06.07.2011 • TUESDAY ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • A9 OTHER VIEWS MORE “The liberal mind-set vis-a-vis the economy is truly unbelievable,”writes Al Dorn of O’Fallon, Ill. “They simply can’t contain Read and talk about this LETTERS their class envy with their non-stop whining about making the rich pay their share.” letter and more letters online ONLINE at STLtoday.com/letters PAUL KRUGMAN More than a name Medicare • Maintain a system that provides all older Americans with guaranteed essential health care. What’s in a name? A lot, the Na- just quote the blogger Duncan analysis found that to get cover- ers I know would have greatly sential health care. tional Republican Congressional Black, who summarizes this as age equivalent to what they have preferred simply expanding Consider Canada, which has Committee obviously believes. saying that “when we replace the now, older Americans would Medicare to cover all Americans. a national health insurance pro- Last week, the committee sent a Marines with a pizza, we’ll call have to pay vastly more out of Second, the Affordable Care Act gram, actually called Medicare, letter demanding that a TV sta- the pizza the Marines.”The point pocket under the Paul Ryan plan is all about making health care, that is similar to the program tion stop running an ad declaring is that you can name the new than they would if Medicare as well, affordable, offering sub- we have for the elderly, but less that the House Republican bud- program Medicare, but it’s an en- we know it was preserved. Based sidies whose size is determined open-ended and more cost-con- get plan would “end Medicare.” tirely different program — call it on the budget office estimates, by the need to limit the share of scious. In 1970, Canada and the This, the letter insisted, was a Vouchercare — that would offer the typical senior would end up their income that families spend United States both spent about false claim: the plan would sim- nothing like the coverage that the paying around $6,000 more out on medical costs. Vouchercare, 7 percent of their GDP on health ply install a “new, sustainable elderly now receive. (Republicans of pocket in the plan’s first year by contrast, would simply hand care. Since then, as U.S. health version of Medicare.” get huffy when you call their plan of operation. out vouchers of a fixed size, spending has soared to 16 per- But Comcast, the station’s a voucher scheme, but that’s ex- By the way, defenders of the regardless of the actual cost of cent of GDP, Canadian spending owner, rejected the demand — actly what it is.) GOP plan often assert that it insurance. And these vouchers has risen much more modestly, and rightly so. For Republicans Medicare is a government-run resembles other, less unpopu- would be grossly inadequate. to only 10.5 percent of GDP. And are indeed seeking to dismantle insurance system that directly lar programs. For a while they But what about the claim that while Canadian health care isn’t Medicare as we know it, replacing pays health-care providers. claimed, falsely, that Voucher- none of this matters, because perfect, it’s not bad. it with a much worse program. Vouchercare would cut checks care would be just like the cover- Medicare as we know it is unsus- Canadian Medicare, then, I’m seeing many attempts to to insurance companies instead. age federal employees get. More tainable? Nonsense. looks sustainable; why can’t we shout down anyone making this Specifically, the program would recently, I’ve been seeing claims Yes, Medicare has to get seri- do the same thing here? Well, obvious point, and not just from pay a fixed amount toward pri- that Vouchercare would be just ous about cost control; it has to you know the answer in the case Republican politicians. For some vate health insurance — higher like the system created for Amer- start saying no to expensive pro- of the Republicans: They don’t reason, many commentators for the poor, lower for the rich, icans under 65 by last year’s cedures with little or no medical want to make Medicare sustain- seem to believe that accurately but not varying at all with the health care reform — a fairly benefits, it has to change the way able, they want to destroy it un- describing what the GOP is actual level of premiums. If you remarkable defense from a party it pays doctors and hospitals, and der the guise of saving it. actually proposing amounts to couldn’t afford a policy adequate that has denounced that reform so on. And a number of reforms So in voting for the House demagoguery. But there’s noth- for