RSS Feed MenuTom Schaller asks: “Why are senior citizens crying “socialism” at town halls?”
As we like to say in academia: I don’t know the answer, so let me tell you something I do know. (Graphs made in collaboration with Daniel Lee.)
First, who has health insurance (from the 2000 Annenberg survey):
Next, should the government spend more on healthcare (this time from 2004):
Some Obamacare supporters say: Senior citizens have Medicare, which is a government plan, so they should support a public healthcare provision, right? But maybe some people on Medicare are suspicious of expanded government involvement in healthcare because they see it as competing with Medicare for scarce dollars.
Here are a couple more graphs (pretty similar to the second graph above):
Pretty much the older you are, the less you favor government spending on health care.
P.S. The sample size is so huge we were able to have the luxury of plotting raw data. All we did is pool the age categories 91 and up. Yes, we could make the graph cleaner by smoothing it, but why bother? The picture from the raw data is clear enough.
SFTor1 // Aug 26, 2009 at 12:04 am
This is all good, except that they sure don’t “say no.”
Perhaps it’s good to stick to the tale of the tape.
balconesfault // Aug 26, 2009 at 12:46 am
Keep off my lawn!
rbottoms // Aug 26, 2009 at 12:50 am
The elderly going into hysterics about death panels and waiting lists for heart surgery, courtesy of the outright lies of Michael Steele, Charles Grassley, and the rest of the GOP chorus. Republicans have wanted to kill Medicare for years, now it is sacred, and they its stalwart defenders.
They have no interest in honest debate, only tactics and maneuvers to get back into power in 2010.
They have no shame, willing to indulge the fantasies of rabble who threaten to bring weapons to Washington in a direct threat to Obama.
They slander Democrats with charges of them wanting our soldiers to kill themselves.
The GOP birthers and teabaggers have taught one lesson. They have succeeded in teaching those who oppose them: No compromise, no bargains, no deals with the party of Limbaugh, bile, and lies.
joedee1969 // Aug 26, 2009 at 8:22 am
I think I found the answer, or at least a visionary who has:
http://americaspeaksink.com/2009/08/the-office-of-the-presidency-must-end/
sinz54 // Aug 26, 2009 at 9:23 am
sftor1: Those polls were taken in 2004.
Now that ObamaCare has proposed cutting $500 billion from Medicare, the new poll numbers I have seen show that support for ObamaCare among the elderly has fallen further. I’ll try to dig out those numbers.
sinz54 // Aug 26, 2009 at 9:24 am
rbottoms: No, they’re the result of ObamaCare being scored by the CBO on the assumption of a $500 billion cut out of Medicare. Including the virtual elimination of the Medicare Advantage program, which Obama always hated long before he became president.
The GOP didn’t make that up.
rbottoms // Aug 26, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Including the virtual elimination of the Medicare Advantage program, which Obama always hated long before he became president.
The GOP didn’t make that up.
“Nobody is talking about trying to change Medicare benefits,” he said. “What we do want is to eliminate some of the waste that is being paid for out of the Medicare trust fund.”
He cited $177 billion of what he called government subsidies paid to insurance companies participating in Medicare Advantage, an enhanced Medicare benefits program.
Making health insurers compete to participate in Medicare Advantage, rather than paying them do so, is one way to cut costs and improve benefits, the president said.
Stop GOP Lies About Medicare
Churl // Aug 26, 2009 at 9:47 pm
“But maybe some people on Medicare are suspicious of expanded government involvement in healthcare because they see it as competing with Medicare for scarce dollars.”
Well yes; no maybe about it.
If, as one infers from statistics and rhetoric, Obama wants to suddenly provide insurance to 40 million currently uninsured people and cut costs at the same time without a concomitant increase in providers or facilities, one could be excused for believing that significant cuts in services must be made for some presently insured people.
Now follow me closely here. Notice from the first graph that the newly insured will be younger than medicare age. There is no way to decrease benefits for those not now insured, so the cuts will have to fall primarily on the older people. The older people are at the most vulnerable periods of their lives: unemployable and on incomes determined by the whims of politicians on social security and hanging from the vagaries of the financial markets. Their value of their houses has just taken a remarkable whacking.
They are spooked by the appallingly rapid increase in the deficit and national debt because even the Me Generation knows that somehow, sometime, debts have to be paid off. And paying off the debt is going to squeeze very hard on future government expenditures.
The older folks are not about to go gently into that good night and are quite determined that the politicians are aware of this.
rbottoms // Aug 26, 2009 at 10:34 pm
The older folks are not about to go gently into that good night and are quite determined that the politicians are aware of this.
So what you’re saying is they are so concerned about the deficit and the future they’ve banded together to make sure Obama doesn’t cut one dime of their entitlement.
