Political & Elections

romanigypsyeyes · Guru

RE: Thoughts on VP?

hope · Guru

With all due respect, jazzy, that is not the point.

Don't you see the point is that the main stream media thinks it is perfectly reasonable to "delve into" the influence Ayn Rand may have had on Paul Ryan, but completely ignore the influence Alinsky, Frank Marshall Davis, Obama's Columbia Marxist professors, etc. etc. may have had on him?

If, to single out Alinsky, he's such a cool guy, why has the main stream media attempted to paint anyone pointing out the community organizing tactics of Alinsky that Obama may have learned as nutso cranks? If America would rather an Alinsky as a "role model" I failed to see that sentiment in print or on television since 2008.

And I'm pretty familiar with Alinsky, since we used his book as a handbook back when I was a VISTA volunteer in the early '70's. Yes, I used to be a bleeding heart liberal. disbelief

-- Edited by hope on Friday 17th of August 2012 08:11:28 PM

-- Edited by hope on Friday 17th of August 2012 08:20:00 PM

romanigypsyeyes · Guru

"Ayn Rand is not literature, though"

Sigh. Ok.

Fwiw, I CHOSE Ayn Rand. We were allowed to read whatever novel we wanted. It was NOT required reading in my public school. So please don't assume. You know what they say about that ;)

-- Edited by romanigypsyeyes on Friday 17th of August 2012 04:09:04 PM

hope · Guru

By definition "young conservatives for freedom to marry" are not conservative. It is what it is.

And I fail to see what one's religion or lack thereof has to do with one's political views? confuse

As for Ayn Rand: it's about as relevant as Saul Alinsky is to Obama. If we want to be intellectually honest, let's try to consider the youthful influences (mentors anyone? Frank Marshall Davis? Pops?) on Obama if we're going to consider the influences on Ryan.

Oh I forgot. Conservatives are wackos if they do that.

P.S. Ayn Rand is not literature, though I completely understand that public schools push her on the brighter students in order to get their own contrary views across. Seems to have worked with you, romani. blankstare

-- Edited by hope on Friday 17th of August 2012 03:59:36 PM

FarmDad · Veteran Member

Very good summary of Obamacare Medicare cuts:

Fact-Checking the Obama Campaign's Defense of its $716 Billion Cut to Medicare

Avik Roy Contributor

Five days ago, Democrats were cheering the selection of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney’s choice for Vice President. Democrats thought that Ryan’s efforts at Medicare reform would terrify seniors (with their encouragement, of course), thereby handing the election to President Obama. Contrary to their expectations, however, it has been the Obama campaign that has been forced to defend its $716 billion in cuts to the Medicare program, cuts that Mitt Romney promises to repeal. In the weeks ahead, those defenses won’t hold up. Here’s why.

Defense #1. Paul Ryan’s GOP budget preserved Obamacare’s Medicare cuts

Yuval Levin calls this the “Ryan did it too” defense. It has the merits of being factually accurate, up to a point. As I discussed on Tuesday, it’s true that the House GOP budget preserved Obamacare’s Medicare cuts. But it’s hard to see how “Ryan did it too” allows Democrats to say that Ryan is throwing granny over a cliff, unless they are confessing guilt to the same crime.

There are two other points to bear on this subject. The first is that Ryan’s Medicare cuts were solely used to extend the solvency of the Medicare trust fund, and not to fund new spending elsewhere. By contrast, Obamacare cut $716 billion from Medicare in order to fund $1.9 trillion in new health care spending, through the law’s expansion of Medicaid and its new subsidized exchanges.

The second point is that Mitt Romney is not campaigning on the Ryan budget. He’s campaigning on his own budget, which fully repeals Obamacare, and eliminates that law’s Medicare cuts.

APOTHEFACT CONCLUSION: Romney’s budget doesn’t preserve Obamacare’s Medicare cuts. Simple as that.

Defense #2. Obamacare’s Medicare cuts don’t harm seniors’ health benefits

“Mitt Romney’s Medicare ad is dishonest and hypocritical,” claims Obama campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith. “The savings his ad attacks do not cut a single guaranteed Medicare benefit.”

This is a deeply misleading statement by the campaign. It’s true that the Obamacare Medicare cuts don’t make any changes to the Medicare insurance benefit, which means that the health-care services covered by the Medicare insurance plan are technically unchanged. But Obamacare’s Medicare cuts are bluntly structured, in ways that will harm seniors’ access to care.

Of the $716 billion in cuts, $415 billion come in the form of “updates to fee-for-service payment rates,” a euphemism for reducing Medicare’s payments to doctors and hospitals. But what happens when you reduce payments to doctors? Doctors stop being willing to see Medicare patients. And if you can’t actually get a doctor’s appointment, what does it really matter what your insurance plan covers on paper?

We already see this happening in the Medicaid program, where sick and injured children can’t get appointments to deal with urgent medical conditions, because Medicaid so severely underpays doctors relative to private insurers. By the end of this decade, under Obamacare, Medicare reimbursement rates are set to fall below those of Medicaid.

The Obama administration’s own Medicare actuary, Richard Foster, has explained that the Obamacare Medicare cuts could make unprofitable 15 percent of hospitals serving Medicare patients. “It is doubtful that many [hospitals and other health care providers] will be able to improve their own productivity to the degree” necessary to accommodate the cuts, Foster has written. “Thus, providers for whom Medicare constitutes a substantial portion of their business could find it difficult to remain profitable, and, absent legislative intervention, might end their participation in the program (possibly jeopardizing care for beneficiaries. [Our] simulations…suggest that roughly 15 percent of [hospitalization] providers would become unprofitable within the 10-year projection as a result of the [spending cuts].”

Sarah Kliff cited a study yesterday that showed that every $1,000 that a hospital lost in Medicare reimbursements was associated with a 6-8 percent increase in mortality rates from heart attacks. John Goodman pointed out in the Wall Street Journal that Obamacare’s coverage expansion will not be accompanied by an increase in the supply of doctors, which will lead doctors to focus their time on the privately-insured patients who pay them the best.

APOTHEFACT CONCLUSION: Seniors’ benefits won’t change on paper. But they will change in reality, because fewer and fewer doctors will accept their insurance.

Defense #3. Obamacare cuts wasteful spending from the Medicare Advantage program

Of the $716 billion in Medicare cuts, the next biggest chunk, $156 billion, is taken out of the market-oriented Medicare Advantage program, known to wonks as Medicare Part C. Nationwide, 24 percent of all seniors are enrolled in Medicare Advantage, though that percentage is meaningfully higher in important swing states like Florida (32 percent) and Ohio (34 percent).

The rationale for cutting Medicare Advantage’s rates is that, prior to Obamacare, the government paid $1.14 per retiree in an MA plan, vs. $1.00 per retiree in a traditional plan. President Obama has called these differences “unwarranted subsidies [that] pad [private insurers’] profits but don’t improve the care of seniors.”

But the comparison between MA and government-run plans can’t be made on price alone. Due to the constraints placed on MA plans, those plans are incentivized by Congress to offer more benefits at the expense of lower prices. Imagine if you were searching airfares from New York to London, but couldn’t shop on price, only on what the planes served for food, and what movies were on board.

However, on an apples-to-apples basis, if you take out the extra benefits, Medicare Advantage plans are 9 percent cheaper than government-run plans. That was the finding of three Harvard economists, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association this month.

So, how will Obamacare’s Medicare Advantage cuts affect seniors who are currently enrolled in MA plans? My co-blogger, Robert Book, published a 2010 paper on this subject, along with Jim Capretta. Robert and Jim found that “Medicare beneficiaries who would have enrolled in the Medicare Advantage program under prior law will lose an average of $3,714 in 2017 health care services.” You can see a state-by-state distribution of the effects on the map below.

