President Trump wrote a remarkable op-ed on Medicare in USA Today on Wednesday - As fact-checker Glenn Kessler wrote, "almost every sentence contained a misleading statement or a falsehood."
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
President Trump wrote a remarkable op-ed in USA Today on Wednesday, remarkable because one wouldn't think it possible to pack so much dishonesty into such a small space, nor would one think a newspaper would willingly publish such a steaming pile of lies. As fact-checker Glenn Kessler wrote, "almost every sentence contained a misleading statement or a falsehood."
But I'll leave the fact-checking (mostly) to others on this score. What interests me for the moment is what Trump says about Medicare.
As Democrats have increasingly advocated for some kind of universal, government-guaranteed health insurance program (though there are multiple plans floating around with different features), Republicans have struggled to settle on the most effective rhetorical counter to the idea. "Big government takeover!" has gotten a little old. "Bureaucrats making decisions for you instead of your doctor!" rings false to anyone who has had to deal with the nightmare of insurance company bureaucracy. "It'll cost trillions!" is less persuasive when they're running up trillions in debt themselves for things like corporate tax cuts.
So what's the alternative? Here are some selections from Trump's op-ed:
I also made a solemn promise to our great seniors to protect Medicare. That is why I am fighting so hard against the Democrats' plan that would eviscerate Medicare … Democrats would gut Medicare with their planned government takeover of American health care … The Democrats' plan means that after a life of hard work and sacrifice, seniors would no longer be able to depend on the benefits they were promised. By eliminating Medicare as a program for seniors … Seniors would lose access to their favorite doctors … In practice, the Democratic Party's so-called Medicare for All would really be Medicare for None. Under the Democrats' plan, today's Medicare would be forced to die.
Trump and the Republicans will defend Medicare from Democrats! If you believe that, you'll hire an arsonist to protect your house from the fire department.
The strangeness of this argument highlights a fundamental problem Republicans can't get away from: They hate Medicare, but the American public loves Medicare.
They hate it for two basic reasons. The first is ideological: It is indeed a big-government program and therefore an affront to their free-market beliefs. They have been horrified by the idea of the government providing healthcoverage ever since a future president and conservative icon tried to prevent the program from being enacted with the hit 1961 spoken-word album "Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine."
The second reason Republicans hate Medicare exists at the intersection of policy and politics. Because Medicare works extremely well and provides a valued benefit to tens of millions of politically potent citizens, it is impossible for them to unwind it as they would like to do. So every election, Democrats accuse them of wanting to destroy the program, which requires them to pretend that they actually love it and want to defend it.
There is a long history of Republicans enacting that charade, so it isn't much of a surprise that they have just grafted the old argument on to a new health care debate. But it fits particularly awkwardly here.
Perhaps never before has the GOP had less credibility on health care than it does now, when it just failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act and is suing to eliminate the ACA's protection for people with preexisting conditions. And while there is a certain get-off-my-lawn appeal to the argument that if we let the non-elderly have Medicare, then Medicare will be undermined, to buy it, you have to believe that the person making the argument doesn't actually want Medicare to be undermined. There is only so far you can go insisting one moment that you despise governmenthealth insurance and claiming the next moment that you'll protect seniors' beloved government health insurance.
For the moment, though, almost every Republican seems on board with this strategy. Yes, there is an occasional note of dissent on the right. For instance, Philip Klein argues that "By perpetuating the idea that Medicare is a great program that needs to be protected at all costs (rather than an unsustainable entitlement) it only makes it easier for liberals to make the case for socialized medicine."
But as a policy wonk, Klein has the luxury of thinking about the long term. Politicians, on the other hand, tend to be more concerned about what will work right now.
Klein is right that Republicans sowed the seeds for Medicare-for-all, but not just by praising Medicare. They also did it by attacking everything Democrats proposed on health care, even market-based reforms such as the ACA, as horrifying big-government socialism. Eventually, Democrats realized that if Republicans were going to call even something modeled on Mitt Romney's plan "socialism," they might as well not bother trimming their sails and just advocate something actually socialistic. And here we are.
If and when Democrats control both the presidency and Congress — perhaps in 2021 — we'll have a real, sustained debate about Medicare-for-all or some version thereof. It would be foolish to imagine that we can predict exactly how that debate will go. It is entirely possible that "Giving more people Medicare will destroy Medicare!" will effectively mobilize seniors against universal coverage. It is also possible that the contradictions in their arguments will make Republicans unable to resist the appetite for a government guarantee of security that they helped reinforce.
