There was, this was a big part of senior opposition to Obama-care in 2010 and seniors voting Republican that year to boot Dems out.
But it 2011 Republicans neutralized that advantage they had on the issue with the Ryan plan on medicare,which was for deficit reduction with some tax cuts.
One thing that pisses me off to no end is when both parties claim that the medicare ‘trust fund’ will keep medicare fully finded for another 5 to 10 years, when the ‘trust fund’ is simply IOUs from the government to itself which are only redeemed by floating more national debt US treasuries.
In other words medicare went broke during GWB term and SS broke at the start of 2009.
The reason why they lie about the nonexistent trust funds is so they can avoid confronting angry seniors on election day and claim that no-one is effected by reforms.
Today's seniors no more deserve today's medicare benefits than anyone forced to pay medicare taxes now and in the future (to go to those benefits now) do. The ponzi nature of the system doesnt change the morality of it.
It's theft!
” The reason why they lie about the nonexistent trust funds is so they can avoid confronting angry seniors on election day and claim that no-one is effected by reforms.”
EXACTLY
At the same time, we are going broke, and I don't know how to fix that without adjusting entitlements. Maybe the GOP should have not produced a budget, and then been more "flexible" after 2012?