Medicare hypocrisy

As I've noted elsewhere, the Republican hypocrisy concerning Medicare cuts within the context of the health care reform debate has been staggering. Republicans have sought to kill Medicare since its inception, proposed massive cuts in the 1990s, and, in their recently released "shadow" budget, have outlined, not only massive cuts, but the program's ultimate termination. Such hypocrisy would be comical if it didn't play a major role in significantly altering the health care debate over the past year, scaring seniors into believing reform would cut their Medicare and introduce "death panels" to keep costs down. The Democratic plans do propose cuts in Medicare spending, but the cuts are targeted at wasteful spending, totaling approximately $400 billion over the next decade. In his column today, Paul Krugman takes on the hypocrisy.

Also, this graph, via Krugman: