Republican Senator Demands ‘Very Painful Cuts To Medicare’

[DonViejo]

By Igor Volsky on Dec 2, 2012 at 11:42 am

On Sunday, during an appearance on Meet the Press, Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) reiterated his call for restructuring entitlement programs like Medicare, highlighting the “very painful cuts” he has proposed as part of a package to avert the fiscal cliff. Corker 242-page plan calls for a Paul Ryan-like proposal to transform the guaranteed Medicare benefit into a voucher plan for beneficiaries.

Host David Gregory seemed to agree with Corker’s characterization and pressed fellow panelist Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) to accept reforms that will shift health care costs to seniors in order to show that Democrats are “serious” about entitlements:

CORKER: Look, I laid out in great detail very painful cuts to Medicare. I just did it in a 242 page bill that I’ve shared with the White House...

GREGORY: Name some specific programs that ought to be cut that would cause pain in terms of the role of our government that Democrats are prepared to support.
McCASKILL: Well, I think you can see more cuts frankly and a lot of us voted for more cuts in the farm program…and defense. I spent a lot of times in the wings of the Pentagon. if you don’t think there’s more money to be cut in contracting at the pentagon, you don’t understand what has happened at the Pentagon....

CORKER: David, as much as I love Claire, those are not the painful cuts that have to happen. We really have to look at much deeper reforms to the entitlements … I think the Speaker is frustrated right now because as you’ve mentioned, the White House keeps spiking the ball on tax increases for the wealthy. But has not yet been forthcoming on real entitlement reform. And without the two, there really is no deal.

more:
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/12/02/1269211/republican-senator-calls-for-very-painful-cuts-to-medicare/

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. "Very painful" only for the people who depend on it.

It's easy to propose painful cuts when you're not the one who will feel the pain.

Asshole.

[The Magistrate]

2. Better, Sir, Would Be 'Very Painful Cuts' To Mr. Corker....

"We all have our little lists, of those who'd not be missed."

[GeorgeGist]

16. +1000

[truebrit71]

35. x2

[Samantha]

39. Many people I know in Tennessee have no idea how Corker misrepresents

their best interests. They love this man because he is a good Christian man whose family has been around a long time. I cannot for the life of me comprehend how those in the middle class and those who are poverty ridden make their way to the polls and vote for him. Fox News is everywhere, and politics are preached from the altars of many churches. Both of those latter problems need to change, and somehow, someway progressives need to reach out to many people in red states pointing out that by their own votes they seriously harm their own lives.

Sam

[patrice]

3. Farm subsidies have made ROYALTY out of people like Sam Brownback & Michelle Bachman, divine right

monarchy actually, just look at Sam Brownback's "Jesus plus nothing™ " Kansas.

And the painful cuts to Medicare won't work if Corker et all think those cuts MUST come from services, because what CAUSES abuse in services is abuse higher up in MANAGEMENT & administrative costs, which are strategized to interfere with the development of patient specific knowledge bases derived from direct care, one : one service. That interference in service is the essence of "health" "care" for profit and can even, in some situations, also interfere with non-profit health care by more covert means.

[handmade34]

4. "equally painful cuts"

what a bunch of b**ls&it... there need be no serious pain if we all work together...

make medicare part of a universal health care system... that would help

[ashling]

12. Exactly.

Gregory and the MSM generally, though there are some minor exceptions, should be ashamed of themselves for buying into the meme that "painful cuts", i.e., austerity, is necessary. Framing the discussion like this is not only wrong, it is dangerous.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

5. Uh...Do these guys realize that they LOST the election?

Stephanie Miller noted last week that Republians are acting like it's some sort of hostage situation, only they're not the ones holding the gun.

[Fawke Em]

38. Unfortunately, he didn't.

We didn't have a Democratic alternative in Tennessee.

The guy who won the Dem nomination was actually a Republican.

Sigh.

[mucifer]

6. I hope this isn't what senator Durbin is talking about.

[patrice]

7. There are a lot of people trying to scare people with the word "cuts". One way to orient ourselves

through what is going to happen (and this is based on lots of my personal and my family's experiences with our own loved ones in elder care) is to protect and professionally develop (training etc.) the direct care-givers as much as possible, which includes, just like teachers, lowering the care-receiver to care-giver ratio to as close to one : one as much of the time as possible. Cuts that increase that ratio and reduce the quality of its time/duration, are cuts that we should fight with everything at our disposal.

[John2]

17. Lets

quit attacking the Democrats as if they are against us. Senator Durbin is actually in the place with Senator McCaskill and I liked what I heard her say today about the Fiscal Cliff and Susan Rice. I liked what she said about the attacks on Susan Rice and about Grover Norquist. I think she actually had Senator Corker tongue tied after that appearance on Meet the Press.

She actually agreed with the President on spending cuts and her explanation of reforming medicare by means testing and mentioning Donald Trump ( not paying his medicare) looks appealing. And she and Corker both are worth millions of Dollars but she actually seems to know more about the middle class and working poor than most in Congress. I think Missourians are pretty lucky to have her as a Senator. She handled that just like she handled Atkins in her race. She was pretty impressive. I wish she was my Senator. That doesn't mean anybody like Ed Rendell though, this dude needs to stop representing Democrats and go away. I'm tired of listening to him.

[BlueCaliDem]

8. Corker, cuts to services and benefits to Medicare is as painful to most recipients as

you losing your seat in the U.S. Senate. Compare the two next time you want to know just how painful it can be.

And as for there being "no deal" without victorious Democrats bowing their heads to the losers of this election and loyal social safety net haters, it's better to have NO deal rather than accepting a BAD deal, and what Corker advocates is clearly a bad, BAD deal.

