Half Measures and Unserious Proposals

Paul Krugman in a NY Times op-ed points out that Lieberman's proposals to "fix" the US Medicare system are laughable and grossly inadequate:

Every once in a while a politician comes up with an idea that’s so bad, so wrongheaded, that you’re almost grateful. For really bad ideas can help illustrate the extent to which policy discourse has gone off the rails.

And so it was with Senator Joseph Lieberman’s proposal, released last week, to raise the age for Medicare eligibility from 65 to 67.

Like Republicans who want to end Medicare as we know it and replace it with (grossly inadequate) insurance vouchers, Mr. Lieberman describes his proposal as a way to save Medicare. It wouldn’t actually do that. But more to the point, our goal shouldn’t be to “save Medicare,” whatever that means. It should be to ensure that Americans get the health care they need, at a cost the nation can afford.

I'm disappointed in Krugman. He doesn't go far enough. Any serious proposal to finally slay the deficit dragon of Medicare needs to redefine eligibility age up to something seriously secure, say 150 years of age. That would immediately stop the drain on public funds. Right now nobody would qualify. So expenditures would stop. And that is exactly what everybody on Capital Hill want. The focus is debt right? No politician seriously has a thought to medical care. That's ridiculous.

Time to stop the half measure and the unserious proposals. A permanent fix is to redefine benefits to not start until the retiree has attained 150 years of age. That will turn Medicare from a loss centre to a new "profit centre" for the government!

It just takes some politicians with backbone to grasp this solution. I'm sure some "family values" social conservative has the cojones to make this definitive legislative proposal and help Washington slay this deficit beast! This will free up money for the more socially beneficial goals of additional tax cuts for billionaires and millionaries, the very people who will power the economy to new highs. Everybody knows that only when you give money to the really rich do you give it to people who will immediately run out spend it, invest it, give it away, and super-charge the economy!

Don't waste your time reading Krugman's explanation of how Medicare saves money. Who believes a pinko like Krugman when they can get truth distilled right from the lips of a great patriot like Sarah Palin? Who needs a better sourch for truth than Glen Beck or Rush Limbaugh? Why believe a Nobel-prize winning economist talking about economics? Everybody knows those academics are pointed-headed know-it-alls who couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag. Trust the "brain trust" of the Tea Party: Michele Bachman, Tim Pawlenty, Sarah Palin, etc. Now these are people who didn't waste any time trying to learn stuff out of books. These are "original thinkers" who get their best ideas out on the street with "real people".