First Obama pushed for end-of-life counseling in ObamaCare, then it was pulled after Sarah Palin rightly pointed out the spooky nature of the death panels (you put this in as a cost saving feature of a bill and you’re damn right its a death panel). Then Dr. Donald “I love Socialism” Berwick, head of Medicare, put it back in…this time during the yearly Medicare checkups, and he tried to do it all sly like and back door the thing. He got caught and now Obama is pulling it once again:
Reversing a potentially controversial decision, the Obama administration will drop references to end-of-life counseling from the ground rules for Medicare’s new annual checkup, a White House official said Wednesday.
~~~The White House official said the administration is now pulling back the language because there wasn’t enough chance for all sides to comment on the change. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss what has turned into an embarrassing episode for the administration.
Who is this Donald Berwick you ask?:
No one was surprised that a man of this character tried to quietly sneak this requirement into Medicare but still, wasn’t the whole hopey changey Obama thing supposed to include increased transparency? Yeaaaaah. So why the backtrack on this?
The general unpopularity of Obamacare has united conservatives and independents into a potential new political coalition that threatens to be the iceberg to the Obama administration’s Titanic. With repeal to be the first order of business for the House of Representatives, and a war of attrition likely to result against it when the Senate refuses to go along, it seems that the administration is trying to make Obamacare and its ancillary parts as small a target as possible. This is a sign of political weakness that should encourage repealers to keep pushing.
To put it plainly, Obama recognizes there is some real rumblings of discontent with ObamaCare and any issue which threatens to tip the scales in our favor is going to go down the drain.
Good.
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@mata: Your “inclining revenue trend” and declining revenue trends were simply your own armchair way of looking at it. It has no basis in real economic reality, anymore than your initial (fallacious) armchair way of looking at it had any basis in economic reality. The point is this: every single tax cut in the very study you yourself cited resulted in decreased tax revenues and every single tax hike resulted in greater revenues and Reagan hugely inflated the debt to GDP ration (after 35 years of continuous declines, and through much larger recessions than the one which took place during Reagan’s term), while Clinton again reversed this, and I produced 10 conservative economists to back up the completely obvious point of view that tax cuts don’t pay for themselves while you didn’t provide a single contemporary economist who supported the view that tax cuts do pay for themselves.
What really miffed me, however, was the way you kept castigating me for changing the subject away from the study which you claimed proved your point and then, when I showed you how your own study didn’t show what you claimed it showed, you simply changed the subject.
Your “incline in revenue” and “declining revenue trend” have NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO with the point of whether or not tax cuts pay for themselves! It’s an utterly naive argument, with no merit whatsoever. The principle driver of government revenue is the overall performance of the economy. When the economy recovers from a recession, tax revenues of course increase at a very steep rate. That’s what’s going to happen this year and next year. I’m sure that the rate of revenue increase will handily exceed that of Reagan — because the recession Obama inherited was much deeper than the one Reagan inherited, meaning that the rate of revenue increase during recovery is going to be greater — only then you’ll never credit Obama the way you credited Reagan. The economy always grows (except during recessions) and, therefore, tax revenues always grow. What is most important, though, is whether or not revenues increase sufficiently to keep up with the inevitable, built in growth of government spending. In Reagan’s term, it didn’t. In Clinton’s term — it did. Obama is an early work in progress. We’ll have to see.
But this discussion about economic stewardship of different Presidents is a change the subject diversion. No, the issue was this: Do tax cuts increase government revenues enough to pay for the money lost, owing to the tax cuts? The answer — as proven by the very study you cited was NO, THEY DO NOT!
This is why all tax cuts MUST be “paid for” (in near dollar for dollar spending cuts), if you really care about debt and the deficit.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA
MATA, hey you hit right on the nail, a fraudulent sheme just like some who are currently in prison for having done the same and are responsible for ruining many people who put their faith in it, and the GOVERNMENT IS DOING THE SAME ON AMERICANS,
RIGHT ON YOU GOT IT
BYE
I’m tellin’ ya, Bees…. that avatar just makes me grin every time!
