# Handicapping the 2012 GOP presidential nomination **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [February 12, 2011, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handicapping-the-2012-gop-presidential-nomination/571160 "2011-02-12T21:14:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 18
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2011, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handicapping-the-2012-gop-presidential-nomination/571160/341 "2011-05-23T21:26:18Z")
Ryan wants to throw people off of Medicare. That’s his big idea. That’s not “delivering bad news,” it’s just preserving the elite at the expense of the poor. The real “bad news” is that the rich are going to have to pay their fair share of taxes. That’s what the GOP needs to admit. Ryan has no real concept of either fiscal or social responsibility. He’s just a ruthless plutocrat. He has no populist appeal, and no basic human decency. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2011, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handicapping-the-2012-gop-presidential-nomination/571160/342 "2011-05-23T22:23:33Z")
Let’s see if I have this right. Ryan comes out with a plan so shit-poor and completely unpopular that every notable from his party runs from it as fast as they can. And this is seen as a positive? This is the same reality-impaired horseshit that had everything in 2008 (including rain, sunsets, and teenage acne) as “good news for John McCain”. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handicapping-the-2012-gop-presidential-nomination/571160/343 "2011-05-24T03:23:33Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Ryan wants to throw people off of Medicare. That’s his big idea. That’s not “delivering bad news,” it’s just preserving the elite at the expense of the poor. The real “bad news” is that the rich are going to have to pay their fair share of taxes. You know, you’re going to have to hand in your ‘reality based community’ card until you get it through your head that _the rich don’t have that kind of money_. To bring Medicare into sustainability would require a payroll tax increase on everyone of about 3% today. That’s _every_ worker. Note that that’s not the same as a marginal tax increase of 3% - that’s a 3% tax on every dollar of income. If you’re going to try to extract that funding from the top 5%, well, good luck. Every year you wait, the amount of money that will have to be withheld for Medicare goes up. And this WILL fall on everyone - the rich simply don’t have the money. Hell, if you taxed ALL the income of the top 5% today you couldn’t even balance the current budget. Medicare is projected to increase to about 7.5% of GDP by 2035, and to 9.8% of GDP by 2050. The total unfunded liability of Medicare today is about 36 trillion dollars if you extend it indefinitely into the future (i.e. if you wanted the program to be sustainable indefinitely at today’s contribution rates, there should be an additional 36 trillion in the trust fund right now). These are huge numbers. Of course, you’ve also got 14 trillion in on-budget debt, and a deficit of over a trillion dollars per year. Are the rich going to pay that off for you too? Continuing to believe that there’s no problem so long as the ‘rich’ are just taxed more is the equivalent of believing that your problems will be solved with pixie dust and unicorns. At this point, everyone except for the hard-core lefties and hard-core righties have come to the realization that they’ve been promised far more than can be delivered, and that the problem is serious and has to be fixed by a combination of deep cuts and tax increases. The left thinks everything can be fixed with tax increases on the rich, and the right thinks everything can be fixed with spending cuts that won’t hurt the average person. The grownups in the middle aren’t being listened to. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handicapping-the-2012-gop-presidential-nomination/571160/344 "2011-05-24T03:36:25Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > You know, you’re going to have to hand in your ‘reality based community’ card until you get it through your head that _the rich don’t have that kind of money_. They don’t have the “kind of money” to pay their fair share? What the fuck does that mean? First of all, yes they do, and second of all, Throwing people off of Medicare is MORE expensive than sustaining it. It just means that people will be going to emergency rooms. Medicare aside, no budget plan can be taken seriously that continues to give away free money to billionaires and corporations. A responsible, adult budget is going to have to restore reasonable taxes on the top economic brackets. That’s the ONLY thing that’s ever worked. You can’t cut your way to prosperity. Even Reagan knew that. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handicapping-the-2012-gop-presidential-nomination/571160/345 "2011-05-24T03:44:48Z")
> [@](#): > > You know, you’re going to have to hand in your ‘reality based community’ card until you get it through your head that the rich don’t have that kind of money. But the poor do? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handicapping-the-2012-gop-presidential-nomination/571160/346 "2011-05-24T03:48:16Z")
The middle class does. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handicapping-the-2012-gop-presidential-nomination/571160/347 "2011-05-24T04:01:50Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The middle class does. Did. Past tense. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handicapping-the-2012-gop-presidential-nomination/571160/348 "2011-05-24T04:42:04Z")
