Hullabaloo

Sunday, July 01, 2012

 
Dazed and confused by the betrayal of John Roberts

by digby

One unexpected upside of the health care decision is the fact that the Republicans are so shocked and unbalanced that they can't think straight:

[T]he GOP leader in the U.S. Senate gave a surprising answer on "Fox News Sunday" when asked how Republicans would provide health care coverage to 30 million uninsured Americans.

"That is not the issue," Sen. Mitch McConnell said. "The question is how to go step by step to improve the American health care system. It is already the finest health care system in the world."

"Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace interrupted, "You don't think 30 million uninsured is an issue?"

"We're not going to turn the American health care system into a western European system," McConnell said. "That's exactly what is at the heart of Obamacare. They want to ... have the federal government take over all American health care. The federal government can't handle Medicare or Medicaid."

I'm sure McConnell isn't quite this stupid so he must be playing to Murrican throwbacks who think that Western Europe is some hellscape with starving urchins and people dying in the streets. The idea that our health care system is superior is a delusion that only egotistical provincial Americans would believe.

We do good medicine here. So do they. The difference is that there everyone has access to it. The only thing that can really explain the difference at this point is that Americans are selfish assholes who believe that people who aren't "like them" (insured by their employers, on Medicare or filthy rich) have earned the right to stay alive if they get sick.

Meanwhile, we have Paul Ryan just talking straight-up gibberish:

ABCNews' "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos asked Ryan about Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's contested claim that health care reform simultaneously cuts $500 billion from Medicare, hikes taxes by $500 billion and adds trillions to the deficit over a 10-year stretch.

"By that accounting," Stephanopoulos said, "your own budget, which Gov. Romney has endorsed, would also have $500 billion in Medicare cuts."

"Well our budget keeps that money for Medicare to extend its solvency," Ryan said. "What Obamacare does is it takes that money from Medicare to spend on Obamacare."

Stephanopoulos was confused: "Congressman, correct me if I am wrong: I thought your Medicare savings were put toward deficit reduction, debt reduction."

"Which extends the solvency of Medicare," Ryan said. "What they do in Obamacare, they try to count this dollar twice. They claim that this helps Medicare solvency and, at the same time, they spend this money on creating Obamacare.

"The trustee report for Medicare, they say the same thing," Ryan added. "You can't count these dollars twice. In our budget we make sure all of these dollars from Medicare savings go toward extending the solvency of Medicare and don't go toward spending new money on Obamacare."

Uh huh. I guess he wants to destroy Medicare in order to save it?

Clearly they haven't quite found their footing yet. But I have great faith they will eventually figure out just the right propaganda and misinformation to explain themselves to the villagers and fire up their troops. This is what they're good at. It's the only thing they're good at.


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digby 7/01/2012 10:00:00 AM