@mata: I’ve asked you this before. Every year I get a statement from the government, telling me how much I’ve paid into Medicare. It’s a drop in the bucket, compared to the health care benefits which my parents got out of Medicare. How about you? Because of Medicare (and Social Security), I didn’t have to worry about their medical expenses, after they retired and aged. Basically, I was paying my parents’ health insurance premiums, because they couldn’t pay for it themselves, because they didn’t have an income beyond their retirement resources. Because of this, I was free to concentrate on growing my business. When I retire, my children will pay my premiums and both of us will get the same benefit. And it’s not a ponzi scheme because, once we’ve reached a steady state (people are dying at roughly the rate new customers are going in, which will be taking place over the next several decades), it’ll simply be one big insurance pool. Or it will get there much faster, if Medicare is expanded to the entire population.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
Larry, don’t disagree that when the govt collects less revenue, they need to make cuts. Hang, even if they leave revenue where it is now, they still need to make cuts. I refuse to agree to higher taxes for a Congress with a history of increased spending. Period. Starve the beast, IMHO.
Secondly, I’ve already addressed your “how much you paid into Medicare” vs what benefits you may, or may not, receive when you are on the program yourself. You’ve said this over and over in past comments, so I simply answered your question before you repeated it one more time. It is in the comment above, with the homeowners insurance analogy. Paying more into any insurance policy is not a prerequisite or demand for any policy.
Yes, it is a Ponzi scheme. You and I will never agree on that. You paint it purdy, I see it as it is. Not my problem. It’s a ponzi scheme “insurance pool” that I pay for, but get nothing. What they take from me, they give to those who are enrolled before me. Ponzi scheme. Period.
If or when Medicare expands… i.e. you and your hero, Obama’s beloved single payer… the nation will be fiscally destroyed in short order, and any semblence to this nation as founded will have disappeared. Hopefully my “end of life” provisions will have kicked in before I witness that sad day.
MATA ,you know it’s a bee, there some which are hard to define without a magnifier
that’s why I like this bee,
I ‘m glad it make you smile
You are turning drama queen. The government already pays for more than 50% of all health care (the largely functional part). Once the dysfunctional part is folded into the system, the whole thing will work vastly better and, as shown by the experience in numerous other first world democracies, cost vastly less.
And even then, it won’t be a “takeover” and it certainly won’t be socialized medicine. And, as in countries like Sweden and the UK (where there is true socialized medicine), they’ll always be a parallel system of fee for service medicine, for those who want it.
Employer paid health insurance premiums distort the capitalist economic system severely — but that’s yet another aspect of all of this.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
Drama queen? No, Larry. I do not want to live in the America you and Obama want. Instead of remaking my country, why don’t you both trot off and further destroy France? Just be careful to dodge of all the protests going on for their fabulous fiscal successes that are now demanding austerity implementation.
Yes, Larry… once we “drama queen” boomers die off, right? Then everything will be just fine.
@Mata: “Remaking” YOUR country?
Let’s look at the “remaking” of YOUR country, shall we?
We were headed for the next Great Depression. Bush/Paulson and then Obama/Geithner had a great tag team partnership to save it. The GOP offered a $500B stimulus. Obama saw that and raised by $260B. That’s because he’s a Democrat and he won the election. But it wasn’t a paradigm shift; it was just that both GOP and Dems agreed a stimulus was needed, and the Dems went $260B higher. And the money didn’t go for any new “socialist” programs; it went to give States and local government a little bit of breathing room; it extended unemployment benefits (supported, for the most part, by the GOP in later, follow-up votes), and a little bit (far too little, in my opinion) went for infrastructure improvements.
Then we have health care. Ah, yes. Better known as the Grassley-Dole plan (they are the ones who invented insurance pools and mandates), which was further refined as RomneyCare and which was tweaked only a little into ObamaCare.
