Posted on 08/26/2009 7:34:47 PM PDT by St. Louis Conservative
That was Dick Morris who said that.....but I digress.....I agree with your point.
later
They don't mention (D)Bart Gordon of Tennessee's 6th but he has competition this time. Major General Dave Evans. We shall see.
Marking this for my First Wife to read in the morning as she is the Medical Director in this house...
Four more months till I've been off cigarettes for FIVE YEARS!!! WhoooooooooooooooooPeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!
Why can't this same principle be the basis of a Balanced Budget Amendment?
Politicians are forever using the excuse that they can't set the budget for a given year, because they don't know ahead of time how much they will receive that year in tax receipts.
But politicians should have a pretty good idea what we collected last year. Why not set the budget for the next year at what we collected last year? If we are always setting budgets based on two-year old tax receipts then that will be something of a discouragement to inflation.
Every once in a while we might actually spend less than we receive in a particular year and get to eliminate some of the debt.
Does this idea make too much sense to implement?
The list, ping
BTTT
http://www.breitbart.tv/obamas-92-year-old-great-uncle-attends-health-care-town-hall/
Burn it, it will disappear.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
How about a Replacement-Knee Panel? [Paul Howard]
The ineluctable bloggress Megan McArdle highlights a NY Times article noting that, gasp, Obamacare may not turn out to be all sunshine and rainbows for Medicare recipients. She goes on to write that
“Waste, fraud and abuse”, that favorite old refrain, will probably not suffice to cut Medicare costs. Fears of “death panels” are way overblown. Fears of “Are second knee replacements worth it?” panels are not. And the infamous “overpayments to insurers” are actually paying for extra services, which the seniors in Medicare Advantage will probably lose, possibly along with Medicare Advantage, since providers may pull out. You may think that these are wasteful and seniors will end up just as happy back in traditional Medicare. But revealed preference seems to indicate that they prefer what they have.
What looks unnecessary to one bureaucrat will turn out to be a critical procedure to someone’s grandmother. Top-down decision making — which the administration wants more of in Medicare — can’t avoid this conundrum.
Seniors defend Medicare plan Obama calls ‘wasteful’
By John Fritze, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — One of the largest spending cuts Congress could rely on to pay for an overhaul of the nation’s health care system comes from a Medicare program President Obama has called a “wasteful” subsidy for the health insurance industry.
Don’t tell that to cancer survivor Maurice Engleman, 82, who says the controversial Medicare Advantage program — which allows seniors to buy Medicare coverage through private insurance companies — helped him beat cancer.
“There was a seamless link between the medical support and the emotional support,” said Engleman, who was diagnosed with tongue cancer last year within a week of his wife’s death. “I don’t believe Medicare would have taken care of the kind of services I required.”
Debate over Medicare Advantage, which has 10.2 million enrollees — about one-fifth of all Medicare participants — illustrates a broader struggle Congress and Obama face as they look for ways to pay for a $1 trillion overhaul of health care without raising taxes on the middle class or compromising care.
HEALTH CARE DEBATE: Share your story, view with our reporter
It has raised concerns among some seniors who might have to pay more for the program or enroll in regular Medicare instead. A Gallup Poll last week found 20% of Americans over 65 say an overhaul will improve their health care — the lowest showing of three age groups.
Medicare Advantage has its roots in the 1970s but was bolstered in 2003 in hopes that private companies could manage Medicare patients more efficiently. Partly because it often has lower out-of-pocket costs than traditional Medicare, enrollment has nearly doubled over six years, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation report.
excerpt
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-08-04-healthcare_N.htm
Where does the AARP stand on Medicare Advantage? I know they are a leftist group that wants a bigger and bigger entitlement/nanny state, but Medicare Advantage is used by so many seniors who are very happy with it.
Energy costs have come way down in the one year period that is used for the calculation. Gasoline, you may recall, spent a lot of time in the four buck a gallon range in 2008, and was generally in the $2.50 range in the current year. Rather than question whether or not I live on earth, why don't you do what I did and research how the Cost of Living Adjustment is calculated, and what items go into that calculation, before casting unwarranted character aspersions? Here's a link to get you started. ConsumerPriceIndex
bump to the top
Half of them are nuts and voted for obama. Just look at the disfunctional congress - the majority of them are boomers. Liberal boomers have no clue how they are screwing themselves. They forget that they soon will be the "seniors".
VOTE AGAINST ALL INCUMBENTS
LETS CLEAN HOUSE
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