More proof that the Republican plan put forward by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) to privatize Medicare is a massive political liability. Another poll, this time from Bloomberg, finds that the American people think it would make seniors worse off.

It is hard to read the tea leaves sometimes, but when a major Republican crosses his party on Ryancare, then his campaign staff quit, well that is not that tough to read.

On the monumental issue of how to deal with rising health care costs, there are no two political leaders in America whose actions are more diametrically opposed than Democratic Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin and Republican House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan. Ryan wants to privatize Medicare, destroying America’s extremely popular and effective single-payer system for older Americans, while Shumlin is working to expand the benefits of single-payer health insurance to everyone. The national Democratic Party will soon have to decide which of these leaders’ diverging paths they intend to follow.

With almost no predictive power and no effect on the balance of control in Congress, this victory will only affect our government if most people assign a shared meaning to it.

When basically the entire House Republican caucus voted for Paul Ryan’s budget, which includes a “plan” to destroy the very popular Medicare program and replace it with insufficient private vouchers, I couldn’t tell if they made such a terrible political move because they were so trapped in their own ideological bubble that they actually thought Americans wanted to eliminate Medicare, or they were so ideologically driven that they were determined to push radical right-wing social engineering despite it being highly unpopular.

Politico reports it is was mainly the latter.

The Democratic party has made it very clear they intend to make a big issue out of the House Republican budget that would end Medicare and replace it with a privatized voucher program. The DCCC has put together another ad hammering Republicans for this vote.

Apparently, if I blow up your Ferrari but I replace it with an old Honda Civic, I haven’t actually destroyed your car; at least according to the bizarre logic used by PolitiFact.

The House passed Republican Paul Ryan’s budget that would end Medicare as we know it and replace it with a privatized system of vouchers. While it is good to know not a single Democrat was actually stupid enough to vote for it, on a purely political level, I’m actually stunned that four Republicans, Walter Jones, Ron Paul, Denny Rehberg and David McKinley, voted against it.

In reality, Ryan’s plan doesn’t actually protect current seniors Medicare. With no new people joining traditional Medicare, its pool would steadily shrink, making doctors less willing to accept it.

Just in case the incredible political success Republicans experienced in 2010 after they were able to frame Democrats’ health care law as cutting Medicare didn’t make the point abundantly clear, a new Gallup poll reminds us that Americans really want their Medicare left alone.