniors as possible into managed care by providing a government subsidy for it.
Only 37% of Americans say they favor [a manged care] proposal, while 59% oppose it. Opposition to a managed care plan is greater among Americans aged 50 and older. ...
Americans age 65 and older are dubious that they will personally benefit from the changes to Medicare. Just 20% say the changes will improve their situations, while 18% say they will be made worse. A majority, 51%, says the changes will have no effect on them, personally.
It's your mother, your father, your grandmother, your grandfather we're talking about here....