I can still see them trotting people up on stage who would ‘receive’ benefits shortly in the future – saying, “Republicans would take health care away from this family”.

It’s not easy to gauge what Repub leaders would do. Olympia Snowe wouldn’t write such a repeal but would she support it.

Obviously Obama would veto such a reform and it would be up to Republicans to stick together and not fund people getting benefits. I don’t see it happening.

I’m back to having to stop this now. 🙁

There is yet another element that I didn’t see in my quick perusal of the comments this morning as being addressed.

My understanding is every citizen would still be required to purchase health care.

Talk about the mother of all unfunded mandates!

That is SERIOUSLY going to tick off a lot of voters – and has been pointed out by others already the costs kick in long before any benefits do.

Sure, there will I believe be some sort of federal assistance program for those not able to afford health insurance, but at the same time it seems there’s a huge bubble of middle and upper-middle class that are going to get creamed in this mess – plus when was the last time anyone here actually tried to get money out of the federal government for anything other than a tax refund?

Most of the folks who would qualify for such assistance aren’t going to have the knowledge or connections or paperwork to go through the process properly to get that assistance.

Then of course there is the inclination to deliberately make the process difficult as this will save the feds money when it’s clear they have to cut costs somewhere.

The Democrat leadership may have to backtrack out of sheer survival at some point, Obama be damned in the process….

There could be quite substantial reasons for a lot of Democrats to go along in 2011 with repealing this boondoggle.

You are either on Obama’s bus – or under the bus.

because medical “services” will not be fully in place until 2013, people will not have the opportunity to become addicted. The pusher is going to start taking the addicts money years before he will give the addict his “fix”. Might work to Republicans favor.

Sadly, once the entitlement is started, it is extremely difficult to have anyone support repealing it.

Reforms of Medicare in 1995 had the PRESS and DEMOCRATS making accusations of Republicans cutting medicare of $270 billion yet they were actually increasing Medicare by 7% per year.

Things are different now that talk radio has the addition of the Internet. I’m not sure the Democrats and Press could get away with what they did.

The point is – even if unpopular and not the best system – systems set up people with entitlements that if ripped away will have a crowd of people playing victim and “not knowing what to do”.

As in:
What will I do without my Social Security
What will I do without my Health care – etc.

Even if the goal of the Republicans is to get them a better retirement and better system for health care – the entitlement is there.

There will not be support for repeal. The republicans won’t do that.

We have to STOP it before implementation.

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To answer your question though… Yes – Republicans can just spend less for these programs but they will have to show HOW and the press and Democrats will cut their throats figuratively.

Alas, the goal is obviously to aggrandize as much power as possible in their hands. This is why the bill should be defeated, not modified.