One thing we can predict with some certainty, however, is that what they'll say then will be just as dishonest as what they're saying now.
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Trump wrote an op-ed in USA Today about Medicare and health care.
It has been universally been blasted for being full of lies. Makes you wonder why USA Today agreed to print it.
Maybe USAT did it to provide further written proof of what a absolute liar Trump is. The sad part is that the Kool Aid intoxicated Trumpettes will treat the article as gospil and not the lie laden bs that it is.
Trump and the Republicans offer ridiculous lies about Medicare
President Trump lies so frequently that, as the cliche goes, if he says the sky is blue, it’s best to look out your window and confirm that fact. Glenn Kessler of The Post’s Fact Checker says Trump has averaged 8.3 lies per day since taking office. So it’s saying something that, even by Trumpian standards, the president’s op-ed in Wednesday’s USA Today attacking Medicare-for-all and claiming he’ll defend Medicare from the Democrats sets a new standard for mendacity. As Kessler himself points out, Trump’s op-ed is one where “ almost every sentence contained a misleading statement or falsehood .”
There’s a reason Trump and the Republican Party pose as the protectors of Medicare: Lies are all they’ve got. If anything, they are furiously trying to cut the legs out from under the program – and hoping you don’t notice.
In the USA Today piece, Trump acts as if there is only one Medicare expansion proposal on offer. False. There is everything from Bernie Sanders’ Medicare-for-all, which would set up a single-payer system, to various options that would allow people under the age of 65 ways to access the program. Trump claims — seemingly out of nowhere — it would “lead to the massive rationing of health care.” In fact, the Medicare-for-all bill introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) would increase the program’s offerings, expanding it to cover everything from hearing aids to vision care — things that are currently not offered. And we have rationing of health care for everyone now, but that is what’s known as a wallet biopsy : More than 40 percent of Americans are forced to “ration” care because of cost.
Beyond the “rationing” myth, Trump claims he’s protecting coverage for Americans with preexisting conditions. In reality, his Justice Department is refusing to defend them in a current Texas court case. And tying it all together? A claim that this is all because of the socialist boogeyman. “If Democrats win control of Congress this November, we will come dangerously closer to socialism in America. Government-run health care is just the beginning,” he wrote.
Note to all: Medicare is government-run health care. I hear people like it! They like it so much, polls show as much as 70 percent of the population thinks Medicare-for-all is a great idea. Seniors seem to support it as much as anyone else — a Kaiser Health Tracking poll from earlier this year found a majority of people — including a majority of seniors — said they favored “a national health care plan, or Medicare-for-all.”
Health care, in fact, is shaping up to be the defining issue of next month’s midterm elections. Little wonder, then, that Democrats are on the offensive. Surveys show that no matter what the other cause of the week is, concerns about paying their hospital and other medical bills is on top of almost everyone’s list. At the same time, the Republican attempt to knock out preexisting condition protections has been far from popular — so much so that some Republicans, such as Trump, are actually now claiming they won’t do away with it , despite supporting health-care reform proposals or court actions that would undercut their own promise.
While Trump claims “Republicans want to protect Medicare,” his minions assure everyone he doesn’t mean it. Larry Kudlow, the president’s national economic council director, told an audience of corporate titans last month that the Trump administration would look to cut “larger entitlements” in 2019. Entitlements, if you don’t know, is Washington speak for Social Security and Medicare. Even as Trump vowed on the campaign trail that he wouldn’t touch Social Security and Medicare, his staff has undercut him . And it’s House Republicans who pushed a budget package that would cut Medicare by $537 billion over the next decade. And it’s House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) who is attempting to push seniors off traditional Medicare and into the private marketplace by setting up “Medicare Exchanges.” These exchanges would function similarly to the Affordable Care Act — complete with subsidies based on income and the cost of the plans.
In fact, Trump is hardly the only myth-peddler when it comes to Medicare-for-all. This past summer, Seema Verma, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which operates the programs, told a San Francisco gathering , “Ideas like ‘Medicare for all’ would only serve to hurt and divert focus from seniors.” Longtime conservative health-care activist Betsy McCaughey recently claimed that under the Affordable Care Act, health care would be rationed with the result that seniors would be “pushed to the back of the line.” And Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) opined “If you want to protect Medicare, vote Republican. If you want a socialist experiment with Medicare, by all means vote Democrat.” Let’s hope voters won’t let Trump and the GOP get away with this scam.
