Saturday, June 6, 2009

Obama to Cut Medicare and Medicaid

In a letter the president sent to Senators Edward M. Kennedy and Max Baucus last Tuesday (HERE) he outlines his plan for "public health care, or universal health care. Universal health care, otherwise known as the end of private insurance providers and a quickening march to the loss of individual freedom in America.

The president is...
"reducing Medicare and Medicaid spending by another $200 to $300 billion over the next 10 years,"
So he's going to cut spending on Medicare and Medicaid. While I'm all for that, I doubt he realizes what he is saying. Do you recall the Former Speaker of the US House of Representatives talking about saving money on Medicare saying, "letting it whither on the vine"?. You were told that he meant Medicare itself would whither on the vine and he was roundly criticized by the same people, Democrats, who are touting the current president's plan to cut these programs. universal health care plan. That's right, President Obama's plan mirrors the Democratic talking points against the Speaker. But suddenly, it's good to cut Medicare and Medicaid. Oo-kay.

Continuing the same sentence he says he will offset the extra expense of his public insurance policy by increasing taxes on those who create jobs in America.
"and by enacting appropriate proposals to generate additional revenues."
I suppose this is part of his 'creating 6 million or 3 million, or preventing the loss of 3 million or 100 million jobs each month' in these 57 United States. None of which is going to happen. He may create a few jobs, mostly in government, like Pay Czar and other czars.

So how is he going to save money on this "plan"? He says...
"These savings will come not only by adopting new technologies and addressing the vastly different costs of care, but from going after the key drivers of skyrocketing health care costs, including unmanaged chronic diseases, duplicated tests, and unnecessary hospital readmissions."
New technologies are cheap. Who knew?

I have to say that I have yet to hear of a new technology that comes in on the cheap. In fact, I'd have to say that I have never heard of any new technology that came on the market inexpensively. The norm is for a new technology to start out very very expensively, then become less costly as more are sold until the patent runs out then generics are seen. I've have yet to see a cheap MRI. Although it seems X-rays are very cheap. Of course X-ray technology has been around for a long long time.

He also adds this as a way to cut spending on Medicare and Medicaid.
"This reserve fund includes a number of proposals to cut spending by $309 billion over 10 years --reducing overpayments to Medicare Advantage private insurers; strengthening Medicare and Medicaid payment accuracy by cutting waste, fraud and abuse; improving care for Medicare patients after hospitalizations; and encouraging physicians to form "accountable care organizations" to improve the quality of care for Medicare patients."
Gee, there is another 309 BILLION DOLLARS in Medicare and Medicaid cuts. What's the total Medicare and Medicaid cuts he is proposing? A little math tells us the Medicare and Medicaid cuts will be in the 509 to 609 BILLION DOLLAR range.

What can I say? The President apparently wants to cut medicare and medicaid by $509-609 billion. He says he will "set aside" an additional "$635 billion in a health reserve fund as a down payment on reform".

A down payment.

Is he a giving us a hint that he knows it going to cost us trillions of dollars? Those are more dollars we don't have and that we are not going to have, ever.

Does he not understand that he has already spent close to TWO TRILLION DOLLARS this fiscal year alone? He does not have any money left to set aside for anything. He doesn't have enough left in the budget to take Bo to veterinarian. Maybe he will walk over the printing press and make some more Hope Dollars to pay the bills.

Here is the bottom line on government provided public (universal) health care:

If enacted in any form, public health care will destroy private insurance companies, making everyone dependent on public insurance and it will bankrupt this country.

There is no competition between a government who can merely print more money to cover its losses and a private insurers who depend on payments from customers who cannot print their own money.

Government bureaucrats will require so much of our money that we will no longer be working and earning for ourselves, but instead we will be working to support bloated government programs devised and managed by the same people that gave us the Vietnam, the oil embargo, the S&L crisis, Enron, the current sub-prime mortgage crisis, the banking crisis, the job loss crisis and the bankruptcies of Chrysler and GM, not to mention numerous financial institutions.

The president's plan is yet another horrible waste of the country's resources in a long line of wasteful self serving government programs. This program will bankrupt the country beyond recovery.

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