The Shameless Medicare Propaganda Continues

Heritage Foundation via The Woodward Report ^ | August 3, 2010 | James Capretta

[thisisthetime]

Yesterday, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued what it is calling a “report” on the supposed improvements to Medicare passed as part of Obamacare.

The first thing to note here is that this so-called “report” isn’t really a report at all. It provides no new information; it shouldn’t generate any news, as it contains no news. It’s just a rehash of administration talking points, half-truths, and deceptive arguments, repeated many times previously, based on cost estimates produced by the chief actuary of the Medicare program in April and by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in March.

So why is HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius touting this so-called “report” four months after the law’s passage and scheduling a conference call about it with reporters?

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that another Medicare report — the Medicare trustees’ report — is also scheduled to come out later this week. The trustees’ report always generates news because it is the once-a-year update to the long-term cost projections for the Medicare program . The report must be approved by the Medicare Board of Trustees, which is made up almost entirely of political appointees from the Obama administration , but the report itself is largely written by the chief actuary, Richard Foster, and his staff. These executive-branch civil servants, by longstanding tradition, are given much more independence than other federal workers because of the importance and sensitivity of their estimates and judgments.

That independence was on full display when the chief actuary released his cost projections for Obamacare on April 22, including a separate memorandum directly addressing the issue of Medicare trust fund solvency...

[GailA]

Had our semi yearly check up for renewal of RX’s this morning. Our doctor will NO LONGER be taking Medicare patients after the 1st of the year. To much hassle, cost to high (electronic records) plus all the hoops he’d have to jump through. Watch there will be a glut of doctors refusing to take us old geezers!