America…The Beautiful? Not Without Medicare.

Today, The Agenda Project released a shocking new video dramatizing Paul Ryan’s proposal to end Medicare. The video – which shows an elderly woman getting thrown off a cliff – asserts that the Ryan plan will hurt elderly Americans.

Under Paul Ryan’s Budget Plan, named “The Path to Prosperity” – a ludicrous proposal to slash funding for almost every domestic service provided by the federal government EXCEPT for defense spending, meanwhile LOWERING taxes even further than the Bush tax cuts for the rich.  Does that sound like a “balanced” budget to you?  But Ryan’s plan specifically targets Medicare.  Right now, Medicare is a free-for-service program which itself pays for health care procedures for most beneficiaries.  Under Ryan’s plan, this program would be changed into a series of subsidies – that is, you go and get your own insurance and then the government will “subsidize” (pay a little money) towards that privatized insurance.  Now, that may not sound so bad if it weren’t for the fact that Ryan’s plan, consciously, DOES NOT take into account any sort of inflation whatsoever.  Ever wonder why your healthcare exam increased in cost from the previous year?  Thats right, its called inflation and it is rampant in the healthcare industry.  What that means is that Ryan’s plan would eventually screw over the elderly by not keeping up with healthcare inflation – meaning it pays less and less over time.  Does this amount to any less than pitching our elderly off a cliff?

More than half of America lives on less than $28k a year! These individuals are NOT at fault for our current fiscal state.  It is the duty of the politicians of this country to fix their mistakes – a war that has cost trillions of dollars, billions spent on bailing out unregulated banks – not to slide that cost onto our senior citizens.

Republicans want to privatize Medicare – creating a potentially disastrous healthcare landscape, all while they continue to cut taxes for the rich and spend trillions of dollars in defense.  That is not a “path to prosperity,” that is a path to the rich getting richer, the poor getting sicker, and the country going down the tube.  If America truly is beautiful, then we won’t let Paul Ryan and the Republican House push our grandmothers over a cliff.