In posts about the Ryan pick, I've argued that if we in the commentariat and the media get this right, the American electorate could have a salutary debate on the role of government. But, I stressed, that's a big "if."
We particularly need an eagle-eyed media to cut through the inaccurate and misleading stances that show up with increasing frequency around this time.
A classic, for example, is the one I talked about with Rachel Maddow last night: the claim that President Obama is "destroying Medicare" by reducing its growth rate to the tune of $700 billion in the Affordable Care Act.
Rep. Ryan has precisely the same cut in his budget. The difference is what they do with the savings. As I noted on Rachel, the ACA uses those savings to cover the uninsured, along with these other services, noted by Jon Cohn:
Obamacare puts the money back into the pockets of people who need help with their medical bills. A portion of the money is earmarked for children and non-elderly Americans, who, starting in 2014, will become eligible for Medicaid or receive tax credits to offset the cost of private insurance. A smaller, but still significant, portion of the money is for seniors. It helps them pay for prescription drugs, by filling the "donut hole" in Medicare Par D coverage. It also eliminates out-of-pocket costs for annual wellness visits, some cancer screenings, and other preventative services. Those benefits have actually started already: In the first six months of this year, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, more than 16 million seniors took advantage of the free preventative care provision.
I also found this piece to be an excellent review of the issue, stressing a very important dimension of the ACA's Medicare savings:
None of these reductions were financed by cuts to Medicare enrollees' eligibility or benefits; benefits were improved in the ACA. Cuts were focused on hospitals, health insurers, home health, and other providers. Except for insurers, all the affected groups publicly supported the reductions to help finance the ACA's expansion in health insurance to about 32 million uninsured Americans.
This is in stark contrast to the Ryan proposed cuts, supported by House Republicans, which are largely used to lower taxes on the most affluent.
Finally, remember that these and other measures in the ACA actually extend the life of the Medicare HI trust fund and reduce its budget shortfall by a factor of five (see the last section of Paul's piece here, the part on Medicare not going bankrupt).
What we have here is stark proof that it's going to take real vigilance to have the discussion we need to have in this country about the role of government in our lives -- in this case, in the lives of retirees who depend on guaranteed benefits under Medicare.
This post originally appeared at Jared Bernstein's On The Economy blog.
Follow Jared Bernstein on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@econjared
 |
 |
|
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
The fed gov never NEEDS to tax to spend, nor does "borrowing" (i.e. like when a bank "owes" savings account balances to customers) go to finance spending. The Tsy and IRS are independent.
As long as the computers at the central bank don't go down, there's no problem.
The "housing & finance collapse" is not about lack of people, resources (now, at least), nor capital equipment. It's not "real". It's about bank losses on wide bets and deflating fictitious asset values. It's merely an accounting problem, which should NOT have been allowed to kill the real economy. The financial crisis could be solved by write-downs with some guarantees for the victims, like pension funds that bought fake AAA-rated securities from fraud-banks, or a better solution might be to expand Soc Security and other Govt spending to add "base" dollars to replace vaporized "credit-dollars" and "equity" when the banks quit lending and started foreclosing, when housing prices started to collapse.
he counted projected future revenue (which doesn't exist) as a current asset
and counted current liabilities as being due two years from their due date.
in two years they'll blame the debts with interest on democrats.
and voila! ----now they don't owe any money today.
money seniors have paid in for decades will be given to people who are in this Country illegally .
Cuts are cuts - means less service , one way or another . Someone will have to make up the loss of $700 billion Obama took from Medicare .
Either the system will run up the National Debt further - more services to seniors will be cut,
or more more taxes will be have to be raised . Indeed , there are 20 extra taxes in the
new Obamacare bill . Nothing in government is free .
Medicare is going bankrupt and draining money AWAY from the system, is not going
to help it stay solvent . The goal should be to shore up Medicare - not drain it even further .
In any event , saying Ryan wants to make hugh cuts to Medicare when Obama has made
$ 700 billion is so hypocritical .
Second, please read the article. The author clearly explains how that $700 billion is used and how it will reduce costs and increase the number of insured.
No one has to "make up for the loss" to Medicare. Soc Sec taxes were known to be a "useful fiction" when the program was created. ALL govt spending is by "printing" money. There is no other way. All that actually happens is the Tsy "orders" a payment to a doctor or retiree, and the Federal Reserve increases their bank account balance. We call that "govt spending".
Medicare taxes could be and SHOULD BE completely abolished. That would add $10 Billion per week to consumer spending power (aggregate demand), helping to end the Recession and end it permanently.