Mitchie-poo Still Lying About Medicare

After forcing the careers of several repug candidates to crash and burn and putting the 2012 reelection chances of every repug in the country in jeopardy, Paul Ryan's Plan to Eliminate Medicare is dead.

But that's not stopping Senator Mitch McConnell from continuing to lie about Medicare every chance he gets.

Why? Because the only hope for the repugs going into the 2012 election is to make Democrats take the rap for cuts in Medicare. And the fastest way to make Democrats sign that particular suicide pact is to repeat, over and over and over again, how the only way to save Medicare is to cut it, and it's the responsibility of Congressional Democrats and President Obama to do so immediately.

But that's so obvious, Democrats would never fall for it. Right? Right?

Blue Girl is all over that lying sack of shit.

Mitch McConnell is continuing with his gig singing backup on the Paul Ryan Roadmap to Ruin tour, telling Fox news Sunday yesterday that Ryan's scheme is "very sensible" and will "save Medicare." He then trotted out the discredited "death panels" BS, saying that the ACA will empower "a board that would ration health care," before adding "Let's just stipulate that nobody's trying to throw grandma off the cliff," alluding to an ad run by an "independent" interest group against Jane Corwin in the recent New York 26th Congressional Districe special election.

Let's unpack what McConnell is asserting, shall we?

McConnell seems to be implying that rationing is not occuring now, when it most certainly is, in every healthcare delivery system, everywhere. For starters, the uninsured are subject to the harshest rationing of all. If they can't pay cash, they don't get healthcare.

People who are insured have been self-rationing as a result of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. So of course the insurance companies are whining that they need rate increases because the day is coming when their policy holders will actually use their insurance is surely looming, and then they won't have record profits any longer.

And of course, everyone who is fortunate enough to have insurance knows that rationing occurs every time you go to the doctor. If you buy insurance and have a pre-existing condition, there is no coverage for that condition for a specified waiting period, if ever. You also know that you can't just walk in and demand procedures. You have to get preauthorization letters to see specialists, who then have to get the authorization from your insurance company before they can perform any procedure deemed necessary and appropriate.

And pity the poor soul who turns up with a serious condition that requires long term or intesive treatment. They will spend all their time and energy fighting for the care they need to survive. What is this if not rationing?

Or consider lifetime caps. A million dollar lifetime cap is pretty standard. Now consider the family whose seven year old child gets cancer. It can easily happen that such a child will reach that cap in two or three years. Then the family that is probably on the hook for 20% of every charge the child has incurred face paying cash for all future care for that child, unless they are so financially wiped out by the disease that the child can get Medicaid. You know Medicaid -- that is the other program they are out to kill.

Do they really want to talk about "death panels" considering the way the system they not only defend, but want to return the worst parts of, works?

Don't forget it's not just McConnell; virtually every repug in Congress voted to kill Medicare, including all four of Kentucky's repug members of Congress. Rand Paul voted against the repug plan only because he thought it didn't go far enough. One step further would be outlawing medical care for seniors altogether.

Read the whole thing.