When will the American people understand, especially those Medicare and Social Security beneficiaries, that the Republican Party have HATED, absolutely HATED, social security, medicare, and medicaid since its inception?? When will they hold those hates of the modest social safety net to account and NOT VOTE FOR THEM as they continue to do?

[patrice]

9. Right on! "NO deal (is preferable to) a BAD deal" nt

[BlueCaliDem]

18. Exactly! It might hurt us a little, but I will be happy to go over the fiscal curb

in order to force the Republican Party to stand with this country for once, instead of catering to the MIC and Corporate Big-Wigs. Elections have consequences, and it's time the Republicans are served a nice large piece of humble pie.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

10. Corker wants to get rid of Medicare

[BlueCaliDem]

19. All Republicans do. That's why it just flabbergasts me that seniors vote for these

charlatans. It's beyond my understanding why chicken would support Colonel Sanders.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

25. Seniors need to be informed

[BeyondGeography]

26. Or reformed

I'll believe it was about information when I see a white D-presidential candidate post the same numbers with 65+ as Obama did.

[BlueCaliDem]

31. Sadly, you're correct.

I believe President Obama won the least number of 65-plussers than any of his Democratic predecessors.

[Zambero]

11. Corker's reference to pain is actually a post-election GOP hangover

He and other Republicans still don't quite get it. If his party had won less than a month ago, he might have actually passed the laugh test with those assinine comments. As it is, his party decisively lost the presidential race and also lost seats in both houses of Congress. With those results so did any pretense of keeping the upper-income Bush tax rates low while decimating Medicare. If there is bitter medicine to be dispensed, Corker et al are clearly on the receiving end.

[DreamGypsy]

13. Spiking the ball on tax increases...

As long as President Obama keeps spiking the ball on tax increases for the wealthy



the Republicans like Boehner and Corker will continue to dive



Game over. The folks in Blue win.

[otohara]

14. I'm New to Medicare - What More

can they cut?

I'm kinda in shock at how much I will have to pay to continue allergy shots for the next 3 years. I am effing miserable with allergies and the headaches they cause. My out of pocket costs will be $200.00 per month.

The RX drug plan I signed up with has so far rejected 2 of the 3 meds I take.

[Texin]

22. I think some of the changes to doughnut hole have not completely kicked into place yet.

I could be wrong about that. At any rate, I'm an asthmatic and have numerous allergies. I'm on a private insurance plan that has a tiered drug coverage plan, and many of the RXs that have been prescribed aren't covered by the plan (or so meagerly that I have to go out of pocket). More and more of these allergy and asthma prescription drugs are becoming generic. I'm not going to insult your intelligence by asking whether you've talked to your doctor about generic equivalents, but there are many available. And most doctors are visited routinely by pharma reps on a daily basis with little bonuses and incentives given out them to dispense scripts to their patients. Tell the doctor that your budget won't allow you to go out of pocket on these prescriptions and tell him/her that you'd appreciate a generic.

[otohara]

30. Thank You

I need to read up on doughnut hole ..

[AndyTiedye]

15. Their "solution" to the "cliff" is to throw granny off it

[NHDEMFORLIFE]

20. The hypocrisy is mind numbing

The folks who claimed that Obamacare would include "death panels" now want to serve as a de facto "death panel" by deciding that poor and middle class seniors, those who desperately need Medicare. will be booted to the curb.

[Texin]

21. What's the REAL reason why these shits keep beating that drum?

They know it will pose hardships on the elderly and their families who would probably face having to provide financial assistance, if not downright full support, to those too old, too mentally challenged or ill to continue to work. There's more to this perpetual mantra than the "need" for so-called "entitlement reform". These are not "entitlements" that are just handed out. Most folks have been working and paying Federal payroll taxes into both Social Security and Medicare for decades and decades, some of whom are working more than one job to support themselves. These programs aren't part of the general budget and tax system.

So what is driving this? Is it simply the wet dream of rethugs to end what Franklin Roosevelt started and Lyndon Johnson and their successors set in place to give working people a chance at a halfway decent life after reaching a point where they will not be physically or mentally prepared to continue working until they fall into the grave? Or is it because they fear that with greater numbers of young adults limiting their number of children - or choosing not to bear children at all - that there will be fewer numbers workers to put payroll taxes into the coffers of the SS and Medicare systems going foward? I've never been able to understand why these idiots would hold onto to such unpopular - and unfounded - political ideology unless they either have a motive that isn't readily apparent or is even more worrisome. Why do they keep beating these drums when the American populace continually recoils from the idea? It doesn't make sense.

[surrealAmerican]

23. Corker's a sadist.

He will only accept a plan that causes real harm to a large number of people. This isn't reform; it's torture.

[LeftishBrit]

24. If only it was extremely painful to be as stupid and vicious as this Senator!

[BeyondGeography]

27. "Very painful cuts"

= Porn for RWNJ's.

[forestpath]

33. +1

[Third Doctor]

32. Painful cuts to this program

can kill people. This is the same asshole that said automotive workers made too much money. He's a damned millonaire and he begrudges hard working people their benefits. He can pay for his healthcare out of his pocket or worse he can rely on the tax payer funded exchange congress is in. I hate this type of elitist, selfish snobbery. Sadly the folks from his home state just keep voting to screw themselves.

[FVZA_Colonel]

36. Why is it that, whenever "painful cuts" have to be made, they must always target the most

vulnerable, and never the most powerful or the MIC?

[Sunlei]

40. cut his salary and make Medicare ALL Senators & Congress only free healthcare Gov. plan.

They would NEVER cut their own throat.