Personally, I have no problem with eliminating the extra subsidy for Medicare Advantage plans. But that elimination should have been accompanied by regulatory changes, so that Medicare Advantage plans could compete on price with traditional government-run Medicare. That would have saved the government even more money, instead of forcing seniors out of the program.

APOTHEFACT CONCLUSION: Medicare Advantage offers seniors higher-quality care at a lower cost than government-run Medicare. Obamacare should have sought to save money by expanding the program, instead of undermining it.

Defense #4. The Romney plan for Medicare is worse, because it would shift costs to seniors

A talking point that President Obama has repeated on the campaign trail is that the Romney Medicare plan would “shift costs to seniors.” This is plainly dishonest, and the President knows better.

The 2011 version of the Ryan plan required that those younger than 55 enroll, upon retirement, in privately-run Medicare plans. These future retirees would be able to choose among a menu of plans, and would get a fixed amount of “premium support” with which to choose among those plans. Because the amount of premiums support would increase at the rate of inflation, whereas health-care costs have historically grown at a faster rate, critics have worried that these trends, if continued into the future, would expose seniors to higher health-care costs out-of-pocket.

Advocates of the 2011 Ryan plan, myself included, argue that precisely because of the premium support mechanism, seniors would be incentivized to shop for value with their insurance plans, creating a market incentive that would moderate health care cost growth. But the Congressional Budget Office assumes that market competition would have no effect on spending growth, hence the argument that the 2011 Ryan plan would shift costs to seniors.

However, Mitt Romney pointedly refused to endorse this 2011 plan. Instead, he offered his own plan, one which addressed the above critique of the 2011 Ryan reform using a mechanism called competitive bidding, whereby seniors would be guaranteed to be able to purchase a fully-subsidized plan offering Medicare’s traditional set of insurance benefits. Weeks later, Paul Ryan and Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.) produced a very similar plan, a plan that was incorporated into the 2012 GOP budget.

APOTHEFACT CONCLUSION: President Obama is not being honest about the Romney Medicare reform plan, which was expressly designed to respond to the cost-shifting critique of the 2011 Ryan plan. The Romney plan preserves Medicare’s benefits without exposing seniors to rising health-care prices.

Medicare reformers just might win this debate

It’s only been a few days since Mitt Romney picked Paul Ryan as his running mate. My strong impression is that a lot of Democrats weren’t even aware that Obamacare cut Medicare by $716 billion, which is why they’ve been caught off-guard by how the 2012 Medicare debate has evolved thus far.

The good news is that we’re having a substantive, policy-based debate about the program. The dream scenario is possible: that the 2012 election gives Medicare reformers a mandate to put the program on permanently stable footing. One might even call it the audacity of hope.

Follow Avik on Twitter at @aviksaroy.

DISCLOSURE: I am an outside adviser to the Romney campaign on health care issues. The opinions contained herein are mine alone, and do not necessarily correspond to those of the campaign.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2012/08/16/fact-checking-the-obama-campaigns-defense-of-its-716-billion-cut-to-medicare/

catahoula · Guru

The magnitude of the plan’s Medicaid cuts would grow still larger in subsequent decades. The Congressional Budget Office estimated last week that by 2050, the Ryan plan would cut combined federal funding for Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and the federal subsidies provided through the Affordable Care Act (to help low- and moderate-income people afford health insurance) by more than 75 percent, relative to current law.

Cuts of this magnitude would have substantial effects on the ability of millions of low-income Americans to secure health coverage and have access to needed health-care services. Medicaid cannot readily withstand cuts of this depth without large effects on low-income people. The program already costs significantly less per beneficiary than private insurance does, because it pays health providers much lower rates and has considerably lower administrative costs. In addition, its per-beneficiary costs have been rising more slowly than private insurance premiums for the past decade.

jazzy: There's enough pea under cup here that it's reminding me of that perfectly plausible piece by Ezra Klein, the one where he explained that there wasn't any front loading at all in Obamacare, that the claim wasn't anything but ignorant slander from republicans.

Leaving aside the mixing of future federal subsidies (that a majority of the public would like to see repealed) with Ryan's supposed raid on Medicare, why are they talking up the reduced payment structure under Medicaid? Isn't that counter to democrats mantra that increasing access to healthcare is what's most important?

-- Edited by catahoula on Thursday 16th of August 2012 08:52:15 PM

jazzy · By Edwin Park and Matt Broaddus

Concern for the health care of lower-income workers and lower-income seniors would not lead one to vote for Romney-Ryan (Koch-the-Younger.)

Ryan Medicaid Block Grant Would Cut Medicaid by One-Third by 2022 and More After That

PDF of this report (5pp.)

By Edwin Park and Matt Broaddus

March 27, 2012

Ryan Budget Would Slash SNAP Funding by $134 Billion Over Ten Years
Chairman Ryan Gets 62 Percent of His Huge Budget Cuts from Programs for Lower-Income Americans
Ryan Budget's Claim to Finance Its Tax Cuts for the Wealthy By Curbing Their Tax Breaks Does Not Withstand Scrutiny
Blog Post: Chairman Ryan and the Medicare Part D Myth
Statement of Robert Greenstein, President, on Chairman Ryan's Budget Plan
CBO Shows Ryan Budget Would Set Nation on Path to End Most of Government Other Than Social Security, Health Care, and Defense By 2050
What You Need to Know About Premium Support

RELATED AREAS OF RESEARCH

Budget — Federal
- Congressional Action
Health
- Health Reform
- Medicaid

The Medicaid block-grant proposal in the Ryan budget that the House of Representatives will vote on this week would cut federal Medicaid funding by 34 percent by 2022 (on top of repealing the health reform law’s Medicaid expansion) because the funding would no longer keep pace with health care costs or with expected Medicaid enrollment growth as the population ages and employer-based health insurance continues to erode.

The magnitude of the plan’s Medicaid cuts would grow still larger in subsequent decades. The Congressional Budget Office estimated last week that by 2050, the Ryan plan would cut combined federal funding for Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and the federal subsidies provided through the Affordable Care Act (to help low- and moderate-income people afford health insurance) by more than 75 percent, relative to current law.

Cuts of this magnitude would have substantial effects on the ability of millions of low-income Americans to secure health coverage and have access to needed health-care services. Medicaid cannot readily withstand cuts of this depth without large effects on low-income people. The program already costs significantly less per beneficiary than private insurance does, because it pays health providers much lower rates and has considerably lower administrative costs. In addition, its per-beneficiary costs have been rising more slowly than private insurance premiums for the past decade.

In fact, CBO has written that unless states increased their own Medicaid funding very substantially to make up for the Ryan plan’s deep Medicaid funding cuts, they would have to take such steps as cutting eligibility (leading to more uninsured low-income people), cutting covered health services (leading to more underinsured low-income people), and/or cutting the already-low payment rates to health care providers, likely inducing more doctors, hospitals, and nursing homes to withdraw from Medicaid (and thereby reducing beneficiaries’ access to care). Last year, when Chairman Ryan included a similar Medicaid block-grant proposal in his budget, the Urban Institute estimated it would lead states to drop between 14 million and 27 million people from Medicaid by 2021 (in addition to the 17 million people who would no longer gain coverage because of the repeal of the health reform law’s Medicaid expansion).

jazzy · By Kelsey Merrick and Jim Horney

Chairman Ryan Gets 62 Percent of His Huge Budget Cuts from Programs for Lower-Income Americans

PDF of this report (4pp.)

