"keep the government's hands off my medicare"?

recent quotes i like

"Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words." - ? | | | | | | |
"If there is anything I have learned from liberals and conservatives, it's that you can have great answers and still be mean... and that just as important as being right is being nice. " - shane claiborne | | | | | | |
"If Liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." --George Orwell ||||||
"On Facebook, no one can hear you scream." - I dont know ||||||
"The reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order, this lukewarmness arising partly from fear of their adversaries, who have the laws in their favor; and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it." - Machiavelli ||||||

President Obama at a town hall meeting last week described a letter he received from a Medicare recipient:

"I got a letter the other day from a woman. She said, 'I don't want government-run health care. I don't want socialized medicine. And don't touch my Medicare.'"

At a town hall meeting held by Rep. Robert Inglis (R-SC):

Someone reportedly told Inglis, "Keep your government hands off my Medicare."
"I had to politely explain that, 'Actually, sir, your health care is being provided by the government,'" Inglis told the Post. "But he wasn't having any of it."

It's no wonder with "very serious" analysts like Arthur Laffer are appearing on CNN and saying things like this (and getting away with it unchallenged):

"If you like the post office and the Department of Motor Vehicles and you think they're run well, just wait till you see Medicare, Medicaid and health care done by the government."

Yeah, just wait until the government gets its mighty robot claws on Medicare and Medicaid -- snatching control away from, you know, the government. (Incidentally, the post office is amazing. As Maher said recently, anyone can drop a letter into a blue metal box on the sidewalk and in a couple of days it arrives at the place listed on the envelope. For 44 cents. Off the top of your head, can you name anything that costs 44 cents and actually functions exactly as advertised?)

I can only hope that the Keep your goddamn government hands off my Medicare! people are exceptions and that a vast majority of Republican seniors understand that Medicare, Medicaid and the Veteran's Administration are all government-run health care systems. Put another way: they're actively and willingly participating in socialized medicine. So the seniors who understand the facts about the Medicare system and yet are screeching at town hall meetings about government-run health care are, well, insert your favorite colorful synonym for "freakishly colossal hypocrites" right about here.