Republicans and their defenders have claimed that the GOP’s massive proposed cuts to the nation’s health care safety net will not eliminate Medicare or Medicaid. The Romney campaign even released talking points claiming GOP proposals would “strengthen Medicare” shortly after they announced that Paul Ryan, the author of a 2011 plan to phase out Medicare, would be the vice presidential candidate. Yet, in a speech last May to a conservative group, former Bush Secretary of Health and Human Services and U.S. Senate candidate Tommy Thompson (R-WI) appeared to admit that the GOP’s proposals have a far more nefarious purpose:
[W]ho better than me, who’s already finished one of the entitlement programs, to come up with programs to do away with Medicaid and Medicare? Let’s block-grant what the state has, and allow the states to determine what’s going to go into Medicaid. And Medicare, let’s wait until everyone that right now is under 55 reaches 55 by age [sic] 2020, and give them a choice whether they want to purchase health insurance with a subsidy from the federal government, or stay on Medicare.
The “one entitlement” program Thompson refers to is Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), which he was instrumental in abolishing under “welfare reform.” For an idea of how well that little disaster has worked out, take a look at all the rent-to-own stores and payday loan scammers all over the damned place — those didn’t used to exist, until Clinton screwed the poor by knuckling under to dopes like Thompson and signing welfare reform into law, creating a need for loan sharks to the needy. Long story short, this guy — and people like him — do not have good ideas.
But man, does that quote ever lay it all bare. They don’t want to “fix” it, they want to repeal it — along with the rest of the 20th century.
