Republican Medicare Beneficiaries Slam ‘Government Care’
Republican Medicare Beneficiaries Slam ‘Government Care’
Last Wednesday, the Associated Press “interviewed a handful of retiree delegates to the Republican convention to sample their views on health care and other issues that most concern them.” Ironically, while all of the interviewees registered their dismay for so-called government health care, all relied on government-funded Medicare, Medicaid or Veterans Health Care to cover their health care costs:
- Peggy Lambert, a member of RNC’s platform committee, is a Medicare beneficiary:
- On health care reform: “I’m not sure I know what the solution is. I just know what the problem is…It’s a terrifying experience to know that you have no coverage, and you limit your trips to the doctor, and there’s just so many things you can cut back on.”
- Frmr. Montana Gov. Tim Babcock benefits “from free prescriptions he’s entitled to as a World War II veteran”:
- On health care reform: “It’s an emotional thing that the Democrats like to build up, that everybody doesn’t have health care. I think I was about 40 years old before I realized there was such a thing as health insurance, and I got along all right.”
- John Ortega of Bettendorf, Iowa is a 67-year-old Army veteran who “receives Medicare, Medicaid and Veterans Administration insurance”:
- On health care reform: “I think small or regular business can handle that better than the government can.”
This phenomena is not uncommon. As the Wonk Room pointed out, while the 2008 Republican platform states that “Republicans support the private practice of medicine and oppose socialized medicine in the form of a government- run universal health care system,” Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) himself is a beneficiary of government administered care.
As a 72 year-old war veteran senator, McCain benefits from The Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, in which “the Government pays 72 percent of the average premium toward the total cost of the your premium,” and is potentially eligible for the government administered Medicare program and the Veterans Health Care administration, “the largest integrated health system in the United States.”
Hypocritical in their argument, some Republicans do have a single message: do as we say, not as we do.
4 Responses to “Republican Medicare Beneficiaries Slam ‘Government Care’”
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“I think I was about 40 years old before I realized there was such a thing as health insurance, and I got along all right.”
Lucky you, Tom Babcock, but you did risk everything. I was 35 when I was diagnosed with cancer. How do you think I would be doing now, six years later, without my health insurance? Bankrupt, at the least.
September 8th, 2008 at 4:07 pmAnd as for you, John Ortega, how said: “I think small or regular business can handle that better than the government can.”
Then why should people support McCain’s plan to dismantle the incentives for employer based health care plans?
September 8th, 2008 at 4:11 pmPardon me, but the US Chamber of Commerce’s position is essentially:
“American manufacturers can’t afford health insurance and compete in the global market”
Meaning, employers get out of providing that expensive benefit. McCain’s plan clearly has this end in mind.
September 8th, 2008 at 4:49 pmSo the solution is to shift people to the individual market where the costs are even higher and the safeguards weaker, thus pushing people out of insurance or at least out of preventive care into greatly more expensive emergency care and spreading diseases that were thought to be under control? So American manufacturers will be able to compete, but their workers will go broke and die, and those successful business owners’ families will get TB. Lovely.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:07 am