As I understand it, EVERYONE get's "Medicare" when they retire or have a major disability from the start.
I didn't know "Lazy" and "Failure to get a job" was a disability.
What's the issue again ?
Your understanding is wrong for the simple fact not everyone "retired and not every disabled gets Medicare, but I guess a person working two jobs barely making ends meet but unable to afford insurance is considered lazy on your eyes
Two different entry level McDonalds jobs does a living make !
Not very shocking. Trump lies over 80% of the time but that's not the disturbing part. The disturbing part is that his base believes everything he says even knowing how much he lies. It literally is a cult attitude.
According to the MSM and so-called Left Leaning experts...… right ?
"Hate Trumpers" RULE.....don't they !
It's a good thing the MSM and the "Experts" didn't dig too much into Obama and Hillary, or "Lying" might have actually meant what it used to mean.
No, according to people who actually check facts.
Well, when you got nothing....
Hillary lies ~40%, which is average for a politician, Obama was around 28%....Trump is just over 80%.
I am sure that the news you watch hasn't informed you yet, but Hillary and Obama don't even work for the US government anymore. Look it up if you don't believe me.
Is that what the MSM told you ?
You keeping score ……. Why now ?
Here is the short list of SOME of trumps lies. By all means, go through them and let us know which ones aren't really lies.
We'll wait.
Do you have a Happy MSM sponsored Hillary/Obama lie list ?
Nope. Did the MSM tell you that hillary lies like, "100 billion% of the time"?
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do you actually believe they lied more than Trump ?
Ooooohhhhh, those folks !
Your talking about the MSM fact checkers checking on their own reports.
Got it !
The Trusted ones.
Considering how long the list is, it will be a long wait.
Probably does. When in reality, trump lies more than Hillary and Obama combined. Even fox fake news said that trump has, "a strange relationship with the truth".
do you not trust yourself, and your own 2 ears and eyes...?
Do you not ?
Reporting is sooooo subjective isn't it.
They like.....not much bad reported.
They HATE…..much bad reported.
Belief is in the eye of the "Beholden" !
I just look at life very simply, as it really is "Simple" !
Things going good...…
Things going stagnant ……
Things going bad ……….
It's as simple as that !
Ah, so you actually think there are, "alternative facts"? News flash: There is ONE version of the truth, PERIOD.
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Yep, and that's just a partial list. Trump has told just over 4,300 lies in less than two years. That's fricking unbelievable. No president in history has ever even come close to lying that much.
And you get your truth info from where ?
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Why.....'cause the original report was a bit "Iffy" from the start ?
Who the fuck needs to re-check themselves after they already put something out there for others to chew on ?
"Children of the Corn".
Link ?
Yer !
There is ONE version of the truth, PERIOD.
Except in Trumpyland where his minions reside and the truth is decided by Trump.
Oh I see I guess you trust those "alternative facts" that fly from Fox News then!
You don't ?
Explain "Retractions" ?
Here we have a Trump supporter stonewalling the truth that Trump is a pathological liar.
Yet, we are not allowed to criticize trump supporters on Newstalkers.
A seed that criticized Trump supporters was just locked because it criticized Trump supporters. That is what is going on here.
It's all about lies in the comments. Why is questioning NOT RELEVANT ?
🤣🤣🤣
So, basically your saying forget facts, forget what we see or hear just go by what we are told to believe?! ( would....wouldn't)
I was questioned, why am I NOT ALLOWED to question ?
Whose perception of facts again ?
"A source says" …… doesn't tickle my fancy for sure !
But I suppose some are more gullible than others.
GIVE ME A NAME.....and I'll look harder.
y, r u pregnant ?
yea, Trump has never stated that Lester Holt edited his candid admission that the Russia investigation is why he fired Comey...over ?
Democrats wanted Comey gone....until they DIDN'T.
Whaaaaaaat ?
"Little suzie put out a flyer. Little Tommy decided to fact check it for her, since he was Suzies little Friend and co-worker...….Tommy found it to be true. After all, Friends don't diss Friends" !
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If you seriously argue as to what facts really are, then follow it up with 18 posts of utter BS, you are trolling.
Frankly, I just automatically assume everything Trump says is total bullshit, and I am never disappointed.