By Kelsey Merrick and Jim Horney

March 23, 2012

Ryan Budget Would Slash SNAP Funding by $134 Billion Over Ten Years
Statement of Robert Greenstein, President, on Chairman Ryan's Budget Plan
CBO Shows Ryan Budget Would Set Nation on Path to End Most of Government Other Than Social Security, Health Care, and Defense By 2050
What You Need to Know About Premium Support
Ryan Budget's Claim to Finance Its Tax Cuts for the Wealthy By Curbing Their Tax Breaks Does Not Withstand Scrutiny

RELATED AREAS OF RESEARCH

Budget — Federal
- Congressional Action
- Deficits and Projections
Food Assistance
- Food Stamps
Health
Poverty and Income

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s budget plan would get at least 62 percent of its $5.3 trillion in nondefense budget cuts over ten years (relative to a continuation of current policies) from programs that serve people of limited means.

Not much has changed on this front from Chairman Ryan’s fiscal year 2012 budget plan released a year ago. Then, too, Chairman Ryan proposed massive spending cuts, the bulk of which were in programs that serve low- and moderate-income Americans. (Compared with last year’s plan, the cuts in low-income programs are larger in dollar terms but slightly smaller as a shareof the total cuts; see box.)

The plan of Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, who co-chaired President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, established, as a basic principle, that deficit reduction should not increase poverty or widen inequality. The Ryan plan charts a different course, turning its biggest cannons on low- and moderate-income people.

Chairman Ryan’s budget proposes $5.3 trillion in nondefense budget cuts (and about $200 billion in defense increases). The $5.3 trillion in cuts includes $1.2 trillion in cuts to nondefense discretionary programs; this $1.2 trillion in cuts is beyond the cuts needed to comply with the strict funding caps that the Budget Control Act established. Several hundred billion dollars of these additional cuts would very likely come from low-income programs.

Comparing This Year’s Ryan Budget to Last Year’s

In last year’s Ryan budget, the cuts over ten years (fiscal years 2012-2021) totaled $4.5 trillion, of which at least $2.9 trillion — about 65 percent — would come from low-income programs. In Chairman Ryan’s new budget, the cuts (exclusive of the proposed defense spending increases) total $5.3 trillion over ten years (fiscal years 2013-2022), of which at least $3.3 trillion — 62 percent — would come from low-income programs.

In other words, the size of the low-income cuts is a bit larger, while their percentage of the total cuts is a bit smaller because the cuts as a whole are bigger.

This comparison, however, understates the degree to which both the total budget cuts and the low-income cuts have grown from last year’s Ryan budget to this year’s. The cuts in this year’s budget are measured relative to a baseline that already reflects large cuts in discretionary programs as a result of the enactment of discretionary funding caps in last August’s Budget Control Act. Chairman Ryan’s $5.3 trillion in new cuts would be on top of those reductions.

Total cuts in low-income programs (including cuts in both discretionary and entitlement programs) appear likely to account for at least $3.3 trillion — or 62 percent — of Chairman Ryan’s total budget cuts, and probably significantly more than that; as explained below, our assumptions regarding the size of the low-income cuts are conservative. The $3.3 trillion includes the following four categories of cuts:

$2.4 trillion in reductions from Medicaid and other health care for people with low or moderate incomes. The plan shows Medicaid cuts of $810 billion, plus savings of $1.6 trillion from repealing the health reform law’s Medicaid expansion and its subsidies to help low- and moderate-income people purchase health insurance.
$134 billion in cuts to SNAP, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program. If Chairman Ryan’s proposed SNAP savings were achieved entirely through eligibility cuts, between 8 and 10 million people would be knocked off the program.[1]
At least $463 billion in cuts in mandatory programs serving low-income Americans (other than Medicaid and SNAP). Chairman Ryan’s budget documents indicate that he is proposing $1.2 trillion in cuts in mandatory programs other than Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other health programs, but the documents do not specify how much specific programs would be cut (with the exception of SNAP[2]). For this analysis, we make the conservative assumption that savings from low-income mandatory programs (other than Medicaid and SNAP) would be proportionate to their share of spending in this category. Thus, we derive the $463 billion figure from the fact that 45 percent of mandatory spending other than for Social Security, health care, and SNAP goes for programs for low- and moderate-income individuals and families.

This likely substantially understates the cuts that the plan would make in low-income programs. The Ryan documents show that $758 billion in cuts would come from mandatory programs just in the income security portion of the budget (function 600), and the bulk of the mandatory spending in that category goes for low-income programs. The documents also show $166 billion in mandatory cuts in the education, training, employment, and social services portion of the budget (function 500), which, based on the discussion in the Ryan budget documents, would likely come mainly from the mandatory portion of the Pell Grant program for low-income students.
At least $291 billion in cuts in low-income discretionary programs. Bear in mind that these cuts are on top ofthe cuts already enacted as a result of the discretionary caps created by the Budget Control Act. The Ryan budget documents released on March 20 show the plan contains $1.2 trillion in cuts in nondefense discretionary programs beyond the cuts needed to comply with the caps, but do not provide details about the cuts to specific programs. (The documents do identify some major low-income programs, including the discretionary part of Pell Grants and job training programs, as prime targets for cuts.) Here, too, we make the conservative assumption that low-income programs in this category would bear only a proportionate share of the cuts. Thus, we derive the $291 billion figure from the fact that about a quarter of nondefense discretionary spending goes for programs for low- and moderate-income individuals and families.

As noted, our estimates of the size of the cuts in low-income programs — which assume these programs will merely bear a proportionate share of the budget cuts required in each of the relevant budget categories — are conservative. When faced with the choice of which specific programs to cut, policymakers are not likely to cut much from a number of the non-low-income programs in these budget categories that are popular, such as veterans’ disability compensation, veterans’ health, the FBI, and cancer research. That means that other programs — including low-income programs — would have to be cut by more than their proportionate share.

hope · Guru

Then he's either lying or he's not really serious about controlling spending.

Whatever the MR budget (and it's time he rolls out some details for sure), I'm pretty confident it will attempt to control spending more than the Obama budget.

It doesn't bother me in the least that MR plays politics. It's the cost of getting elected. Liberals are always so shocked, shocked when the other side "lies"-- something they never do, of course. It's hilarious. They'd prefer another McCain to run against - somebody who lives in fear of offending them. Obviously, MR is not. Imagine MR calling the BHO campaign divisive and hateful! They can't stand it when the other side plays their own game.

I am thrilled MR stopped the "Obama's a nice guy" in his speeches. Obama and his cronies are not nice guys.

hope · Guru

I certainly haven't read the Ryan plan, and don't intend to, but it seems that Ryan himself takes issue with the Center On Budget and Policy Priorities as being "non-partisan," as do other sources I've seen.

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3119

You should like this one, jazzy:

http://www.offthechartsblog.org/health-reform-strengthens-medicare-doesnt-rob-it/

-- Edited by hope on Thursday 16th of August 2012 11:22:17 AM

FarmDad · Veteran Member

Great post, Winchester. Lower income workers and seniors are going to get screwed the most with Obamacare. Lower income workers are going to get dumped into the expanded dysfunctional Medicaid system, which is already plagued by a shortage of doctors even before the 16 million new customers are added. Seniors are going to be faced with a depleted Medicare system that will increasingly resemble the worst of Medicaid, as doctors withdraw from participation in order to stay in business.

One difference between Obamacare and Wyden-Ryan is that Obamacare siphons $716 billion from Medicare to pay for a new government entitlement behemoth while the Wyden-Ryan reductions extend the life of the Medicare trust fund. Another difference is that Obamacare achieves it's cuts through the mechanism of the unelected, unaccountable Independent Payment Advisory Board (spooky!) whose only tool is to pay doctors and hospitals less, inevitably resulting in care rationing due to provider shortages; whereas Wyden-Ryan achieves its reductions through market competition among plans.

The link below is a good article on the two-tier system that is already in the works with Obamacare:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443404004577578980699719356.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

jazzy · Senior Member

Hope: Then he's either lying or he's not really serious about controlling spending.

