I'm starting to think that we should cut Medicare/Medicaid entirely. Then we can look at the health reform package holistically.

what would lbj do? call sen. tom coburn from oklahoma and tell him, "since the government as the solution is never correct," don't bother calling me or my administration the next time a town is blown away in the next tornado; or when a federal building is bombed killing 168 oklahomans, don't call us; call their neighbors.

I called this one when Bush jammed his version of the drug plan thru. I told anybody that would listen, and some who would not, that this was the start of the Grover Norquist dictum. Since tax cuts were not working, the only way left to get their way is to bankrupt the nation. We can start by ammending the drug benefit into into a system that is there to benefit the nation, not the drug companies.

Brian, thanks for putting this together.

Excellent compilation and post!

I do think that their hypocrisy is amusing, but I also think their bigger problem should be credibility.

Why should we believe the gloom and doom now, since their predictions of gloom on this subject have never proved true.

Death Panels indeed! Their own people believe this stuff and always are willing to do so. Witness the "Birther" plurality in Republican Identified voters.

Still the issue of credibility with independents is critical. Steele is convincing some independent voters that the Gubmint is meddling with their Medicare.

You just can't miss the historic schizophrenia of the republican party. Or maybe they just say what someone is paying them to say at any given time. One thing for sure is they have no guiding principles worth a shit.

Considering that the demography in the future looks dismal for the GOP, courting the over 65 crowd is just brilliant. Also it is important to remember that if the GOP presidents had kept there hands off of surplus medicare revenues (12.8 trillion dollars has been borrowed from S.S. and medicare), it would not be in the dire straits in finds itself in. 2017 will be the first year where more monies will be paid out than taken in, thanks to Reagan and the Bushes.

It's not just the Repuglican party--the AMA was the 'invisible hand' behind Reagan's astroturf recording. This was kept secret at the time, with Reagan doing a great acting job (his forte) at being 'just a concerned citizen.' One hand washes the other, as they say.

AMA - keeping healthcare expensive and bureaucratic for 100 years.