Nancy Pelosi Games Out The Long Fight Over Medicare And The Rest Of The Safety Net

Brian Beutler, December 7, 2011, 4:45 AM

 

Eight months is a long time in politics, but it will be eight months ago next week that House Republicans voted overwhelmingly for a budget that envisioned a massively scaled-down social safety net — a smaller, privatized health care system for old people, to replace traditional Medicare; Medicaid financially constrained, and handed over to state governments; cuts to various other support programs that benefit the poor, the young, and the elderly.

That didn’t sit well with voters. And in the months that followed, Republicans tried to contain the fallout by making federal deficits a central political issue while forcing Democrats to agree to real cuts to these programs — all while refusing themselves to raise taxes, even on the very wealthiest Americans.