Given his choice for VP, who put those same cuts in the budget that made him a leading light, it's safe to assume that Mr. Etch-a-Sketch is playing politician here --- he's running for President, for pete's sake --- and kicking the can down the road on the need to curtail costs in the Medicare program. I guess Mitt missed Ryan's recent pontification that we can either try to solve these problems or keep lying to the public about them.

longprime · Guru

also a AARP member. Nice discounts. evileye

Most of you can get AARP magazine. They really not too strick on who they allow into their system because they make money on endorsements and advertising $$.

longprime · Guru

Medicare Advantage (C) = is HMO like but also applies to a preferred povider. The ones we looked at, had included in the plan limited vision and dental. Yes, MA contracted the service for which taxpayers subsidized the plan in hopes that there woud be better health outcomes-however, did either you or I let out these contracts so that MA recipents get dental and vision where as standard Medigap (medicare supplemental) does not have these provisions. There are other differences but I forget. The Medicare manual can easily be had at your local SS office, one line, state insurance office, or any medical insurance office. Plus you will be sent a manual every year when you are within 6 months of medicare age, and in August.

There is more: Standard Medicare is a single payor program. So those insurance companies who provided med insurance in your working years, are now shut out of providing and profiting in the insurance (they do contract their backoffice to Medicare). Medicare Advantage is a way for them to recapture the market and to be subsidized too.

Disclosure: Your time will come evileye [sooner than later] and if you are lucky enough to be a Boomer. evileye Mom is on Medicare Advantage thru Kaizer- She sees the doctor 4x this past year-essentially for tracking her meds. She needs dental but Advantage is very limited and any appliance that she gets would be very expensive and unnecessarily uncomfortable. She's almost 96.

Wifey is 65, sees doctor 1-2x. She opted to go Mediicare supplemental-we get to keep the doctor.

Don't believe everything you hear or read.The Politicians plan is to get elected any way they can. evileye

catahoula · Guru

Obama’s cuts add eight years on the life of Medicare, according to the Congressional Budget Office, largely by reducing reimbursement rates to hospitals, prescription drugs under Medicaid and private insurance plans in Medicare Advantage. The AARP, as well as hospital and drug industries, endorsed the Affordable Care Act despite the cuts.

Reduces reimbursement rates, in plain english, is "reduces access to a doctor" but it is hard to argue it isn't more affordable.

That the drug industry was onboard looks promising until you remember they cut a deal to do so, and that the AARP has it's own agenda (about as indicative of it's member's feelings as a typical union) kind of taints whatever they touch politically.

busdriver11 · Guru

"Enrollment is up and premiums are down for private Medicare Advantage (MA) plans, which cover about one-fourth of Medicare's beneficiaries, according to anew report.

The 2010 healthcare law contained cuts to Medicare Advantage that were strongly opposed by Republicans and insurance companies. The program offers care to seniors through private insurers that contract with the Medicare agency.

The Kaiser Family Foundation found that this year, enrollment in the program grew by 10 percent — jumps were seen in all but two states — and that the average premium paid by enrollees dropped by $4.

The program now covers more than 13 million beneficiaries, or 27 percent of the Medicare population, the report stated."

So the question is, what did they do to Medicare Advantage? They certainly made cuts to the program, and that is indisputable. Not sure how to see this as a positive for the beneficiaries. If the premium dropped by $4, but benefits were significantly decreased, that doesn't seem like something people would like. So why would enrollment go up? Is it because now, with that $4 premium decrease, Medicare Advantage is now a great deal? Or something more along the lines of people thinking they need to get grandfathered into, or because they think traditional Medicare benefits are going to decrease, and they need to fill in the gap.

Now maybe this was a program that was overly generous and expensive, and needed to be cut. I don't know. Probably so. But I don't think this is a bragging point to seniors that look how all these cuts to Medicare Advantage has helped them.

I don't really understand the hysteria about Ryan's proposals. They are only that, proposals and plans, from somebody who has spent a tremendous amount of time considering options. The reason that many of the benefits cuts and taxes will affect the non-filthy rich, is because most of the benefits and the money comes from and goes to the non-filthy rich. There just aren't enough of those people to carry us all.

But I am in disagreement with some of his proposed tax changes, and even the current tax code. Capital gains should be taxed the same rate as income, and I really don't see the benefit in getting rid of them. Perhaps lowering cap gains rate if you need to raise some quick cash because people will take advantage of that, but decreasing to zero? No good reason.

jazzy · Senior Member

Busdriver:

I'm not sure what I believe anymore and I'm no policy wonk, but forget about me......Paul Ryan believes those cuts in Medicare waste and overpriced provider services would have a positive effect because he included them in the budget that has vaulted him into conservative stardom. And which House Republicans passed enthusiastically to show their support.

Farmdad:

At least one recent study doesn't seem to support the "Obamacare destroys Medicare" meme.

This is from The Hill:

Report: Enrollment up, premiums down for Medicare Advantage

By Elise Viebeck - 06/12/12 01:05 PM ET

Enrollment is up and premiums are down for private Medicare Advantage (MA) plans, which cover about one-fourth of Medicare's beneficiaries, according to anew report.

The 2010 healthcare law contained cuts to Medicare Advantage that were strongly opposed by Republicans and insurance companies. The program offers care to seniors through private insurers that contract with the Medicare agency.

The Kaiser Family Foundation found that this year, enrollment in the program grew by 10 percent — jumps were seen in all but two states — and that the average premium paid by enrollees dropped by $4.

The program now covers more than 13 million beneficiaries, or 27 percent of the Medicare population, the report stated.

jazzy · Senior Member

Why don't you follow your own advice, wincester, and read something other than your own biased information sources. Sowell. National Review. No spin there, nope, none at all.

winchester · Guru

Obamacare is decimating Medicare
Correct.
Obamacare cuts $700 billion from Medicare and spends it on other programs.
It’s at least a bit odd for Democrats who say Ryan is the devil to defend President Obama’s raid on Medicare by saying Paul Ryan does the same thing — and what’s more, it’s not true. The Ryan budget puts those $700 billion into the Medicare trust fund, to shore up the program’s future and reduce the deficit, rather than spending the money on yet another new entitlement.
Romney’s proposal is to keep the money in Medicare’s operating budget, leaving the program simply as it is for today’s seniors, and starting premium support for younger Americans when they retire.
Romney proposes not to make those Obamacare cuts in the first place — keeping the money in Medicare’s operating budget and so leaving the program simply as it is for today’s seniors and starting his premium-support reform for younger Americans when they retire, beginning a decade from now. Both undo Obama’s raid on Medicare, and both support a plan to save Medicare from bankruptcy in the years ahead.
This all puts Obamacare defenders and Romney/Ryan attackers in a difficult position.
The arguments the Democrats naturally fall back upon regarding Medicare are just false now. … So for instance David Axelrod on CNN’s State of the Union referred to “Congressman Ryan’s idea that we should turn Medicare into a voucher program, shifting thousands of dollars ultimately onto the backs of seniors.” But that’s simply a lie — Ryan’s actual Medicare proposal (which Romney has backed) simply doesn’t shift costs to seniors.
The Democrats have turned the tables on themselves with Obamacare.
President Obama has put Democrats in the position of being the party that seeks to cut current seniors’ benefits (especially those in Medicare Advantage) and access to care (thanks to the IPAB) while still allowing the program to collapse in the coming years and so watching the deficit explode and bringing on fiscal disaster. And Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have put the Republicans in the position of being the party that wants to protect current seniors’ benefits and make them available to future seniors while still saving the program from collapse in the coming years and so dramatically reducing the deficit and averting fiscal disaster.