And we’ve got very mainstream financial regulation. And we’ve got an end to don’t ask/don’t tell, but, dang it, that’s what he ran on and, again, he won the election.
And Gitmo is still open. And the military budget keeps growing (and Obama gets a strong passing grade on national defense by the GOP pols who have weighed in).
And we don’t have amnesty for “illegals,” and, if we ever do, well, that was supported just about 3 years back by both Bush and McCain.
We don’t have an anti-missile system in the Czech Republic, but we have converted Russia from a borderline adversary to a growing partner. That anti-missile system was a little deal for us, but a big deal for the Russians, and, because of getting rid of it, they are now our friends and we’ve got a new START treaty, which every defense expert says is a very good thing.
So, tell me, Ms. Harley, what precisely is the BFD?
How exactly has Obama ruined YOUR country?
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
Real johnny-come-lately on real life, aren’t you? Not only is the Pentagon and Defense budget to be slashed from the 24% of the entire nation’s spending it is today, it was projected to be 21% by 2015, dropping 1% per year.
That’s what is a “military budget keeps growing” to you? Well, considering your simplistic “the sky is blue” economic analyses, I guess so. Just doesn’t have any bearing on reality. Then, of course, there’s my new post up about just what in the military budget Obama finds important to slash…. personnel. (uh… can you say JOBS LOST here?) And how he plans on further savings… increasing the Tricare costs to military families.
What was that about “affordable health care” again? Oh yes… nothing in O’healthcare does anything to control run away costs of medical services. It just attempts to price fix premiums (while he’s raising them) and spending, while adding paying doctors for “end of life” counseling by the inept to the tune of additional spending of about $10 bil annually,.
Why don’t you look at the tripled spending since Obama alone, and compound that with the huge increases in spending since Pelosi/Reid Congressional majorities, ponder the behemoth that our government has become as an employer plus the payroll and pensions that the taxpayers will be saddled with, rejoice in the unfunded pensions of GM that have yet to be addressed and celebrate the loss of taxpayer money in the sale of GM shares, then marvel at how well the stimulus has not worked for all that added debt.
When you’re done with that, then get back to me, Larry.
GREG,hi on your 43, it look like the time has come that the person who get sick should go see the
insurance to appraise his sicness cost before going to the doctor, which is not a real doctor full time because his job has now include researching for what cost will he encounter versus the money he will
receive and keep close contact with GOVERNMENT new standards for that particular person’s PROFILE.
BEST TO YOU FOR 2011
@Larry #48: You said:
Can we say run on sentence? Whew! Heavy on words, not so heavy on making sense. Mata is spot on in this debate, why have the doctor get paid to tell you what you already should have knowledge of? What? Is he gonna say, “Yup, yer sick. And as soon as I bill Medicare, I can tell you what your options are.”?? Yeah, THAT’S the kind of health care system I want. /sarcasm
@Greg #49: You said:
Um, nope. I missed your reply. You have yet to answer my question, but oh well, I expected as much – or as little, in this case.
Again, when a government is the SOLE PROVIDER of healthcare and they decide that your life value just isn’t high enough to warrant giving you medical care, then who in the blue hell do you turn to?
If your PRIVATE INSURANCE PROVIDER denies you some medical services, then you have recourse. You can appeal to your insurance company, switch companies (although I will admit this option is not always easy), sue your insurance provider or even take your case to the government via your State Insurance Board. And if you are fortunate enough to have the financial means to pay for the services you need, you are able to do that. In Canada, under their Single Payer system, you cannot even pay for services on your own.
So which is it Greg? Do you want to have a say in your healthcare, or do you wish to let your government tell you that even though you probably have a brain tumor, you’ll just have to wait a few months to find out?
Why do you prefer the government telling you what medical services you will or won’t get?
/sigh
I don’t know why I ask these questions, Greg will just equivocate and dissemble to avoid being pinned down with [GASP!] an actual opinion.