Why Medicare Plans Don't Matter

The candidates and pundits are spending a lot of time and energy talking about Medicare Reform.  Polls suggest that 4/5 voters want to leave Medicare and Social Security alone. Even among the Tea Party, 70% of respondents want to leave this popular program untouched. (The Tea Party, of course, wants to cut the size and reach of government; but they don't want to touch Medicare or Social Security, which makes the whole thing a head-scratcher to me.)

So, regardless of how much Obama, Romney, and Ryan talk about it, Medicare won't shrink; indeed, it's likely to get much bigger (a huge majority of ex-hippies didn't heed Pete Townshend's advice and are still coming down for breakfast). If Romney wins, and proposes some version of Ryan's Medicare plan, it has no chance of getting past Congress. Indeed, if the GOP sweeps this fall's election (we're now ten weeks out, and it looks extremely unlikely), they won't even propose Medicare cuts.  If they do, the cuts will get just a trickle of votes in the House, from safe Republican seats.

Rest your grey heads easily, Medicare isn't going anywhere.


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