Whether you’re now a senior and concerned about your health coverage, are younger and worry if you’ll have affordable coverage when you retire, or are most concerned about the nation’s fiscal health and economic future, the Democrats offer you a very bad deal on Medicare and the Republicans offer you a good one
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/313825/obamacare-changed-everything-yuval-levin

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

Even the Los Angeles Times op-Ed doesn't sugar coat this issue today. "Both Romney and Obama are seeking major changes to Medicare to rein in it's runaway costs, which threaten to consume 20% of federal revenues by 2022. So when they promise to "preserve and protect" Medicare...they're talking about the idea of Medicare, not as it looks today." Medicare is going to change, no matter what. The question is how it does and when. A few years ago I had to see a specialist. I had a PPO at the time. This was right around when Obamacare came into the spotlight. Doctor told me that they already had a compliance staffer who helped them with Medicare. He said if they had to get another staffer for Obamacare, they couldn't afford to run their practice. They already had lower negotiated rates than just a few years before and he said he would likely get out of private practice or go to concierge based plan. Our family doc went to concierge a few years ago. She didn't have enough patients to make it financially. She is now working for a local HMO. I really don't want to be sick when I am on whatever version of Medicare or Obamacare we end up with. It is a fairly terrifying proposition.

winchester · Guru

Reduces reimbursement rates, in plain english, is "reduces access to a doctor" To wit: In January 2007, Deamonte [Driver] told his mother, Alyce, that he had a headache. She took him to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with a severe dental abscess and given some medication. But the next day, his condition worsened. It turned out that the infection from his tooth had spread to his brain. He was taken to the hospital again and underwent emergency surgery. After a second surgery, he got better for a while, but then began to have seizures. Several weeks later, Deamonte was dead.

According to Ezra Klein, Deamonte Driver’s story shows us why it would be immoral to repeal Obamacare. "To repeal the bill without another solution for the Deamonte Drivers of the world? And to do it while barely mentioning them? We’re a better country than that. Or so I like to think."

But Deamonte Driver died not because he was uninsured. Indeed, Deamonte Driver died because he was insured -- by the government. Deamonte, it turns out, was on Medicaid.

Although Deamonte was insured, he never received routine dental care. It turns out that only 16 percent of Maryland dentists accept Medicaid patients. Fewer than one-sixth of Maryland kids on Medicaid have ever had a cavity filled. Deamonte’s younger brother, DaShawn, had six rotted teeth, but it took dozens of calls before DaShawn could find one dentist who would see him. When the dentist concluded that DaShawn’s teeth were beyond repair, and required extraction, it took another several months to find an oral surgeon who would see him.

Obamacare does not offer better health care to the Deamonte and DaShawn Drivers of the world. Under Obamacare, if Deamonte were alive today, he would still be stuck with the dysfunctional Medicaid coverage that he was stuck with before. In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, Obamacare will shove 17 million more Americans into Medicaid, the developed world’s worst health-care system.

There are many problems with Obamacare. But the law’s cruelest feature is what it will do to low-income Americans who are already struggling. Study after study shows that patients on Medicaid have far worse health outcomes than those with private insurance. The largest study of this type, conducted by the University of Virginia on nearly 1 million patients, found that surgical patients on Medicaid were 97 percent more likely to die in the hospital than those with private insurance, and 13 percent more likely to die than those with no insurance at all.

These results are not surprising. Medicaid pays doctors and hospitals, on average, about half of what private insurers pay. Most often, Medicaid pays less than what the care actually costs. As a result, doctors face the choice of caring for Medicaid patients -- and going bankrupt -- or shutting their doors to the poor and focusing instead on those with private insurance.

One survey has found that internists are 8.5 times more likely to reject Medicaid patients altogether than to reject those with private insurance. Another study found that children on Medicaid with serious conditions, such as uncontrolled asthma and broken forearms, had a 66 percent chance of being denied a doctor’s appointment, as compared with 11 percent for kids with private insurance.

This is why it was so hard for Deamonte Driver to find doctors who would see him. Every American whom Obamacare puts on Medicaid will face the same challenge.

And it’s not a problem only with Medicaid. According to the Medicare program’s chief actuary, Richard Foster, within eight years Obamacare will bring Medicare’s reimbursement levels below those of Medicaid. Imagine a nation of 77 million retired baby boomers, all of them having as much difficulty as Deamonte Driver in convincing doctors to see them. That is our future.

https://www.nationalreview.com/nrd/articles/309260/how-obamacare-harms-poor

-- Edited by winchester on Wednesday 15th of August 2012 08:37:29 PM

FarmDad · Veteran Member

Obamacare is decimating Medicare. The line that benefits will not change is a farce. The seniors who have opted for Medicare Advantage have already lost their benefits. The rest of us, when we get there, may have wonderful benefits on paper, but good luck finding a doctor, hospital, skilled nursing facility, surgi-center, or lab to treat you. That's because Obamacare's primary mechanism for cutting the $716 billion is to reduce provider payments to levels that are unsustainable. That's not me talking, but Medicare's own actuary.

Providers cannot provide services for fees that are below their costs. It's as simple as that. And it will get worse and worse every year. Obamacare balanced its numbers presuming a scheduled 30% across the board provider fee cut that everyone knew would never happen. And it didn't happen, thankfully. Even the dysfunctional congress that can't get anything done agreed not to allow that to happen. So those cuts and more required by Obamacare will be spread out over time to make Obamacare "work."

But doctors aren't waiting. Four years ago, it was no problem in my large city to find high quality physician specialists who were willing to accept Medicare. Not now. Since the passage of Obamacare, they have been leaving the Medicare program in droves. Seniors, say goodby to Medicare and hello to "concierge medicine." If you can afford it. Medicaid is the most dyfunctional medical care delivery system in existence. Even most physicans who accepted Medicare four years ago would not accept Medicaid because it would put them out of business. Obamacare, however, by design, is moving the Medicare program closer to Medicaid reimbursement rates, and its primary mechinism for expanding coverage to all is to add 16 million new customers to the already inadequate, overburdened Medicaid rolls. That's going to work. I pity the poor low wage earners whose employers are going to drop their coverage because the employees can be shifted to Medicaid or to federal exchanges, which it turns out, by law, cannot provide them with subsidies.

winchester · Guru

Why don't you follow your own advice, wincester, and read something other than your own biased information sources. Sowell. National Review. No spin there, nope, none at all.

And how, exactly, do you know what I read and what I don't read?

It is true that everyone, conservative and liberal alike, is susceptible to traits that are common to all humans, such as motivated reasoning and reason based choice.

But with that said, just because someone disagrees with you, or is associates with an organizaion that is known to be conservative, does not automatically mean they're spinning the facts, or biased, as you seem to imply.

If the endeavor is to find the truth then there's a much greater likelihood of finding it among thinkers who see all of human nature, such as Thomas Sowell, Yuval Levin (who wrote the article I quoted from), and the folks at National Review than with any liberals, who, as a group, tend to see only about half of it. I read opinions from many sources from many political viewpoints, but when I choose to state an opinion in this or any other form I tend to rely more on sources from the former group than from the latter.

And by the way, the opposite scenario - that of assuming that liberals or liberal organizations are more prone to bias and spin than not - DOES apply. Since liberals generally tend to be, metaphorically speaking, blind in one eye to what really motivates human social behavior, one can pretty much know that, on average, there's a much greater likelihood that their opinions contain more spin and bias than that of any conservative.

-- Edited by winchester on Wednesday 15th of August 2012 06:45:31 PM

hope · Guru

Paul Ryan believes those cuts in Medicare waste and overpriced provider services would have a positive effect because he included them in the budget that has vaulted him into conservative stardom. And which House Republicans passed enthusiastically to show their support.

