Not hearting old people

Remember those angry seniors, protesting proposed modest cuts in Medicare as part of the overall health care reform proposals? Well, it seems that Republicans and their spokespeople, now that they've pretty well demagogued health care reform to the brink of death, are now turning on those self same seniors. First the spokesperson:

The odd thing is that when you turn to political life, we are living in an age of reverse-generativity. Far from serving the young, the old are now taking from them. First, they are taking money. According to Julia Isaacs of the Brookings Institution, the federal government now spends $7 on the elderly for each $1 it spends on children.

Second, they are taking freedom. In 2009, for the first time in American history, every single penny of federal tax revenue went to pay for mandatory spending programs, according to Eugene Steuerle of the Urban Institute. As more money goes to pay off promises made mostly to the old, the young have less control.

Third, they are taking opportunity. For decades, federal spending has hovered around 20 percent of G.D.P. By 2019, it is forecast to be at 25 percent and rising. The higher tax rates implied by that spending will mean less growth and fewer opportunities. Already, pension costs in many states are squeezing education spending.

"Taking freedom"? Not sure what that means, but anyway, Brooks later goes on to predict, against all available historical evidence, that these old tea partiers will now agree to sacrifice their benefits in the cause of their grandchildren. But in the meanwhile, it's pretty clear that these "geezers" are parasites.

So, what to do about them? Paul ("Not Tim") Ryan answers a question many of us ask when Republican wind bags complain about deficits and call for cuts in "discretionary" spending: what would you cut? In Ryan's case, a rather impressive proposal that would actually put us back on a path towards reducing the deficit substantially -- privatize Medicare and Medicaid (and, of course, Social Security despite the fact that it's not the cause of our current financial problems) and put the rising cost of health care firmly on the shoulders of those responsible: not providers, but the old parasites themselves.

That's a bit of a slog, so here's the translation: The proposal would shift risk from the federal government to seniors themselves. The money seniors would get to buy their own policies would grow more slowly than their health-care costs, and more slowly than their expected Medicare benefits, which means that they'd need to either cut back on how comprehensive their insurance is or how much health-care they purchase. Exacerbating the situation -- and this is important -- Medicare currently pays providers less and works more efficiently than private insurers, so seniors trying to purchase a plan equivalent to Medicare would pay more for it on the private market.

It's hard, given the constraints of our current debate, to call something "rationing" without being accused of slurring it. But this is rationing, and that's not a slur. This is the government capping its payments and moderating their growth in such a way that many seniors will not get the care they need. This is, in its simplest form, a way to limit the use of a finite resource: Money

[...]

You can argue whether this cost control is better or worse than other forms of cost control. But it's a blunt object of a proposal, swung with incredible force at a vulnerable target. Consider the fury that Republicans turned on Democrats for the insignificant cuts to Medicare that were contained in the health-care reform bill, or the way Bill Clinton gutted Newt Gingrich for proposing far smaller cuts to the program's spending. This proposal would take Medicare from costing an expected 14.3 percent of GDP in 2080 to less than 4 percent. That's trillions of dollars that's not going to health care for seniors. The audacity is breathtaking.

The audacity of hopelessness?