Obama Targets Medicare Advantage

It might seem like in an unlimited democracy majorities would tax minorities to subsidize benefits for themselves, but in practice it's difficult for a majority to impose large enough taxes on the minority to get very large benefits per person. So in practice majorities usually end up taxing themselves to subsidize themselves and then whining about the taxes while trying to keep increasing the benefits. It's sort of like transfusing blood from your right arm to your left arm and then whining about the needles.

Rural voters, for instance, agitated heavily for a resumption of wartime farm price support subsidies after World War I, but as they represented a majority of the population, they failed miserably in the 1920s. Only after farmers had fallen into the minority could they get benefits, and only when they'd become a tiny minority could they get really GOOD benefits from the rest of us.

Currently the federal government subsidizes health care for two groups of minorities--the poor (with Medicaid), and the elderly (with Medicare). Only by taxing everyone else can the government pay the medical subsidies for the poor and elderly. If government is going to subsidize "universal" care--i.e. subsidize everyone's health care--it's got to get the money from somewhere. Medicare dwarfs Medicaid, so if Obama really were able to seize control of our health care, to pay for it he'd have to cut Medicare subsidies. As the following piece indicates, although he's currently denying he'd cut Medicare, he's admitted it publicly just two weeks ago.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574374584177632694.html?mod=djemEditorialPage