From his This Morning interview on CBS:

MITT ROMNEY:

“And my campaign has made it very clear: the President’s cuts of $716 billion to Medicare, those cuts are going to be restored if I become President and Paul Ryan becomes Vice President. The President, when he was campaigning in Denver, Colorado, four years ago, said that Medicare was on a pathway to become bankrupt. And yet, he’s taking $716 billion from the Medicare trust fund to finance Obamacare, a new risky federal takeover of healthcare. My commitment is, if I become President, I’m going to restore that $716 billion to the Medicare trust fund, so that current seniors can know that trust fund is not being raided and we’re going to make sure and get Medicare on track to be solvent long-term on a permanent basis.”

Oh nos. MR is not on board with Ryan's medicare cuts! What now? I know--the media will ignore that for as long as they can get away with it....counting.....

-- Edited by hope on Wednesday 15th of August 2012 04:48:23 PM

winchester · Guru

Jazzy,

Washington Monthly is a leftist publication. OF COURSE they're going to spin the facts to support the leftist world view. Quoting from them settles nothing.

Further, the leftist world view is myopic. It uses only roughly half of the cognitive tools evolution has provided to humanity for the purpose of perceiving and reacting to real world threats to our individual and collective survival from and well being from the perspective of human social interaction. Statistically, compared with world views which use ALL of the tools, leftist world views are the anomoly; the outlier. Because of its myopia leftist perception and thinking will never be able to get to the bottom line truth of what's really going on in the world. This doesn't mean it doesn't occasionally have some good ideas, it just means that, like a color blind person observing impressionists paintings, it will never truly appreciate the whole picture.

If you really want a fair and balanced understanding of what's going on you have to read folks who perceive and think with all the tools.

Like Paul Ryan, for example, or Thomas Sowell.

Instead of reading for the purpose of finding ways to refute views you disagree with, try employing the much vaunted liberal personality trait of openness to new ideas and read for the purpose of actually understanding.

-- Edited by winchester on Wednesday 15th of August 2012 09:13:29 AM

catahoula · Guru

It'd be okay with me if they did something about SS this afternoon. Not so much for my own cynical self (I've realized for years and years I'll be lucky to see even a nickle or two back) but for everyone just starting to pay. Especially the ones who might still believe they're paying into a retirement account and that money will come back home one day.

That SS is looted/empty/cleaned-out... add your own favorite... hasn't really been a well kept secret so it's amazing that the payers -- not the payees, of course, at least not the ones who understand it's simply an intergenerational Ponzi -- haven't squealed louder as demographics have steadily increased the burden on them. Maybe it's because a lot of them are easily confused and when political figures throw around phrases like: "lockbox", "Trust fund", "fully funded" (my personal favorite, since it's something only an idiot could say and believe it truth), etc., they tell that worrying little voice in their head to be still.

That the simple fact of "from here on out, you're going to get less than you pay in" is just that: simple, and easily communicated may very well mean that "clunk" sound is the can hitting the curb of the cul-de-sac. End of the street, in other words.

Jazzy: Democrats roasted GW - but good - when he pushed reform out on the table. Used all the code words on all the ignorant, throwing in images of starving old ladies and hungry kids to boot. Why on earth would Obama getting a second term mean anything for SS?

-- Edited by catahoula on Wednesday 15th of August 2012 09:05:25 AM

busdriver11 · Guru

Jazzy, questions for you.

Do you honestly think by pencil whipping some numbers, they can actually save 716 billion dollars by cutting waste? That they can magically make that much up in stopping fraud, waste and abuse.....and slashing payments to providers (many of whom don't even want to accept medicare patients anyways). Do you really think there will be no repercussions to just cutting payments (which are already very low) to providers?

I don't have a problem with cutting medicare in a way that makes sense, and I do think it is rather disingenuous to jump on the fact that Obamacare cuts medicare. But pretending that you are going to make it all work by just paying less to providers, some of whom are already taking a loss with medicare patients anyways, and that you can just accrue hundreds of billions of dollars by stopping fraud, waste and abuse, is ridiculous.

hope · Guru

Once again ---- the Democrats are frightening elderly people by implying/stating that the R/R ticket will take away their medicare, as well as their children's and grandchildren's medicare. One is despicable, and one is misleading, since the Ryan plan is not about to take affect on Inauguration Day, 2013. It is unlikely it will ever be passed, assuming Romney will present it to Congress in its totality, which is also unlikely.

This is quite different from a discussion of the $716 billion shell game. It's irrelevant whether Ryan keeps the $716 billion Obama made in medicare cuts because a. his plan is not law and b. Obamacare is.

Obamacare is eliminitating subsidies to insurance companies and reducing waste and fraud? No kidding. Obamacare's entire reason for being is to eventually force everyone into a single payer system. Ryan wants a voucher system in order to maintain people's choices of doctors and insurers within the marketplace -- not a 15 member unelected panel of "healthcare experts".

http://www.citizenlink.com/2012/03/22/u-s-house-votes-to-eliminate-obamacare-panel/

-- Edited by hope on Wednesday 15th of August 2012 06:28:59 AM

jazzy · Senior Member

The deceptive ads about Medicare are coming from the Romney camp. Obama's $700 billion cuts were aimed at waste in provider services, not benefits, and seniors actually gained service from Obamacare through the closing of the prescription drug donut hole.

You think Romney's ads are telling the truth about that? Sadly, no. And it is despicable.

From Washington Monthly:

The Romney campaign’s new ad blitz reinforces its latest attack — that President Obama cut Medicare spending by $716 billion — with an ominous warning to seniors. But the Affordable Care Act’s cuts and other Medicare reforms don’t touch benefits, they target waste in provider payments.

In fact, the totality of Obama’s Medicare reforms expand benefits for seniors and lower out-of-pocket costs. The Affordable Care Act actually enhances Medicare benefits by closing the prescription drug coverage gap known as the “doughnut hole” and expanding free preventive services, including an annual wellness visit.

The Romney ad misleadingly implies that seniors will take a hit. “You paid in to Medicare for years. Every paycheck,” a narrator says. “Now, when you need it, Obama has cut $716 billion from Medicare.” The ad also ignores the bipartisan nature of the cuts: Congressional Republicans voted overwhelmingly in 2011 and 2012 to sustain them in the budget written by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), now Romney’s running mate. In 2008, John McCain proposed similar cuts during his presidential campaign, a move Obama ironically bama-attacked-mccain-for-similar-medicare">criticized at the time.

The Obama campaign immediately fired back, calling the ad “dishonest and hypocritical.”

Obama’s cuts add eight years on the life of Medicare, according to the Congressional Budget Office, largely by reducing reimbursement rates to hospitals, prescription drugs under Medicaid and private insurance plans in Medicare Advantage. The AARP, as well as hospital and drug industries, endorsed the Affordable Care Act despite the cuts.

The cuts to Medicare Advantage plans have resulted in higher enrollment and lower average premiums in 2011 and 2012, according to official figures. Reforms closing the “doughnut hole,” which were partly funded by the cuts, have also saved seniors money on prescription drugs.

In addition, the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion offers seniors greater access to long-term care and other services that Medicare does not provide.

The Department of Health and Human Services projects that beneficiaries of traditional Medicare will save roughly $4,200 over 10 years as a result of the Affordable Care Act. HHS expects that the law will also save seniors between $3,000 and $16,000 on average on prescription drugs, depending on their costs.

“The savings his ad attacks do not cut a single guaranteed Medicare benefit, and Mitt Romney embraced the very same savings when he promised he’d sign Paul Ryan’s budget,” said Obama campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith in a statement. “Because the president is eliminating subsidies to insurance companies and cutting waste and fraud, we’ve extended the life of Medicare by eight years. The truth is that the Romney-Ryan budget would end Medicare as we know it: People with Medicare would be left with nothing but a voucher in place of the guaranteed benefits they rely on today.”

