Want to know if you're prejudiced and likely promoting ageism, the unfair discrimination and deprivation of rights of older citizens? See if you agree with (in my opinion) a poster-boy of hate and promotion of ageism--Jim Tankersley, ["Baby boomers are what’s wrong with America’s economy," (11/5/2015) Jim Tankersley and his rant about Medicare.]
The likes of Tankersley are dangerous because he disguises his unjustified hatred of a group of people by playing into what is today's seemingly ONLY tolerated prejudice in the US, ageism that risks the safety and security of not only older Americans but of younger Americans.
Jim Tankersley is a Boomer Basher, an ageist, who blames everything wrong with the world today on Baby Boomers and fully intends to support any government action that strips them of their Social Security or Medicare benefits. (And he's not so young, certainly old enough to know better as a self identified Gen Xer).
Jim Tankersley is not unique, no hater ever is. Instead Mr. Tankersley is trying to self-promote and promote the trend of hatred and discrimination against older Americans ranging from blame-articles that identify Baby Boomers as US society's "Problem" to government policies that take that misidentified "Problem" as the group who should be singled out to be deprived of assets, access and healthcare as the solution to the "problem."
It's argued here that the ageist trend is not only without merit, but represents a readiness to scapegoat and brutalize the Baby Boomer population that will also leave future generations in a worse position.
Today's ageism is no different from any other hate language or prejudice that has governmental and media support of scapegoating a specific group of citizens.
For instance, you'll notice that Boomer Bashers like Tankersley in his article don't discuss all government "entitlements" which include Medicare, government employee benefits, Veterans benefits, social security including disability and Obamacare federal government contributions in the form of premium assistance but instead focus on social security payments for the old and Medicare which primarily benefits the old.
The risk of this sort of governmentally sanctioned and media encouraged scapegoating requires repeating the warning best expressed by Martin Niemöller: "First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Socialist…Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."
Mr. Tankersley's hate-speech creates a challenge: Will we be a country that further legalizes and supports scapegoating Baby Boomers, the next group of aging Americans and support stripping them of rights and assets and denying them benefits of government spending programs based on false "economic" claims or will we do the work and demand that government not further institutionalize the prejudicial and discriminatory practice of ageism?
So far, and under Obamacare, and with ageists like Tankersley, it seems that America has a willingness to embrace ageism in a manner never tolerated before even as we show improved sensitivities to other forms of unjustified and government sanctioned hostility against specific groups of people.
Mr. Tankersley begins with his assertion that politicians defend Medicare and promise not to impact benefits because they want older Americans' votes--which fails to recognize that Medicare has undergone a virtual gutting by Obamacare.
Obamacare did anything BUT leave Medicare and its beneficiaries alone--nor will any other politician leave Medicare alone. It's the one thing the government class agrees on--screw the old.
Medicare has already been changed and there's more to come which Mr. Tankersley would know if he bothered to do any research such as visiting the government's CMS website. You can do this at https://www.google.com/#q=Obamacare+changes+Medicare+2019+and++beyond.
If Mr. Tankersley had bothered to base his hostility on fact rather than opinion, he might have noticed that Obamacare in an effort to finance its expanded entitlement payments to people like--well him, perhaps, who can get the government to pay for their premiums if they finagle their income so they earn up to "only" $94,000 a year, cannibalizes Medicare and will scale it back to save government billions of dollars over the next years, the very years that Boomers become eligible for Medicare in a way that will leave Boomers INSECURE in older age.
He might even notice that the overly dramatic term "death panel" used to describe the Independent Payment Advisory Board is in there which will kick in if costs to the government on behalf of those darn old folks creep too high and that that panel is anticipated to save $23.7 billion for the government according to CMS (https://www.cms.gov/apps/docs/aca-update-implementing-medicare-costs-savings.pdf).
And, unblinded by prejudice Mr. Tankersley might have read through the provisions of the Medicare modifications that are eerily similar in language to the false promises of Obamacare and will realize that the only one "saving" money under Obamacare is the federal government on outlays on behalf of beneficiaries rather than overall expenses because the government decided to exclude counting how much it spends on its own employees and technology and administration of Obamacare (see CBO Publication 49892, 1/15/15, page 1, “…estimates address only the insurance coverage provisions of the ACA and do not reflect all of the act’s budgetary effects…because the provisions of the ACA that do not relate directly to health insurance coverage generally modified existing federal programs (such as Medicare) or made various changes to the tax code, determining what would have happened since the enactment of the ACA had the law not been in effect is becoming increasingly difficult.”)
