The Senate has just passed a Medicare expansion bill that will include a prescription drug benefit, expanded medical savings accounts, and an option for Medicare recipients to choose some private plans for coverage rather having to stick with the Medicare system itself. The White House worked hard for its passage, and the bill now just basically awaits the President's signature.
I notice that a lot of fiscal conservatives are giving President Bush grief for backing an expansion of Medicare that includes prescription drug coverage. Stephen Green calls it "buying votes," for example.
I note that when President Bush came into office, he had a short list of pretty ambitious ideas.
1) He promised to sign a partial-birth abortion ban.
2) He promised to expand Federal education spending, but to institute testing standards and to expand school choice options.
3) He promised to increase military spending.
4) He promised to expand the child tax credit to help the poor, and to institute across the board rate reductions for all income tax payers.
5) He promised to move Social Security toward individual investment accounts.
6) He promised to expand Medicare to include a prescription drug benefit, but also to give seniors the option to pick and choose among various private plans that might suit their needs better than the traditional Medicare system.
7) He promised expansion of medical savings accounts.
8) He promised some form of Tort reform.
It wasn't a long list. Have you noticed how many of those promises he's kept to date?
"You did what you said you'd do, you bastard!" I get why Democrats would say something like that, but I don't get why Republicans would.
"'You did what you said you'd do, you bastard!' I get why Democrats would say something like that, but I don't get why Republicans would."
Because, God help them, Republicans used to stand for a principle. I think it was called “conservatism”. You know, limited government, personal responsibility, unfettered markets, prudent foreign policy. True conservative should be Bush’s natural enemies.
Because this is just going to accelerate the rate at which the federal budget collapses under the weight of health care?
They voted for him, knowing full well that he was a moderate centrist who had promised to do this. You'd think they'd at least acknowledge that.
I think many of them hoped that he was just saying that to get elected. I think that many conservatives hoped that President Bush was more conservative than he appeared to be, and that he would show his "true" conservatism in office.
On the other hand, it's not like any conservatives were going to vote for Gore.
Heh. I think that you have a good point, Dean.
Myself, I think that what we need is to realize that old people make good fertilizer, and that mulching them is far less expensive than caring for them.
I think that the new name for this system should be "vicious liberalism", to contrast it with "compassionate conservatism". It will feature lots of social services such as subsidized public transportation, equality for all, mulching for the old, and top-quality lawns.
Who's with me?
I'm more pissed at Republicans in general than at the President himself. Congress has just instituted a (400 billion??) drug entitlement that is not even an issue for most seniors. The Government's own poll showed only about 5% of people ON MEDICARE (not just seniors in general) thought this benefit was important and needed.
There are only a handful Senators and Representatives that actually seem to want to limit our government's growth. Most seem to be spending like a terminally ill person with no family to leave the money to.
If you listen to most Democrats, they didn't like the bill because it
1) Allowed competition with the private sector, and/or
2) It didn't spend enough!
Only the most hypocritical Left leaning Democrat will bemoan this spending as bad (see CALPUNDIT's post for a good example of this) as the Dems have been trying to grow the Gov't and spend tax monies for 60+ years.
Are the Republicans trying to push the Democratic party into oblivion by co-opting all these "entitlement" programs. A cynic such as myself is really starting to see it that way.
Whatever happened to the Reagan/Gingrich fiscal conservative???
Black Oak,
We're playing "take away" right now - we're taking away the issues the Democrats have perennially run on and used to bash us; oh, they'll still run on them (they've been flat out of new ideas for a long time now, you see?) and we'll still get bashed...but with what we've done, their bashing will sound quite silly.
Was there a groundswell of support for the prescription drug benefit? Nope; no more than there was for CFR - but there's nothing like passing these two things to put a sock in the chattering classes collective yap. Criticise us on these issue now, and you'll only bring attention to the laws we've passed, which the critics claimed they always wanted.
There is a plan here - and the plan is to win big, because if we win big we'll be able to inject a great deal of really good stuff. Remember the tactical model - Gingrich went right for the big government juglar and got creamed; he was attacked as being against education, against health care, against children...all asinine criticisms, but hard to refute. We've lived and learned - what you do is you pass the silly bills the liberals want, and inject into them conservative content.
There is not nearly enough conservative content in the medicare bill - but, there will be, if we win big next year.
“They voted for him, knowing full well that he was a moderate centrist who had promised to do this. You'd think they'd at least acknowledge that.”
Bill Clinton was a moderate centrist. No one imagined that he, even under a Democrat-controlled Congress, would produce such an abomination. Of course, he didn’t.
“I think that the new name for this system should be "vicious liberalism", to contrast it with "compassionate conservatism". It will feature lots of social services such as subsidized public transportation, equality for all, mulching for the old, and top-quality lawns.”
They already have a name that they coined for themselves: “neoconservatism”.
"There is a plan here - and the plan is to win big..."
Ah, finally a sensible explanation of the new Republican "principle".
Clinton attempted a much bigger, more ambitious reform of the medical system than Bush, Shep, one that certainly would have cost a lot more. No one had to imagine that, because it's what he tried to do.
At least get your facts straight, please.
Mark,
You could be right. The optimust in me has thought the same thing for three years now. The cynic in me really gets steamed as taxes start to loom. My property taxes are due in the next 5 weeks and then it's income taxes.
