House rejects Medicare drug plan means-testing. (I see stupid people!!)

THE WASHINGTON TIMES ^ | 8 Oct 03 | By Amy Fagan

[.cnI redruM]

House conservatives sought unsuccessfully this week to convince the House to endorse cutting the cost of a Medicare prescription-drug benefit by requiring wealthy seniors to pay more of their own drug costs.

The House on Tuesday defeated, on a 234-161 vote, a Republican motion that would have asked House and Senate negotiators to include "means-testing" as part of the new Medicare prescription-drug benefit Congress is trying to create.

[.cnI redruM]

I'm sure the Vanderbilts and The Rockefellers are delightful human beings. They just have no right to expect me to pay for their perscription drugs. Means testing is the only way to keep the major entitlement programs afloat. These cowards care only about the next election, not the future.

France is already struggling to pay it's pensioners on time. We are the seeing our future over there if we don't develop a back-bone and stare down the left on this issue.

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[1Old Pro]

"I see stupid people"

LOL, good one.

[JohnGalt]

What???

There isn't one person anywhere in this country that has the 'right' to steal from me so that they can purchase drugs.

The Greatest Generation = The Greatest Looters.

[.cnI redruM]

It's rediculous. I feel your pain. It's being inflicted on us all. The Prescription Drug Panderation Act must die.

[CindyDawg]

Who decided what weathy is though? When it came to tax cuts I went from working class to "wealthy". It's all in what ever agenda someone is promoting. Medications are too expensive. IMO ,if the FDA approves a medication and a problem develops , and no fraud occured then the RXs shouldn't be responsible. States have programs to assist the "needy" with meds. It's the people working who can not get affordable insurance that are being taken to the cleaners.

[goldstategop]

There's no great demand for this bill from the seasoned class. If Republicans push for socialized medicine, rest assured the Hildabeast will have the last laugh.

[ApesForEvolution]

Who needs RATS when you have RINOs??

[ApesForEvolution]

The greatest generation my a**. The Social Security generation has become a pock on this nation.

[Blood of Tyrants]

I explain it to them like this:

What if I wanted take your money and give it to a crack whore, would it be right for me to come over to your house and take it at gunpoint?

What if I hired people to do it for me, would that make it right?

What if I formed a government and called those hired goons "IRS agents", NOW is it okay?

[.cnI redruM]

This really is demoralizing. I feel like part my future is being killed.

[Lancey Howard]

House conservatives sought unsuccessfully this week to convince the House to endorse cutting the cost of a Medicare prescription-drug benefit by requiring wealthy seniors to pay more of their own drug costs.

I think I have died and gone to Bizarro world.
When did the House "conservatives" become Marxists?

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Step right up and watch the great Federal sow sprout a few million more nipples on the belly! Still plenty of room - first come first serve!

[.cnI redruM]

>>>>>>Mr. Flake said that had his motion passed, it would have "upset the apple cart in conference, and I've said all along if I can upset the apple cart, I would."

How ironic, the only intelligent, probative views on this entire issue are being espoused by a congressman named Flake.

[.cnI redruM]

Our Mastercard Marxists hate ever giving tax breaks to the rich. Why is it that they fall all overthemselves to give them subsidies?

[Lancey Howard]

Means testing is the only way to keep the major entitlement programs afloat

Let me get this straight - - you are concerned about keeping entitlement programs "afloat"?
Personally, I would like to see them collapse under their own weight.

"Means testing" is just another form of Marxism. If I have to have my money confiscated by scumbag big government, I better be included when the free stuff (whore-politician vote-buying programs) gets distributed, no matter what my "means" are.

[KarlInOhio]

The conservatives realize that if the program is means tested it is much easier to call it a welfare program than if everyone above 65 is on it. Similarly, the dems don't want to means test it because they would rather have a few rich people getting free pills than risk associating the medicare prescription program with welfare.

[AD from SpringBay]

Our Mastercard Marxists hate ever giving tax breaks to the rich.

It's not about the rich this time, my friend. This time we're talking about the dog-food eating, cardboard box living, need everything given to them elderly. And when there's an election on the horizon, the sky could be the limit on this one. No matter how much they make, they are still the elderly and no one wants to stop a hand-out to them. Dick Gephardt has lots of stories about his own elderly family members that have to do without while his own wealth piles up with each congressional pay raise.

[RicocheT]

The cost of health care and prescription drugs won't come down until several things are done.

We need tort reform to cap lawsuits against doctors, health providers and drug companies. If the health provider or drug company wasn't grossly negligent, there should be no excessive damage award.

We need the FDA to streamline drug approvals, stop all these TV drug ads to consumers pushing the latest and most costly drugs and stop building a clinic on every corner like gas stations. Not every doc in a box location needs a MRI scanner costing a million bucks.

The government should only provide a minimal safety net sort of health program. If folks want the best and most costly care, buy insurance for it. As long as the steps above are done, the insurance should be affordable. A one size fits all socialized medicine plan is the most inefficient way to deliver health care. The Democrats seem to love the worst way to deliver services.

[slowhandluke]

Tort reform

Yup, get the crooks out. However that's going to take a considerable sea change in the legal world, as lawyers don't see it as crooked, and too many politicians see it as a pool of campaign contributions.

Not every doc in a box location needs a MRI scanner costing a million bucks.

Driving down the supply usually drives up the cost!

We need the FDA to streamline drug approvals,

And balance out the cost of the next thalidomide? The last few years at NASA suggest that we NOT push any government agency for fast results.

stop all these TV drug ads to consumers pushing the latest and most costly drugs

Or face the fact that we are likely to know a lot more medicine than we can afford for the forseeable future, and therefore there will always be medicine affordable only by the rich/powerful. Or the fact that we are in a free-speech country.

The use of personal insurance, with different payouts, such as not paying for drugs still under patent, could greatly reduce costs for those willing to make tradeoffs. However, as long as somebody else pays for the program, why take anything less than perfection?

The cost of any drug my grandfather took (and he didn't die that long ago) is down. It's the new drugs people are complaining about, the ungrateful b*st*rds. The childish idea that Doctors and Drug companies must give us the care we want at the price we want is embedded in the argument, and no politician would dare to scold the public about it.

The idea that newer/better medicine should be cheaper than older/worse is not going to be challenged.

Combatting the I-want-what-I-want-when-I-want-it attitude requires a moral argument, and they are very hard to make in the political sphere as they require some variety of hard choice.

The moral problems are envy and greed. If the rich get one, I want one. If you have something I want, you must give it to me. Wrapped up in socialist rhetoric of sharing, it becomes a justified demand for social virtue. Given a choice of listing to the conservative, and foregoing the latest/greatest medicine, or listening to the socialist and being supported in your demands, what's going to happen?

Ok, I've just talked my self into thinking this is a problem in the moral education system. Which, some churches excepted, isn't terribly systematic around here.