There is no middle class anymore. Reagan killed it. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handicapping-the-2012-gop-presidential-nomination/571160/349 "2011-05-24T06:22:06Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > You know, you’re going to have to hand in your ‘reality based community’ card until you get it through your head that _the rich don’t have that kind of money_. > > To bring Medicare into sustainability would require a payroll tax increase on everyone of about 3% today. That’s _every_ worker. Note that that’s not the same as a marginal tax increase of 3% - that’s a 3% tax on every dollar of income. If you’re going to try to extract that funding from the top 5%, well, good luck. You keep doing this,\*\* Sam\*\*. Anytime someone suggests taxing the rich a bit more than at present, your bullshit answer seems to be a generic “the rich don’t have that kind of money,” apparently meaning you can’t balance the entire U.S. budget by taxing the top 5%, no matter what claim the other guy made about the utility of taxing rich people. Every year you wait, the amount of money that will have to be withheld for Medicare goes up. And this WILL fall on everyone - the rich simply don’t have the money. Hell, if you taxed ALL the income of the top 5% today you couldn’t even balance the current budget. > [@](#): > > The left thinks everything can be fixed with tax increases on the rich Got evidence that this belief is widespread among ‘the left’? > [@](#): > > The grownups in the middle aren’t being listened to. What grownups? The clowns who said Ryan’s plan to pay for tax cuts by gutting Medicare was responsible and bold and honest? Or the ones who just automatically write off any ideas coming from further left than Joe Lieberman, and keep on searching for responsible, brave GOP daddies. Closest thing to a responsible centrist in this town is Obama. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handicapping-the-2012-gop-presidential-nomination/571160/350 "2011-05-24T08:48:21Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > You keep doing this,\*\* Sam\*\*. Anytime someone suggests taxing the rich a bit more than at present, your bullshit answer seems to be a generic “the rich don’t have that kind of money,” apparently meaning you can’t balance the entire U.S. budget by taxing the top 5%, no matter what claim the other guy made about the utility of taxing rich people. Not at all what I said. In fact, not even close to what I said. I said that you can’t fix medicare by raising taxes on the rich, because they don’t have enough money. I specifically said that the problems the U.S. is facing will require a combination of raising taxes AND cutting spending. The fact is, the rich simply don’t have enough money to pay for the retirement shortfall of the entire freaking country. If you want to fix medicare and social security and the budget deficit with tax increases only, you are going to have to raise taxes on _everyone_. A VAT of maybe 15% would probably do it. Or maybe you can raise the taxes on the rich by 20%, and have a 12% VAT. I get tired of these charades. Someone says that the Medicare spending is out of control, and someone else responds, “The problem is that the rich aren’t paying their fair share”. Now, if you don’t actually believe that raising taxes on the rich will solve the U.S.'s fiscal problems, this kind of statement is simply a red herring. You can believe that the rich aren’t paying their ‘fair share’ and advocate tax hikes on them. Just don’t fool yourself that it’s going to make a huge difference. It’s like the Bush tax cuts - Lefties play this shell game all the time: “If we just rescind the Bush tax cuts, we can save 3 trillion dollars!”. But a good chunk of those tax cuts went to the poor and middle class. Rescinding the Bush tax cuts on the ‘rich’ doesn’t even get you to a trillion dollars in savings over a decade, at a time when the government is running trillion dollar deficits per year. So you can argue that the tax cuts on the rich should be allowed to expire, and that’s fine. Let’s accept that as a given. Now tell me where the other 90% of the money needed is going to come from? And that’s just to balance the budget. If you don’t touch medicare for a decade while you take care of the main deficit, in ten years you’re going to have to make draconian cuts to benefits, or raise so much in taxes that you can’t hope to get it from the rich. At what point does the middle class come into play with you? How bad do things have to get before you drop the mantra that it’s all the rich’s fault and everyone else should skate, or even be _given_ money from the government as a ‘stimulus’? Every year you wait, the amount of money that will have to be withheld for Medicare goes up. And this WILL fall on everyone - the rich simply don’t have the money. Hell, if you taxed ALL the income of the top 5% today you couldn’t even balance the current budget. > [@](#): > > Got evidence that this belief is widespread among ‘the left’? All the evidence right on this board. And right in this thread. Diogenes portrays the problem as ‘the elite’ putting the screws to the little guy, and that the problem is that the rich don’t pay their fair share. That’s the standard response I get from lefties when this topic comes up. This totally misrepresents the scale and nature of the problem. Medicare and Social Security are primarily benefits for the poor and middle class, and are supposed to be paid for by the the people who will use it. But they’ve been under-paying into the system for a long time, leaving a giant gap in funding. That’s not a problem of ‘the rich’, and the amount of money we’re talking about is so huge that you can’t just take it from ‘the rich’, because they don’t have it. But every time this discussion comes up, the lefties on this board can’t seem to get off the ‘rich people are bad and it’s all their fault’ mantra. As for Ryan’s plan - understand that he’s not ‘taking away’ medicare. Medicare’s going to take itself away by and by unless something is changed. Given the status quo or the Ryan plan, more poor and middle class people would get some kind of coverage from the Ryan plan, because the alternative today is bankruptcy of the system. The Ryan plan isn’t that radical - hell, it doesn’t even balance the budget for something like 30 years, and it doesn’t touch the benefits of anyone who will retire in the next ten years. But I haven’t seen an alternative plan that makes any sense. Have you got one? ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handicapping-the-2012-gop-presidential-nomination/571160/351 "2011-05-24T09:49:35Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Not at all what I said. In fact, not even close to what I said. I said that you can’t fix medicare by raising taxes on the rich, because they don’t have enough money. So who said you could? You were replying to **Dio** , and he didn’t. He just said the rich would have to pay their fair share. Apparently you have a Magical Dio Translator where when he says “fair share” that means “all of it,” which is a nice way of saying: same game you were doing in the last thread we shared. > [@](#): > > I get tired of these charades. Me too. Could you stop 'em? > [@](#): > > It’s like the Bush tax cuts - Lefties play this shell game all the time: “If we just rescind the Bush tax cuts, we can save 3 trillion dollars!”. But a good chunk of those tax cuts went to the poor and middle class. Sigh. You realize that ‘lefties’ are not only aware of this, but have been discussing the difference on dozens of blogs _ad nauseum_ over the past four years. It **ain’t no fucking shell game** - we know damned well that’s what it means, and we mean it anyway. > [@](#): > > At what point does the middle class come into play with you? I’ve been for rescinding the Bush tax cuts - all of them - since the beginning. Because, you know, I argued vehemently against their passage. So the answer would be, **2001**. [insert Also Sprach Zarathustra opening notes here.] > [@](#): > > All the evidence right on this board. And right in this thread. Where? You always make such sweeping statements, then there’s nothing ever behind them. > [@](#): > > Diogenes portrays the problem as ‘the elite’ putting the screws to the little guy, and that the problem is that the rich don’t pay their fair share. Funny, I read his post in a completely different way. Dio was talking about **the Ryan plan** , whose basic components are to cut rich people’s taxes by $3 trillion, and pay for it by cutting Medicare payments by roughly the same amount. As I understood him, he was saying that if neither the Ryan plan nor any close relation was enacted, _the rich would have to pay their fair share because these $3 trillion in cuts wouldn’t exist._ Is he saying anything about fixing the financing of Medicare as it is? NO. _He’s talking about the Ryan plan. **He says so upfront.** _ So you take his words, and make them about something else, and use that as an indictment of libruls in general. Nice work if you can get it. But absolutely shallow and misleading debating. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handicapping-the-2012-gop-presidential-nomination/571160/352 "2011-05-24T13:54:34Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > You realize that ‘lefties’ are not only aware of this, but have been discussing the difference on dozens of blogs _ad nauseum_ over the past four years. > > It **ain’t no fucking shell game** - we know damned well that’s what it means, and we mean it anyway. See, that’s the part that the short-sighted like Sam will never be able to comprehend. To him, paying taxes is like the worst thing that could ever happen to someone. Who’s willing to accept that, even if it’s the best move for the country as a whole? I mean, what’s in it for them? Roads? I never drive done Elm street. Let it crumble. Keeping old people from dying on the streets because they made the mistake of getting old? Who gives a fuck, my grandparents were considerate enough to have died already. Nobody would ever willingly allow their taxes to go up. Anyone who would allow it just doesn’t understand what they’re actually advocating. That’s why they need to spend some time listening to the Ron and Grover Radio Show. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handicapping-the-2012-gop-presidential-nomination/571160/353 "2011-05-24T15:20:03Z")
Thanks, **RTF**. **Sam** , the Ryan plan doesn’t fix anything and isn’t responsible. You can’t dig yourself out of debt by cutting revenue. That’s just stupid. Ryan’s plan cannot and will not blanace the budget, and is not intended to do so. It’s an attempt to rob Medicare in order to fund tax cuts for the wealthiest among us. It’s a great deal for the wealthy, but does nothing for the working classes (I can’t say “middle class” anymore), and will ultimately only make the public health care bill more expensive since we’ll be paying exorbitant emergency room bills instead Medicare. Ryan’s plan would call for the government to act like a reverse Robin Hood, stealing from the poor and giving to the rich, The pretense in the right wing media that Ryan’s plan is somehow “adult” or “responsible” is a joke. If it was adult and responsible, it was raise revenues - and saying it has to raise revenues doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be budget cuts, by the way. There has to be both. There is probably even room to cut Medicare, but that has to be done in a more responsible way, not by giving sick people worthless vouchers, but by means testing. I think we need means testing for Social Security too, and of course, Defense can be cut WAY back (starting with dumping independent contractors), but anybody who says they can balance the budget without restoring tax responsibilities for the upper classes (I’d like to see it go back up the Eisenhower levels, but even Reagan levels would make a huge difference) is a hustler. We also need to do something about the outsourcing of jobs, which is a huge problem that neither party seems to care about. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handicapping-the-2012-gop-presidential-nomination/571160/354 "2011-05-24T16:03:19Z")
