POLITICS AND HEALTHCARE

Ross Douthat had some excellent insights in his recent column on the health care controversy. Read the entire column if you can.

• It's the skepticism of the over-65 Americans that's dragging support for reform southward.
• Medicare is on the "chopping block"--this means the benefits the over-65 crowd has enjoyed will be cut to enact Obamacare.
• The Democrats are promising less, not more to a significant part of the population.
• Republicans need to stress that Obama wants to take away their health care.
• Republicans are beginning to support entitlements---a radical change! The Democrats are "sticking it to seniors with cuts to Medicare," Mitch McConnell declared. They want to "cannibalize" the program to pay for reform, John Cornyn complained. It's a "raid," Sam Brownback warned, that could result in the elderly losing "necessary care."
• Obviously, the Democratic plans wouldn't euthanize your grandmother. But they might limit the procedures that her Medicare will pay for. And conservative lawmakers are using this inconvenient truth to paint the Democrats as enemies of Grandma.
• Palin's "death panel" rhetoric has been criticized, yet Democrats have used similar rhetoric in the past to label Republicans as those who want to end social security, medicare, etc. Now this debate gives Republicans a chance for "pay back."

So as I see it Republicans can destroy the Democrat voting bloc of older citizens by stressing "death panels" and the fact the Obamacare is taking away programs that have helped older citizens for decades. But this means the Republican Party becomes the party of entitlements!