Posted on 03/19/2010 9:08:56 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Many individual elements of the health care plan working its way through Congress remain popular, but the cost of the plan and finding ways to pay for it remain key reasons why most voters continue to oppose the proposed legislation.
New Rasmussen Reports national telephone surveying finds that 56% of voters oppose the effort to “reduce spending on Medicare by several hundred billion dollars.” Just 33% support the idea. Those figures include 12% who Strongly Favor the Medicare cuts and 38% who are Strongly Opposed.
Perhaps more significantly, 70% of senior citizens oppose the plan to reduce spending on Medicare including 55% who are Strongly Opposed. Seniors are more likely to use the health care system and more likely to vote than younger adults.
Democratic voters are evenly divided on the Medicare cuts, while most Republicans and unaffiliated voters are opposed.
Most voters also oppose the other big component being counted on to cover the cost of the health care plan. Just 31% favor the idea of enacting “a significant excise tax on the most expensive health insurance plans provided by employers." Fifty-four percent (54%) are opposed.
The Congressional Budget Office yesterday said that the proposed legislation would reduce the deficit, but voters are skeptical of the official government projections. Eighty-one percent (81%) believe the health care plan will cost more than projected. That’s one reason voters believe passage of the plan will increase the deficit and is likely to mean higher middle class taxes. Fifty-seven percent (57%) predict that passage of the plan will hurt the U.S. economy.
That helps to explain why 50% of voters say they’re less likely to vote to reelect a member of Congress who supports the health care bill.
(Excerpt) Read more at rasmussenreports.com ...
Obama: “Polls? Polls!? We don’t need no stinkin’ polls!”
No one wants to accept cuts in anything even though it is mathematically impossible to continue to fund the level of spending necessary to fund the status quo. Even though many people agree that socialism is a failure they still expect to get their checks and benefits no matter what.
Take from those that paid into the system.
Give to those that didn't.
People paid into the system their entire working lives to get Medicare... now they are cutting it and giving it to the bums who never paid anything.
This is the most EVIL I have ever seen our government, the Lord MUST be coming back soon, all the signs are there. The DEMS are out of control beyond belief, they have let the radical left take them over and the blue dogs are even falling for their bribes. Washington is a cesspool of evil.
But, be prepared for this. If this monster passes, Congress will again pass the "doctor fix" which will reverse the Medicare cuts and will likely never have the "cadillac" tax kick in. They will then announce they have "fixed" the bill by taking out the two most unpopular items.
Of course, that will be a megadose of more deficit and might tank the economy, but who cares? They got their nationalized health care.
“People paid into the system their entire working lives to get Medicare... now they are cutting it and giving it to the bums who never paid anything.”
Yep. And they plan to do it at the point of an IRS gun.
Not at all. They will have to raise taxes to European levels. 50-60% and no one will be exempt. Obamavilles will sprout up, maybe in those empty housing developments that Fannie and Freddie caused. But everyone will have an insurance ID card.
Do you know anyone who is going to protest in D. C. tomorrow?
Maybe they would be willing to pray for our country and walk around Congress seven times. Any trumpet players going? Wouldn’t you love to hear “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho” as patriotic Americans walk around Congress?
See Joshua, Chapter 6: 15 – 20…….
On the seventh day, they got up at daybreak and marched around the city seven times in the same manner, except that on that day they circled the city seven times. The seventh time around, when the priests sounded the trumpet blast, Joshua commanded the people, “Shout! For the LORD has given you the city! The city and all that is in it are to be devoted to the LORD. When the trumpets sounded, the people shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the people gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed.
AND
See Hebrews 11:30…….
By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the people had marched around them for seven days.
We need the walls of deception and dishonesty to come tumbling down. The walls of arrogance and apathy need to fall. Also the walls of self-righteousness and dishonor.
That's what will eventually happen when they strip out the fake deficit reduction, the deficit balloons and then their "commission" comes back and says we need more taxes to solve the deficit.
Can't they have a fixed tax amount for Medicare?
Frankly, I’m surprised they’re still in the bill now. Rightly or wrongly, it would be a perfectly reasonable assumption on the part of any Congressman who attended or watched the “town hall meetings” that the majority of the anger directed at the health care bill is directed at the proposed Medicare cuts and nothing else.
That’s why the “town hallers” didn’t really give me a good deal of hope. Judging by a lot of the questions and comments at those meetings, at least a sizeable minority of the opponents of this bill would have no problem with multi-trillion dollar deficits so long as their own benefits were safe.
I think one reason has to do with the Byrd Rules that control the Reconciliation Bill. It's complicated, and I'd have to read it again, but there's some language about certain provisions of revenue bills having to expire (if passed under Reconciliation) if they adversely affect the budget deficit after "x" number of years.
This is why we see sunset provisions in the Bush tax cuts (expiring this year). Those tax cuts were passed using Reconciliation. I think they had to leave those Medicare cuts in place, if they wanted to get Reconciliation through, without any sunset provisions being attached.
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