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"The party has traditionally had trouble with older voters, losing them by 16 points in 2010 — when Republicans picked up 63 seats — and 12 points in the 2012 presidential race. Seniors are the GOP’s most reliable voting bloc in midterm years, turning out in higher numbers than Democratic base voters. And a recent Gallup poll showed seniors have become even more Republican over the last two decades, and in 2013 48 percent considered themselves Republican. Of particular concern to seniors are the proposed 2015 cuts to Medicare Advantage, a popular private Medicare program, which may be finalized Monday when the administration announces its final decision."
The problem with the seniors isnt so much with seniors as it is with the current generation of seniors born mostly between 1928 and 1947. The so called Silent Generation has always been conservative. They voted for Goldwater, they were Nixons silent majority, they were the Reagan Democrats even if they were never Democrats. They voted for Bush and Bush gave them Medicare Advantage, and Medicare Part D prescription. Republicans actually ran to the left of Dems with their Mediscare tactics in 2010 promising to restore $500 billion in cuts. Now this year Ryan is promising seniors he will get rid of Obamacare and put the $700 billion in saving "somewhere" where it will "save" Medicare. Medicare Advantage should be cut. Everyone knows it but now with the election coming up it will be used as a wedge issue. Republicans will still carry the senior vote but it wont be by the margin it was in 2010. Some estimates had seniors voting Republican by as much as 21 points in 2010. The numbers will be lower this year because now you have the first four years of the boomer generation which has always voted more democrat than the older voters. Republicans will carry the senior vote but it will be more like 45-55 enough though to probably put more Republicans in the Senate.
Of course Obama has a problem with seniors. He's for limiting health care for them --- but not for the able bodied young cranking out children they can never afford or for the flood of people coming illegally over the borders to access the welfare handouts.
Those who worked and paid into the system all their lives are now to be denied. Obama has better uses for their money -- buying votes by expanding Medicaid and other handouts to those who have never paid into the system is his plan.
The problem for the GOP is that their only reliable demographic is dying off and not being replaced. They may have the numbers today, but in the near future, as the baby boomers start to replace the generation before them, they're in big trouble.
I really hope the GOP runs on Paul Ryan and Bobby Jindal's ideas to replace Medicare with a $15,000 voucher. Then sit back and watch the seniors abandon the party in record numbers.
Considering both Ryan and Jindal are singing from the Cato Institute hymn book to eliminate Medicare in favor of a $15,000 annual voucher, I suspect AARP will go wild if these proposals gain traction.
The reason why Medicare was created was because private insurers would not touch the healthcare exposures of the elderly with a ten foot poll. Any Congress over the past 50 years could have linked payroll taxes to healthcare inflation. But they did not risk their respective reelection by increasing taxes and instead kicked the can into the future.
The problem for the GOP is that their only reliable demographic is dying off and not being replaced. They may have the numbers today, but in the near future, as the baby boomers start to replace the generation before them, they're in big trouble.
I really hope the GOP runs on Paul Ryan and Bobby Jindal's ideas to replace Medicare with a $15,000 voucher. Then sit back and watch the seniors abandon the party in record numbers.
O lost the boomer vote in 2012, as well as the over-40 Xers.
Keep dreaming.
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