Romney Will Kill Medicaid – Really!

When you can’t run on a record, what is one to do? Scare the masses, of course. It’s a bonus if you can demonize the opposition at the same time. The latest, non-disaster related scare tactic falls under healthcare. Paul Krugman is leading the charge on this one, giving the public an inaccurate lesson on the inner-workings of the Medicaid system. Of course, he’s doing this because evil Mitt Romney will gut the program if elected. Obviously, that’s not the important part of what Krugman said.

So, what was so blatantly wrong with Krugman’s little lesson for the masses? Well, we can start with his numbers, since offering any at all is a fallacy. Here is the one plus to not offering many details whilst on the campaign trail. When your opposition attempts to figure out exactly what the impact of your “plans” will be, they honestly can’t. They are forced to lie, because they simply don’t know. (And, in a Presidential race, it really doesn’t matter what either candidate wants to do, since everything needs to get through Congress anyway.) So, for the sake of brevity, we’ll just dispense with the numbers entirely, since there’s no way to prove or disprove them anyway, shall we?

Let’s move on to the meat and bones of this little lesson, to what Medicaid really is, and how it works. Krugman’s so cute when he tries to explain things to the masses. It would be ever so much nicer if he would at least attempt to get the facts, though. It’s really not good when even Wikipedia gets it right, and you don’t. Well, maybe it was the fact-checker’s day off at the Times. Yes, Medicaid is relatively good at keeping medical costs down, but no it is not because of the government. You see, for quite some time now, Uncle Sam has contracted out this part of the government healthcare system to the private sector. Medicaid recipients have private insurance policies with premiums that are subsidized by the government. That also blows a big gaping hold in Krugman’s other claim about governmental largesse – the real reason why the government doesn’t have as much “bureaucracy” in this whole equation is because the government doesn’t actually “do” anything but pay the bills. But, I think that most conservatives already know that. Knowing that Krugman is running about telling liberals this nonsense is useful, though. At least we can point out the errors in their sources.

Now, over at the Independent Women’s Forum, there is something of interest on this issue. They have pointed out that this really shouldn’t be a nationwide ballot issue, but a state one. Now that’s getting back into real Romney territory. That is practically straight out of a Paul Ryan stump speech on healthcare reform – or a Romney one pointing out that healthcare shouldn’t be on the Fed plate in the first place. So, when the whining liberals start claiming that Romney wants to take away their Medicaid, if you’re not just going to smack them (verbally since we don’t want folks going to jail), point out that he wants to let the states handle that program, because they know better what their residents need. It’s simple math and geography here. It’s better to have someone closer to you managing these things, than it is to have some pencil pushers far away, right? Who knows? Maybe you’ll actually get a few fence pole sitters with that logic in the next few days!