My biggest problem with this strategy is that most Federal Government programs never go away. Once instituted, they live on perpetually.
We still spend millions on the Rural Electrification Agency - I'm pretty sure every active farm in the country has access to electricity nowadays. Last I heard they "shifted focus" to insure that all farms were able to connect to the internet. We need this, we really NEED this? NO.
My cynical side has reared it's ugly head today.
You're quite right that a Medicare prescription drug benefit was one of Bush's campaign promise and that any of us right-wing types who pillory him for pushing it are forgetting that. OTOH, Bush did not promise to get Congress to pass a universal entitlement that, because it does not include means testing, will have all of us buying Warren Buffett's arthritis medication until the day he dies. Nor did he promise to sign whatever landed on his desk, no matter how much it cost or how tepid the "reform" it included was.
House conservatives pushed pretty hard for some much-needed reform of the system - Medicare was already very shaky before this massive new burden was placed on it yet very little about this bill will improve its long-term solvency problems. Those reforms are barely recognizable in the final bill. As much as I didn't like even the idea of this bill, I could have accepted a better version since he did promise to do it. But the bill we actually got is a nightmare - one the Democrats are already promising they'll "fix" (i.e., bloat even further) down the road.
Black Oak,
True - the death of a government program will be a sign of the End Times; but, we can over the years completely change the content of the programs.
In education, we can continually push more and more choice programs...ie, instead of spending the money on useless, top-down Educrat strategies, we can continuosly pass out more cash for school choice. Eventually, it doesn't matter if the Department of Education is spending 25 billion a year, if the bulk of it is going in the form of vouchers to parents. Its still redistributionist (and thus offensive to conservatism), but at least the kids will come through educated and thus more capable of taking care of themselves and less likely to need other government programs.
On and on it will go - remember, we've only got 51 votes in the Senate, we can't close off debate without at least 9 Democrats on board and there are a couple of "wet" GOPers to worry about as well. We can't just ram through what we want.
ctl:
...old people make good fertilizer, and that mulching them is far less expensive than caring for them...Who's with me?
Eat the rich.
The real vote buying going on here was buying the votes of obstructionist senators... nothing at all would have been passed if there wasn't enough spending in there to get the support of the more moderate Democrats.
Try to get over the sticker shock for a moment and realize that there are some reforms in there too, with hopefully more reforms to come in the area of Social Security.
"Clinton attempted a much bigger, more ambitious reform of the medical system than Bush, Shep, one that certainly would have cost a lot more. No one had to imagine that, because it's what he tried to do.
At least get your facts straight, please."
I never said it wasn’t bigger or more ambitious. It was a comprehensive reform designed to give Medicare long-term sustainability, create competition to the benefit of consumers (not HMOs), while allowing younger Americans to participate to help deal with the problem of the uninsured. You think it would be a bigger abomination than funneling hundreds of billions of tax dollars to HMOs and Pharmaceuticals and allowing them to cherry-pick the system apart? You need to get your reality straight.
"You did what you said you'd do, you bastard!" I get why Democrats would say something like that, but I don't get why Republicans would.
I'd say something like that because I don't agree with everything he says/does. President Bush isn't perfect, but he's the best choice I have. When it came down to the issues, I think the country is in more danger from a SupremeCourt filled with liberals than it is from another entitlement program. Its right to say that programs rarely vanish, but can be changed. Its much harder (impossible?) to change the outlook of a SupremeCourtJustice. I think President Bush will eventually get a conservative constitutionalist on the Court. Thats important to me.
Thats NOT the same as saying I support another huge entitlement program. I could have supported the prescription program with some limits on income. I think Warren Buffet can afford his own meds. Besides, some programs will DEFINITELY have to change in time. The way things are now, Medicare and Social Security will collapse. When they collapse, I don't think it will destroy our culture. On the other hand, I DO think that it is entirely within the realm of possibility that the Court can have a TREMENDOUSLY bad influence on our culture. For me, choosing President Bush was as simple as identifying the most important issue to the big picture and going with it. I never expected him to be perfect to my way of thinking, but I also NEVER said that I'd agree with every single thing he did.
He also wanted to ballance the budget.
Everyone wants to balance the budget. It's like being against cancer.
True.
Because, God help them, Republicans used to stand for a principle. I think it was called “conservatism”. You know, limited government, personal responsibility, unfettered markets, prudent foreign policy. True conservative should be Bush’s natural enemies.
Actually, the principle both Republicans and Democrats stand for is that you can promise anything you want during the campaign, because no one who matters believes you, just the voters.
They get upset when someone does what he says he'll do because the same might be expected of them at a later date.
...old people make good fertilizer, and that mulching them is far less expensive than caring for them...Who's with me?
The French.
It was a comprehensive reform designed to give Medicare long-term sustainability, create competition to the benefit of consumers (not HMOs), while allowing younger Americans to participate to help deal with the problem of the uninsured.
Yeah, suuuure.
Look, here's the real difference between Republicans and Democrats.
Republicans are taking the war on terror seriously, Democrats aren't. It's not a question of "patriotism". If the Dems really BELIEVED that the jihadists want to kill us all, they'd be nagging the Republicans for not being harsh enough. But they DON'T believe it. They believe that it's all Bushs fault and just putting in a Democrat for President will cool out the whole situation.
Republicans act as if beating the Democrats is part of the war on terror, even though they don't say that. I can't say that I think they are wrong.