Obama Cuts Deal that Will Reduce Social Security, Medicare and all Entitlements (surrender?)

Obama Cuts Deal that Will Reduce Social Security, Medicare and all Entitlements
by James Ridgeway
20 January 2010

The Obama administration literally collapsed yesterday. Any pretense of liberal change was washed away in a closed door deal to cut entitlements. While the Massachusetts voters were casting their ballots to install the upstart Republican Scott Brown to Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat, President Obama was hammering out an agreement with Democratic leaders to support a plan to issue an executive order to cut entitlements, including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

The effect of this plan, if accepted by Congress, will be to override the already weakened health care reform legislation.

It represents a capitulation to conservatives in both parties, and would leave Democratic liberals accepting unconditional surrender not only on health care, but on the most basic of all New Deal programs. It reaches far beyond actions by the Reagan and Bush administration.

Under the agreement, President Obama would issue an executive order to create an 18-member panel that would be granted broad authority to propose changes in the tax code and in the massive federal entitlement programs — including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — that threaten to drive the nation’s debt to levels not seen since World War II.

Obama: No reduced Medicare benefits in health care reform

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/28/obama.health.care/index.html

Will healthcare reform mean cuts in Medicare for seniors?

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2009/1017/will-healthcare-reform-mean-cuts-in-medicare-for-seniors Health Reform’s Hidden Victims

Young people and seniors would pay a high price for

ObamaCare.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203517304574306303720472842.html

Slashing Medicare to pay for healthcare reform an ugly shell game

Dr. Stuart M. Shapiro,
July 27, 2009

http://www.mcknights.com/slashing-medicare-to-pay-for-healthcare-reform-an-ugly-shell-game/article/140656/

If the cost is by cutting Medicaid and Medicare, then taxpayers are in for a rude awakening when millions will retire without money to pay for their healthcare. Ransoming seniors' long-term care for immediate, large-scale health reform is more politically beneficial for its supporters in the short-term than it is reasonable for everyone in the long run.

In fact, even in the short-term, one could argue that taxpayers, including the elderly, are looking at an old-fashioned shell game from Washington. No sooner was the ink dry on the federal stimulus package, which provided millions of dollars to support care for the elderly in Pennsylvania, before Congress and the administration began to propose major cuts in Medicare to finance healthcare reform. Because Medicare payments support quality care in our nation's nursing homes, the proposed cuts nationally approaching $50 billion in Medicare payments for the care of the elderly is guaranteed to undercut the quality gains of the past decade. In Pennsylvania, if the proposals currently on the table are enacted, these policies would result in an almost 10% reduction in cumulative payments over 10 years, or more than $2.1 billion.

None of the answers on healthcare, Social Security, Medicaid or Medicare is easy. But there is one thing we do know: Our population is growing older, and doing so rapidly. Cutting money from the programs that finance care for Pennsylvania seniors is seriously flawed. There is no simple or single solution. But there is a wrong way, and taking money from the care for American seniors is deeply flawed.

Stuart H. Shapiro, M.D., is the president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Health Care Association.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.