But Mr. Tankersley is an ageist and like all haters, does not want to be bothered with facts. Tankersley blames everything from climate change to fossil fuels on Baby Boomers and is irrationally outraged that Boomers expect newer generations, (just as the Boomers are expected to), to "…shoulder the burden of keeping America’s retirement promises to the boomers," https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/11/05/baby-boomers-are-whats-wrong-with-americas-economy/.
But Tankersley's concerns are not for the younger generation, they're just about hating on Baby Boomers, the irrational ranting of an ageist and Boomer Bashing is his thing. He doesn't care about anything but getting rid of Boomers and that risks the safety and security of every American citizen. Consider:
Mr. Tankersley does not care about future generations or else he could not be so irrational as to imply that the size of the Boomer generation is a problem and therefore if we get rid of them then the world will be good. After all Millenials are already a bigger generation than the Boomer generation ("Millennial generation is bigger, more diverse than boomers," http://money.cnn.com/interactive/economy/diversity-millennials-boomers/).
Mr. Tankersley does not care about future generations because already children are being raised by grandparents in larger numbers than ever before even as he advocates for cutting those grandparents' social security and Medicare (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/07/26/more-grandparents-raising-their-grandkids/13225569/).
Mr. Tankersley doesn't care about future generations since the Boomers are supporting their grown children in greater numbers and for a longer time than ever before (see for example, "Parents Risk Retirement to Support Millenial Kids," http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-05/parents-risk-retirement-to-support-millennial-kids, Carol Hymowitz) and obviously impoverishing Boomers will impact those future generations.
Mr. Tankersley doesn't care about future generations since millions of young Americans have health insurance because their Boomer parents are paying for it under Obamacare which "allows" older Americans to take on the cost of their grown children's health insurance through the age of 26. Ageism that cuts security for older Americans that was formerly provided for by our government will reduce the number of older Americans who can afford to subsidize their children's health insurance.
Tankersley doesn't care about the younger generation because while there are new Obamacare policies that certainly FIRSTLY go after older Americans, the cost-cutting policies also impact younger Americans.
For example, under Obamacare, former standards that allowed insurance companies to charge young people UP TO ONE-FIFTH of what was charged to older people were changed by Obamacare to now enable insurance companies to charge younger people UP TO ONE-THIRD of what is charged to older people. That means that younger people can be charged more BECAUSE of Obamacare.
Obamacare also instituted legalized ageism by continuing insurers' ability to use age as a criterion for charging more for premiums (based on statistics showing increased costs for older people) BUT PROHIBITING the use of other valid criteria for increased charges such as drug use (non-tobacco) illegal or legal, obesity, pre-existing conditions, alcoholism, or even pregnancy--All of which are statistically justified reasons to charge more. Obamacare only says it's OK to charge more based on age (and tobacco use).
Obamacare has also created the new end-of-life counseling that PAYS providers to discuss the cost-benefit of whether a possible medical treatment is worth it based on the odds that it would work. The language describes no specific age for the paid "talk" so that while it's reserved for Medicare patients, the majority of whom are older Americans, younger Americans can also be hurt by this policy.
We already see oncologist support for "financial discussions" with patients as to whether possibly life-saving treatments are cost effective (see August, 2013 for example, AMA Journal of Ethics, Nancy Berlinger, PhD, "Why Clinical Oncologists Should Talk about the Price of Cancer Drugs," http://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/2013/08/jdsc1-1308.html).
Today's drug shortages mean that doctors are deciding WHO gets needed medication, including who gets pediatric cancer drugs (not only the old) and decisions are based on such factors as a patient's weight and other health conditions, (see for example, Sheri Fink, 1/29/2016, Drug Shortages Forcing Hard Decisions on Rationing Treatments," http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/29/us/drug-shortages-forcing-hard-decisions-on-rationing-treatments.html).
Then there's the change that Obamacare didn't make in terms of protecting Americans even as it created entitlement payments for wage earners earning up to $94,000 and argued and won the right to pay even more people the entitlement than the Affordable Care Act named (King v. Burwell) and expanding the government payouts for Medicaid--Obamacare did not change the 1993 law that REQUIRES states to go after the estate of individuals who receive Medicaid after the age of 55 which will reduce young people's chances of having an inheritance (see FactCheck.org, "…1993 federal law requires states to recover Medicaid costs," http://www.factcheck.org/2014/01/medicaid-estate-recovery-program/.)
Obviously Mr. Tankersley could give a hoot about future generations--he's driven by hate, not logic and he simply wants to stick it to Baby Boomers, older Americans, regardless of the impact on younger generations. Tankersley's flawed hate-motivated logic promotes further legitimization of government sponsored ageism such as that included in Obamacare and jeopardizes the young who rely so heavily on the aging generation of Baby Boomers all so he can excuse his own failings as a Gen Xer.
