That’s “Medicaid,” Not Medicare

By Ed Kilgore

Regular readers know that I’m more than a little cranky about the ancient habit of Democrats of raising heaven and hell to defend the Medicare program while ignoring threats to Medicaid, based on the cynical belief that the former is popular among people who actually vote, while the latter is a “welfare” program of interest only to po’ folks who don’t vote or vote so reliably Democratic that they can be ignored. It’s a particularly offensive habit at the moment, since the GOP’s evil designs on Medicaid are much clearer and more immediate than their convoluted schemes to slowly strangle Medicare benefits.

So I share Jonathan Cohn’s surprise and happiness that the Obama campaign is now actually running a 30-second ad about Medicaid and only Medicaid. To be sure, it’s only about the long-term care function of Medicaid, which affects those prone-to-vote old folks, not to mention their children, who face the possibility of much greater “sandwich generation” woes if states implement a Medicaid block grant with reduced funding by cutting back on the “middle-class entitlement” of long-term care assistance.