And btw, seniors don't only think of themselves when they consider proposed changes to Medicare.....they think about younger relatives who are counting on that program for access to health care when they retire.

jazzy · Senior Member

Well, it's okay with me if we kick the can into Obama's second term, cat.

Social Security would have been in better shape if the fund hadn't been raided to mask spending elsewhere, so imo it wasn't so much inherently unsustainable as deliberately sabotaged. Dealing with SS has to be done in context with the total federal budget and national priorities. Drastic changes to SS cannot be justified in the same budget that grants huge tax breaks to the super rich and funds defense at levels higher than the Pentagon needs or wants.

hope · Guru

They won't pass his plan, because he does not stand a chance of becoming president, because he is the vice presidential nominee.

If Romney is elected, he strikes me as the kind of a guy who will get the job done. He strikes me as the kind of a guy for whom this will be a personal point of integrity. I get the feeling he could not live with himself if he did not get our spending under control. He won't put forward the "Ryan budget" in its entirety because he knows it won't pass the senate (assuming the Dems hold the senate). He is a moderate pragmatist. He will do what he needs to do to help the country.

busdriver11 · Guru

Looks to me like Ryan's plan raises spending in almost every area over time, just at a slower rate. So apparently if you slow the rate of increase, that would be considered gutting the programs?

A two tier tax rate proposal is not something unusual. And if you get rid of a number of tax breaks and shelters like they're talking about, people at the top may end up paying more taxes in the end, depends on how they do it. I disagree with getting rid of capital gains taxes for anyone, but I'm sure there's some financial whiz out there that can explain the benefit of that one to me. Based on his plan, if they do away with key deductions like the mortgage interest deduction, I will pay more tax than I do now. Bummer, guess I hope they don't pass his plan.

FarmDad · Veteran Member

I've got an idea. Rather than getting all hysterical about the Ryan budget, why don't we just take the House Rebublican Ryan budget and the Senate Democratic budget and have a serious discussion. Wait. The Democrats haven't even proposed a budget in three years? Never mind.

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

At least there is a proposed plan to stabilize the economy long term. Obama's plan...not so much. http://articles.latimes.com/2012/apr/20/news/la-pn-cbo-deficit-obama-budget-20120420

hope · Guru

Let's go over this s l o w l y once again:

the Ryan plan is not the Romney plan

The fact that MR chose RR as his running mate does not mean MR will adopt all of Ryan's ideas when he puts forward his budget as president.

Repeat after me: Romney is m o d e r a t e, Romney is a m o d e r a t e.

It's just the Democrats fear-mongering.

Come on, people.

john doe · Guru

"Who really believes that Romney and Ryan's intention is to gut all of our social programs to give big tax cuts to the super wealthy? "

Why don't you read what was in the Ryan budget.

busdriver11 · Guru

The Ryan budget passed the House, 235-193. Obamas budget was voted down by the Senate the last two years 0-97, and 0-99.

Why is it so scary that someone is proposing big solutions to big problems? Do we not acknowledge that there is a problem? Are we better off that way? Or are we going to just make sure that everything is fine for us, and screw our kids and grandkids.

I am much happier that someone is seriously trying to work on fixing the deficit, whether it is painful to me personally or not, whether I agree with every answer. I would not be pleased with Obama forming a deficit commission (or two), that came up with some serious, comprehensive solutions.....and then ignoring it. Instead we spend time talking about Romneys taxes, or the dirty rich that aren't paying their fair share, or pretending that if we could just stick it to those rich all our problems would be solved.

Who really believes that Romney and Ryan's intention is to gut all of our social programs to give big tax cuts to the super wealthy? Honestly, that is seriously drinking the Kool-Aid, I couldn't imagine letting myself get suckered by that. Conversely, who could be naive enough to think that if we just stick it to the super wealthy, we can fund all the trillions pouring into social programs?

john doe · Guru

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/reagan-budget-director-paul-ryan-plan-fairy-tale-164917087.html

hope · Guru

Also, how despicable of Democrats to frighten seniors by implying (stating in some cases) that voting for the R/R ticket will put their medicare in jeopardy. I only hope that by the time November rolls around this blatant lie is exposed to one and all and Obama pays the price, as he should.

On a side note...any Dems here...why don't you live in mortal fear that Joe Biden will be "a heartbeat away from the presidency" should BHO be relected? A man who obviously has more than one screw loose? disbelief

http://www.politico.com/politico44/2012/08/biden-wall-street-romney-will-put-yall-back-in-chains-132069.html?hp=l3_b3

-- Edited by hope on Tuesday 14th of August 2012 08:17:14 PM

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

Fear mongering is easier , though. So is kicking can down the road. http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/313894/lyin-about-ryan-rich-lowry AUGUST 14, 2012 12:00 A.M. Lyin’ about Ryan Democrats will not give his ideas an honest hearing. By Rich Lowry Democrats believe fervently in the folly of Paul Ryan’s ideas, yet somehow can’t speak about them truthfully. They are confident they can destroy Ryan—not because they think they can win the debate over his proposals on the merits, but because they are certain they can distort those proposals with impunity. Mitt Romney’s inspiring (and inspired) choice of the Wisconsin budget maven as his running mate had commentators on both sides welcoming a clear choice for the country. Romney had done us a favor, they said, in ensuring such a stark clash of visions. The League of Women Voters would approve. This Hallmark sentiment is nice, though naïve. The battle of ideas will be as unsightly and dishonest as the battle over Bain Capital. If Democrats will lie about Mitt Romney killing a woman, it’s only a matter of scale to lie about him unloosing a near-genocidal assault on America’s seniors. Immediately upon Ryan’s selection, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina released a statement that recalled author Mary McCarthy’s put-down of left-wing playwright Lillian Hellman: “Every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the.’” Messina scored Ryan for his “budget-busting tax cuts for the wealthy” (except that there aren’t tax cuts, budget-busting or otherwise), for bringing to an “end Medicare as we know it by turning it into a voucher system” (except there’s no voucher, and Medicare benefits would stay exactly the same), and for “shifting thousands of dollars in health-care costs to seniors” (except the Ryan plan doesn’t apply to today’s seniors, nor will it shift costs onto the seniors of the future). The Democrats never want to admit three things about Ryan’s Medicare plan. First, that it doesn’t affect anyone over age 55 and won’t kick in for another 10 years. Conceding this makes the job of frightening elderly voters trickier, so it is best ignored. Second, that the current version of the Ryan plan gives future beneficiaries the option to keep traditional Medicare. They will choose among a menu of insurance plans, including a fee-for-service federal option, all of which will be required to offer at least the same level of benefits as Medicare now. The federal government will pay everyone’s premiums up to a level matching the second-lowest-priced plan in a given area. There’s no reason a beneficiary will have to pay more (although he can choose a pricier plan and pay the difference). Third, that Ryan and President Barack Obama cap overall Medicare spending at the same level. The president is adamant that the growth of Medicare is unsustainable – and rightly so. Everyone acknowledges the program is the foremost driver of our long-term debt. Both Ryan and the president use the same formula of roughly GDP growth plus inflation for setting Medicare’s global budget. The difference is that the president wants a bureaucratic board to get the savings through arbitrary limits on prices that ultimately will limit access to care, while Ryan wants to get the savings through competition and choice. The Democrats’ demagoguery should be further crimped by the fact that they voted $700 billion in cuts in Medicare to fund Obamacare, not in the far-off future but right now. Ryan preserved the cuts in his budget but set them aside for the Medicare trust fund. Mitt Romney wants to repeal Obamacare in its entirety, including the Medicare cuts. What the Ryan plan offers, most fundamentally, is a vision of a reformed entitlement state that won’t require massive new tax increases or debt to fund. For all the talk of the “radicalism” of his budget, it keeps taxes at a slightly higher level of GDP than they have averaged over the past several decades. Ten years from now, federal spending still would be at a higher level of GDP than it was at the end of the Clinton years. This vision – now at the center of the campaign – deserves a serious, honest debate, and will assuredly not get it. — Rich Lowry is the editor of National Review. He can be reached via e-mail: comments.lowry@nationalreview.com. i

-- Edited by SamuraiLandshark on Tuesday 14th of August 2012 07:36:25 PM

catahoula · Guru

She's a gem, isn't she?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In many ways, Social Security is an undervalued asset. Spouses benefit even if they never worked for pay. Kids benefit if a parent dies. The disabled get paid for life. Above all, Social Security provides lifetime income in retirement—an increasingly rare component of today’s patchwork retirement system.