But never fear, the GOP are the guardians of Medicare.
Except of course they opposed its creation in the first place and were dedicated to eliminating it as well as that other socialist program called Social Security for decades.
I think on the whole, Democrats have the better narrative for who is really a friend of Medicare.
Churl // Aug 27, 2009 at 12:21 am
rbottoms: Yes, exactly. What I’m saying is that the old folks don’t want their benefits cut, anymore than the SEIU wants their wages cut, or anybody else wants to give up what they’ve got.
Your problem in perception, if I may be so bold as to suggest that you have a problem in perception, is the binary idea that someone who doesn’t like something proposed by Democrats is ipso facto a Republican. This is a handy way to shift a discussion about genuine personal concerns to partisan bickering, but the fact remains that if the Republicans looked like they were menacing the seniors’ benefits they would be just as roughly handled.
rbottoms // Aug 27, 2009 at 2:16 am
This is a handy way to shift a discussion about genuine personal concerns to partisan bickering, but the fact remains that if the Republicans looked like they were menacing the seniors’ benefits they would be just as roughly handled.
So what you’re saying is the party that for decades tried to eliminate Medicare has successfully masked that fact for the moment to make the party that created Medicare the villains.
They’ve managed to sucker the anti-abortion Christian right in believing they give a damn about their cause, convinced poor and lower middle-class whites that tilting he tax code in favor of behemoth corporations was a good thing, and found a way to make non-millionaires afraid of a “death tax” that none of them will ever pay.
You’re discussing the GOP. Why would you think their latest bit of ju-jitsu would come as a surprise.
Churl // Aug 27, 2009 at 9:33 am
rbottoms, I’m not discussing the GOP. I’m discussing the elderly who are spooked by what they see as inevitable deterioration of care they will get under Obamacare. Party affiliation has nothing to do with their worries.
sinz54 // Aug 27, 2009 at 9:43 am
rbottoms sez: “So what you’re saying is the party that for decades tried to eliminate Medicare has successfully masked that fact for the moment to make the party that created Medicare the villains.”
When did the GOP ever try to eliminate Medicare after it was enacted?
I lived through that era, while I’m betting you weren’t born yet.
In 1965, John Byrnes, a REPUBLICAN Representative from Wisconsin, helped lead a bipartisan effort to craft a Medicare bill–just as Grassley is trying to do now with ObamaCare.
AFAIK, none of the Republican Presidents–Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush 41, or Bush 43–ever tried to eliminate Medicare. Neither did Newt Gingrich, when he was Speaker of the House in the 1990s.
Where did you learn your history? Did you have left-wing teachers and professors who “taught” you that the GOP was the very incarnation of evil?
sinz54 // Aug 27, 2009 at 9:46 am
rbottoms sez: “Except of course they opposed its creation in the first place and were dedicated to eliminating it as well as that other socialist program called Social Security for decades.”
Roughly 40% of the Republicans in Congress voted for Medicare.
And AFAIK, no Republican administration ever tried to eliminate either Social Security or Medicare since it was enacted. Not even the Reagan Administration. In fact, Reagan appointed a commission to help ensure the solvency of Social Security for many years afterward.
You’ve obviously been learning your history from Marxists like Howard Zinn. You might as well have sat in a Soviet classroom.
rbottoms // Aug 27, 2009 at 11:03 am
You’ve obviously been learning your history from Marxists like Howard Zinn.
Who the frak is Howard Zinn?
The Atlantic Home - Andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com | CELEBRITY NEWS // Aug 27, 2009 at 12:56 pm
[...] Gelman runs the numbers. His bottom line: Pretty much the older you are, the less you favor government spending on health [...]
rbottoms // Aug 27, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Challenged to explain his inconsistent view of the appropriate government role in health care, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele accused his interviewer of being “cute” and doing a “wonderful little dance.”
In an exchange that grew testy quickly, Steele told NPR Thursday morning that there was nothing contradictory about accusing the president of raiding Medicare while also insisting that the government-run program is a financial failure.
Talking Out The Side of Your Neck
MI-GOPer // Oct 13, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Not only have the elderly clearly said “NO” to Obama’s drive to create socialized medicine, a govt-run single payer system that will ration health care services and encourage terminally ill patients to make decisions based on the scarcity of resources and not the patients’ best interests, but they’re also saying NO to Obama’s likely tax hikes to pay for it all, saying NO to the likely deficits when the revenues don’t come in as planned or expenses exceed the wildest estimates and are saying NO to Obama’s pledge that people won’t have to trade their current insurance plan for the Big Govt Public Option Plan.
http://thehill.com/opinion/columnists/dick-morris/52425-elderly-lead-opposition-on-obama-healthcare