Ah, OK, gotcha. So the middle class have more money than the rich. Makes perfect sense. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handicapping-the-2012-gop-presidential-nomination/571160/355 "2011-05-24T17:10:37Z")
Everybody’s coming out to play: [ > [@](#): > > The loftiest trial balloon yet from Rudy Giuliani’s camp was hoisted up on Monday night by Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., who told reporters that the former New York mayor and 2008 candidate was leaning toward mounting a run. > > A 2008 Giuliani aide told Power Play that key members of the old team are “staying loose” in anticipation of a potential run. He said the exploration seemed to have entered “a different phase” and that Giuliani had grown increasingly serious as the Republican field took shape. ]([Giuliani Sees an Opening in 2012 Field | Fox News](http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/05/24/giuiani-sees-opening-2012-field/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fpolitics+%28Internal+-+Politics+-+Text%29)) ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handicapping-the-2012-gop-presidential-nomination/571160/356 "2011-05-24T17:29:58Z")
Rudy must be a glutton for punishment, that’s all I’ve got to say. Mr. “Noun, Verb, 9/11” isn’t very relevant a decade after 9/11 (especially now that Obama got bin Laden), and his rep as some sort of folk hero has pretty much been trashed anyway. In the last primary season, he kept on dropping out of earlier primaries in order to make a stand in later primaries because the more voters saw of him, the less they liked him. If your days of not taking him seriously have come to a middle, that’s the appropriate reaction. ---
**Author:** ![Oldeb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ea666f/32.png) [@Oldeb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oldeb)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handicapping-the-2012-gop-presidential-nomination/571160/357 "2011-05-24T18:04:49Z")
Giulani’s career came to end when he announced, “We had no domestic attacks under Bush; we’ve had one under Obama,” when he was on [Good Morning America](http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/01/08/giuliani-says-no-domestic-terror-attacks-under-bush/). ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handicapping-the-2012-gop-presidential-nomination/571160/358 "2011-05-24T19:34:05Z")
Whoa, I had heard about the Usual Suspect talking heads saying that, but I didn’t realize that Giuliani did, too. You’d think that he, of all people, would remember that one. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handicapping-the-2012-gop-presidential-nomination/571160/359 "2011-05-24T19:42:47Z")
> [@Zakalwe](#): > > Hmmmm…let’s see. It might be easiest to break this down by categories: > > **No Intention of actually running…** > Michele Bachmann > John R. Bolton > Sarah Palin > Donald Trump > Ron Paul > Jon Huntsman, Jr. > > **Might form an exploratory committee and/or do a few straw polls, but not serious…** \* > Rand Paul > Rudy Giuliani > Newt Gingrich > Judd Gregg > Steve King > Paul Ryan > Rick Santorum > Haley Barbour > Gary E. Johnson > George Pataki > John Thune > Bob Riley > Buddy Roemer > > **Probably in it for the long haul…** > Mitch Daniels > Tim Pawlenty > Mitt Romney > Mike Huckabee > > - Absent some watershed moment and/or sea change in American politics. Can I use a baseball bat to the knees, or am I restricted to saddle weights? I am just starting to research the candidates - I won’t really make any decisions until about primary voting time. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handicapping-the-2012-gop-presidential-nomination/571160/360 "2011-05-24T19:50:07Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Not at all what I said. In fact, not even close to what I said. I said that you can’t fix medicare by raising taxes on the rich, because they don’t have enough money. I specifically said that the problems the U.S. is facing will require a combination of raising taxes AND cutting spending. You clearly don’t understand that any Republican candidate saying this will be effectively out of the race in a nanosecond, with a heaping tongue-lashing from Rush to boot. Your position matches that of the Democratic party far more than the Republican party. Social Security can be easily fixed by, among other things, raising the cap. I don’t know where the rich start, but it is with way more money than the current cap. Medicare’s problems are partially from the Bush giveaway, which made the situation worse, but mostly from the increase in healthcare costs. That is affecting both private and public insurance. Making all insurance as inefficient as private insurance is is not going to help any. Too bad Palin pre-emptively cut off any reasonable discussion of end of life care. Interestingly, the recession has caused a relative decrease in health care spending as compared to the expectations of the insurance companies, which has increased their profits a ton. They are responding, of course by requesting double digit increases in premiums, because they are afraid people will start using it again. Is increasing Medicare taxes (for almost all) more reasonable than a voucher program which will leave people at the mercy of premium increases from private insurers? Especially for a group of clients who are going to cost the insurance companies a lot more than the average of the entire population? Are you willing to force the insurance companies to takes seniors as customers for a reasonable price? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handicapping-the-2012-gop-presidential-nomination/571160.md?page=17) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handicapping-the-2012-gop-presidential-nomination/571160.md?page=19)