But it is now official: Social Security is a lousy investment for the average worker. People retiring today will be among the first generation of workers to pay more in Social Security taxes than they receive in benefits over the course of their lives, according to a new analysis by the Associated Press.

[snip]

But today there are just 2.8 workers per Social Security recipient and that number will fall to 1.9 by 2035, according to the Congressional Budget Office. People no longer routinely die at 65 but live well into their 80s. To compensate, payroll taxes that were just 2% in the 1940s have risen to 12.4% today (half paid by your employer), which is another reason that you stand to collect less than you paid.

Read more: http://moneyland.time.com/2012/08/07/social-security-now-takes-more-than-it-gives/#ixzz23XnS7AeO

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No changes and it's insolvent by 2033.

Kick it on down the road, jazzy?

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

Nothing I love more than a good Debbie Wasserman Shultz video to get me started in the morning.

I am so glad she is chair of the DNC. So articulate. All the time.

http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2012/08/14/dnc-chair-lies-about-ryans-medicare-plans-is-then-shocked-when-taken-down-by-usually-reliable-cnn/

jazzy · Senior Member

Ryan's lovely wife and children have nothing to fear from the mean ol' MSM.

The seeds of destruction for the congressman lie in his delusional budget projections and the Randian "vision" behind it. A vision Romney now owns outright by turning himself into a second-fiddle to his star running mate.

So Mr. "I like to fire people" is now partnered with a man who wants to decimate safety net programs. Let that sink in through the Rust Belt battleground states. The vision Ryan brings to the national stage is not just about Medicare reform. It's about privatizing Social Security, gutting Medicaid, eliminating federal spending on education, environmental protection, energy independence, medical research, etc., which the majority of Americans do support.

And for what? To reduce the deficit on our children? Ha. Ha.

I might have bought that argument except that Romney has already pledged not to cut the defense budget and Ryan and the Republican House have already voted on a budget which rather than make prudent cuts in defense now that we are winding down on two foreign wars allocates MORE spending than the Pentagon even requested. Unbelievable. The RR budget vision piles one sacrifice after another on the shoulders of the middle class while giving massive tax cuts to the super rich and corporations and keeping defense contractors and the manufacturers of $17,000 oil drip pans (google it) happy. The Romney-Koch-the-Younger (Atlas Shrugged meets Book of Mormon as someone put it) ticket will scare undecided voters more than the McCain-Palin ticket did.

Republican political operatives in "down ticket" races are worried. Politico sums up their findings:

“In more than three dozen interviews with Republican strategists and campaign operatives — old hands and rising next-generation conservatives alike — the most common reactions to Ryan ranged from gnawing apprehension to hair-on-fire anger that Romney has practically ceded the election.”

“The good news is that this ticket now has a vision. The bad news is that vision is basically just a chart of numbers used to justify policies that are extremely unpopular.”

hope · Guru

Assuming that Romney adopts the "Ryan budget" in it's entirety (doubtful), and submits that to the Congress, who is to say that it will pass?

Some Dem strategist on tv just stated that "boomers and seniors" will be realy impacted by the Ryan budget (ignoring the fact that a. see above and b. the Ryan budget does not touch medicare benefits for those 55 and over). They won't be able to get away with that for much longer, when even Wolf Blitzer is holding Debbie W. Schultz's feet to the fire over that claim.

Nothing but blatant fear-mongering.

People are not that stupid. They know Obama hasn't even had a budget passed in years. They see R and R at least grappling with the hard choices necessary to preserve the fiscal integrity of the country. They see BHO continuing his class warfare schtick, which is diminishing him and the country more and more each day.

They might just be sick with the dirty dealing and doubletalk of Obama/Axelrod/Pflouffe/Jarrett. They might be ready to believe that hope and change this time around lies elsewhere.

-- Edited by hope on Tuesday 14th of August 2012 08:20:57 AM

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

Jazzy, you and I will never meet consenus on probably pretty much anything. I recognize that.

Decimating social programs isn't the objective of the GOP. Balancing a budget is. We will still need some sort of federal defense budget, no matter what. Talking points of an election don't account for what happens when someone gets elected. If we believed all 500+ things Barack Obama promised us, we would be even more sadly disullusioned by what he really did. He is far worse as President than I imagined. Romney/Ryan have a plan. It's probably not perfect, but as Ryan even said, it's a starting point.

The Obama Administration has no idea how to fix this problem of the economy, long term. None.

Bogus numbers in Obamacare - even the Congressional Budget Office recognizes that.

99 Trillion in unfunded liabilities...if that doesn't scare you, I have nothing to add to this conversation.

Nobody will be getting Social Security or Medicare period, unless someone steps up and figures out a comprehensive solution to having funds to continue backing these programs, as well as every other federal program including defense, humanitarian programs, etc.

The Dems have been in charge for several years now and have no BIG PICTURE except social justice and green energy. Legalizing my friend's gay marriage will be fairly useless if we have civil unrest because our country has gone bankrupt. That's not even that alarmist. Check out how the austerity programs in some countries in Europe and see what has happened there. It has been ugly. Riots in the street, children abandoned because parents can't feed them. These Europeans had a nice gig. Lots of vacation time, moms had loads of time off when babies born, retirement at 50 in some countries. It didn't work.

US has been the world's policeman and great humanitarian country, always willing to help out others in time of need. We are in time of need. Nobody is going to rescue us financially, except China.

-- Edited by SamuraiLandshark on Tuesday 14th of August 2012 08:21:11 AM

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

Watch the video link of Paul Ryan to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Feb 2012. It's much like every time that Paul Ryan talks to Timothy Geithner. The Obama Administration has no ideas how to reduce the federa debt. None. You may not like Paul Ryan on social issues, but he is the only adult in that conversation about our nation's staggering debt and liabilities. It's important to watch the chart. Those numbers are...bad, and getting worse.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_f20ZDBj5k&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Paul Ryan:

"Here's the point, if you'll allow me. This is your time, so we'll just take a long time. Here's the point. Leaders are supposed to fix problems. We have a $99.4 trillion unfunded liability. Our government is making promises to Americans that it has no way of accounting for. And so you're saying yeah, we're stabilizing it but we're not fixing it in the long run. That means we're just going to keep lying to people. We're going to keep all these empty promises going..

Read more: http://michaelberry.iheart.com/cc-common/news/sections/newsarticle.html?feed=104707&article=10339036#ixzz23X27KK5g

-- Edited by SamuraiLandshark on Tuesday 14th of August 2012 07:57:10 AM

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

Paul Ryan's wife is a lawyer who gave up career to stay home with her kids. She shops at Kohl's and goes to church. Yeah, it is going to be tough to Palinize him or destroy his perfectly normal family.

hope · Guru

Good point, catahoula. What will the Dems do without their "Republicans are stupid" meme? Yep, they're agitated. biggrin biggrin

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

While incumbents have the advantage, the ballot box wasn't kind to Jimmy Carter. And Obama is on a scale exponentially worse than Carter.

john doe · Guru

Better get use to it. After the Ryan pick, there will be a second Obama term.