"Government, get your hands off my medicare!"

Politiska förslag som förhåller sig taffligt till verkligheten, del 2.

"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."

Bob Cesca, "Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands off My Medicare!", Huffington Post 5 augusti 2009

också: Timothy Noah, "The Medicare-isn't-Government Meme", Slate 5 augusti 2009

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Uppdatering 20 juli 2011
Statsvetaren Suzanne Mettler vid Cornell University har undersökt hur stor andel av US-amerikaner som tar del av olika statliga förmånsprogram, som bostadsbidrag, Pell Grants (stipendier för låginkomsttagare att studera vid universitet), med mera. Det är skrämmande många.
Catherine Rampell, "Keep Your Government Hands Off My Government Program", NYT Economix-bloggen 11 februari 2011

... och Mark Thoma konstaterar att en stor del av US-amerikanernas motvilja mot att betala skatter sannolikt kan förklaras med att de underskattar hur mycket de får tillbaka från staten; var och en tror att de betalar skatter som går till "någon annan".
Mark Thoma, "Why Taxpayers Are So Angry - And So Wrong About Spending", Fiscal Times 20 juli 2011

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Uppdatering 15 mars 2012
A.W. på Economist Free Exchange har bloggat om Mettlers tes: "Out of sight, out of mind, still on the books", Free Exchange 9 mars.