Monday, October 7, 2019

Trump's "promise" to protect Medicare is just another campaign lie to fearful seniors


In the face of more evidence of the disturbing behavior of Donald Trump and his familiars, one wonders just how much is too much for Trump diehards. Trump, who avoided the Vietnam draft via a phony report that he had a “bone spur” in his foot, is yet again undermining this country’s international credibility by caving in to fellow wannabe dictator Recep Erdogan’s demand that he be allowed to invade northern Syria and “deal” with the Kurds there, who the U.S. had been backing against ISIS fighters. One unnamed source quoted in Newsweek said "The U.S. national security has entered a state of increased danger for decades to come because the president has no spine and that's the bottom line." Even Trump familiar Sen. Lindsey Graham wailed about how he has tried and tried to support this president, yet he continues to do things to undermine this country’s security. 

Trump claims that he is only carrying out his campaign promise to put “America First,” but as many have recognized long ago, what this really means is “Trump First.” In the face of new evidence of his unfitness, Trump insists to his diehard base of supporters that his 2016 campaign promises have been met, and naturally most still believe him—or if they are not “sure,” at least they still appreciate his hate propaganda about “Mexicans,” Democrats and the non-Fox News media. 

Unfortunately for the purposefully ignorant—frightened, paranoid older voters in particular—Trump really isn’t justifying their expectations; after all, migrants pose no “threat” to them, in fact more likely help them by paying into their Social Security and Medicare through payroll deductions that migrants themselves are not eligible to collect on. Take for example Trump’s recent visit to Florida where he told seniors that he was “protecting” their Medicare against “socialist” Democrats and “illegal immigrants.” Right-wing commentator Liz Peek apparently thought his speech was the work of a “very stable genius,” although some might say it was evidence of a “very stable liar.”  Last week in The Hill Peek added to the air of unreality that Trump supporters exist in by claiming that he keeps scoring “a political win that reminds us that his election in 2016 was no accident.” She justified this by citing the usual propaganda about “socialist” medicine and a single-payer system as if that is supposed to be “bad,” and defending as “sheer political genius” an executive order ”strengthening the program, increasing choice and combatting fraud,” which in reality is nothing more than a fraudulent excuse to cover what Trump and his familiars in Congress want to do: gut Medicare. 

Didn’t Trump tell voters in 2016 that he wasn’t going to “touch” Medicare or any other program that effected seniors?  The reality should be painful to Trump supporters; his 2020 budget proposal would reduce spending for many senior service programs—by a lot. His proposed $1.5 trillion cut in Medicaid over 10 years would include denial of Medicaid to families who cared for indigent parents. His $84 billion cut in Social Security benefits would be money “saved” by making it more difficult to claim disability. But it was his “promise” to leave Medicare alone that took the biggest “hit”: his reduction in Medicare payments would “only” be—according to the right-wing “Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget”—between $513 and $575 billion over the next 10 years rather than the $845 billion critics were citing. 

Henry Gleckman of Forbes repeated the hilarious claim made by that “committee” that the other $269 billion in losses to Medicare was not “really” lost, but merely “shifted” to other parts of the budget. To what purpose? To be “shifted” to help pay for Trump’s border “wall”? The Trump administration claims that it wants to replace cuts in Medicare with on-the-cheap programs like “senior nutrition” (whatever the hell that means), as if that is supposed to “cheapen” medical costs. Knowing Trump and some of his familiars like Stephen Miller, he’s probably not going to give the harm caused by these policies a second thought, so long as the people affected by them at least wait until after they give Trump their vote before they die. 

But Trump’s deceiving of his “base” continues to work because he plays on their fears, paranoia and hate of the “others.” Democrats, you see, want to take Medicare from seniors and give it to “illegals,” and plenty of people believe this lie. Although there continues to be a debate regarding if migrants—especially children—should be allowed access to health care in this country, that is not the issue at hand here. Illegal immigrants are not eligible for Medicare under any circumstance. Only legal residents who are seniors 65 or over, people with disabilities, and those requiring kidney support apparatus to function are eligible for Medicare. Period, end of story. 

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has joined a lawsuit to invalidate the ACA in its entirety, which of course would invalidate the laws’ forbidding of denial of affordable health insurance for those with pre-existing conditions; Republicans, of course, have no current plans to replace the ACA. Trump familiar Miller is trying his best to obfuscate the administration’s crimes against seniors by pushing  his evil, racist agenda of stopping all—or at least Hispanic—immigration into the U.S. by adding the  “public charge” rule to legal attempts to immigrate to the U.S., that on top of blocking nearly all asylum claims from Latin America. The Trump administration is forbidding those who apply legally (even those who prove they have no health issues) to immigrate if they cannot “prove” that they either have a health insurance plan waiting for them when they enter the country, or are wealthy enough to pay for it on their own—and this in a country where Republicans claim that people have a “right” not to have health insurance, as was mandated by the ACA before the Republican-led Congress outlawed the mandate. Such is the level of hypocrisy in this country.

As I have written about before, Miller’s “public charge” rule has a sinister history, used to prevent European Jews and others fleeing Nazi oppression to enter the country until far too late in the day. Most Central Americans are also fleeing conditions of rampant violence, which the U.S. has had a hand in setting the table for; “deporting” U.S.-bred gangs to these countries is only one thing on top of many others that the U.S. is responsible for over the many decades.  

Trump claimed during his campaign that he would not touch Medicare and Social Security, and this has turned out like so many other “promises” he made is simply not true; that his whims have not been entirely met save through executive orders is only because he can’t get Congress to cooperate, not because he wants to keep his “promises” to those who still support him. Just how much longer will they keep listening to him? Don’t hold your breath; if Trump knows anything, it’s that he knows hate, fear and paranoia are powerful forces that can obscure the truth. He knows this because it works in his own unstable mind every time.

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