Medicare "Vouchers" Dies An Ugly Death

In the last Congress, Paul Ryan came up with an odious idea. He wanted to dismantle the Medicare program, and replace it with a voucher program that would put seniors at the Mercy (non-existent) of the private insurance companies. It would have made American seniors pay a lot more out of their own pockets for medical care. In his latest budget proposal, he once again included the "voucher" program for Medicare -- and it passed the Republican-controlled House.

Fortunately, the Ryan budget plan was disposed of quickly when it got to the Senate (on a 40 to 59 vote). But Ryan's ridiculous idea of replacing Medicare with a voucher system (which is not popular with the general public) fared much worse than his budget as a whole.

Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-Michigan) decided that even though the Ryan budget stood no chance in the Senate (or with the president), all senators should have to take a position on Ryan's idea of dismantling Medicare and replacing it with vouchers. She introduced an amendment to get a recorded vote on the matter by every senator. Her amendment said (according to C-SPAN):

To establish a deficit-neutral reserve fund to protect Medicare's guaranteed benefits and to prohibit replacing guaranteed benefits with the House passed budget plan to turn Medicare into a voucher program.

And the idea of turning Medicare into a voucher system went down to a crushing defeat. Every Democratic and Independent senator, and almost all Republican senators, voted against the idea. The amendment was approved by a vote of 96 to 3. That should end any idea of vouchering Medicare in this Congress. The three senators voting for the plan to dismantle Medicare were:

Ted Cruz (R-Texas)
Rand Paul (R-Kentucky)
Mike Lee (R-Utah)

There are quite a few senators that do a poor job of representing the people of their state and the country, but these three are in a class by themselves. The voters of Texas, Kentucky, and Utah should be deeply ashamed of sending these idiots to Washington.