your needs, even with the as evil incarnate. of that kind are, in fact, included budget plan, Republicans voted ing demagogic about telling the voucher, that would be your So let me make two points. in the Affordable Care Act. But to end Medicare. Saying that truth. problem. First, Obamacare was very much with these changes it should be isn’t demagoguery, it’s just Start with the claim that the And most seniors wouldn’t be a second-best plan, conditioned entirely possible to maintain a pointing out the truth. GOP plan simply reforms Medi- able to afford adequate coverage. by perceived political realities. system that provides all older Copyright The New York Times St. Louis Post-Dispatch care06/07/2011 rather than ending it. I’ll ACopy Congressional Reduced Budget to Office 67% fromMost original of the health to care fit reform-letter pageAmericans with guaranteed es- KATHLEEN PARKER • [email protected] Twitter hatched a monster Society • Technology that enables our animal appetites has outpaced our capacity to control those appetites. MSNBC’s Lawrence is of him. O’Donnell says he’d own up In fairness, let’s stipulate if it were his. Jon Stewart that the photograph in ques- says he doesn’t remember tion could be of someone his old friend being quite all else and that a person other that! than the congressman could And Anthony Weiner, have sent the photo from the in-your-face New York his account as a prank. Any congressman whose alleged judgment is at this point waist-down photograph is speculation, aka gossip, The looming has become the talk of the though the congressman’s political parlor, shrank from evasiveness isn’t helping his questions about how said case. photo happened to be sent Leaving his problems from his Twitter account to aside, we might take the dam failure of 2011 a 21-year-old college stu- opportunity to consider MONTANA OFFICE OF TOURISM dent in Seattle. our own. How many such The Fort Peck Dam in Montana. With unprecedented flooding in the upper Midwest this spring, some people are To think, the long hot photos, or worse, are in concerned about the dam’s stability. summer has just begun. cellphones at this moment? For those who have Thousands? Millions? Flooding • An upstream dam failure along the Missouri River missed the tawdry travails “Sexting” apparently is still of poor Weiner, whose name popular among the young would wreak chaos, including in St. Louis. will never be quite the same, and firm, whereby one sends welcome to the planet. If a sexually explicit message BY BERNARD SHANKS you’re an adult, you may be or photo by mobile phone. wondering how we arrived (And by the way, kids, no There is very real threat of a flood that will leave at this point in our civic one cares about your tongue. St. Louis in chest-high water. The reason: Six old, discourse, not that men’s Please put it back in your huge, faulty dams that normally have reserve space underwear is new to Wash- mouth.) for spring snow melt are nearly full now — before ington’s conversation. But Like everyone else, I have the spring floods start. Floodgates that haven’t been tweeting is new-ish — and no idea what happened with opened in 50 years have begun to open. Flooding has dangerous as a loaded pistol Weiner’s Twitter account begun. And the human and economic toll could be at a brawl. Our ability to or whose schnitzel is caus- ghastly. snap a picture and flash it to ing O’Donnell to ponder Why another flood disaster? Six dams from Fort the world in a nanosecond envy and Stewart to wax Peck in Montana to Gavins Point in South Dakota, has taken instant gratifica- nostalgic about those hal- authorized by the Flood Control Act of 1944, are in tion to new, unimagined cyon days he shared with the process of failing at flood control. With spring levels and enabled the twin Weiner in the Atlantic surf. water levels low, they can hold back more than three temptations of exhibition- I do know that this is not a years of average Missouri River flow — enough to stop ism and voyeurism, first random problem. Such em- the worst floods and protect 750 miles of the Mis- cousins to narcissism. barrassing public exposures souri River valley and heartland cities. This year, that Familiarity hasn’t created could happen to anyone is not the case. only contempt; it has cre- who snaps, tweets or texts, Let me give you a sense of scale. These reservoirs LARRY MAYER • AP ated a monster. And Narcis- especially to young people are massive. Four of the nation’s 10 largest reservoirs The Musselshell River floods homes and farms near sus was a punk.