The Ryan Medicare Plan And President Obama’s Criticism
Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE
President Obama has said over and over again that Paul Ryan’s budget is going to end Medicare coverage as WE KNOW IT and leave seniors without healthcare coverage. The first part is TRUE and the second part is FALSE.
President Obama’s spin miesters (David Axelrod et al) have a knack for distorting facts with lies. The Obama team couples the distortions of the truth together with powerful visual distortions in the media. If the visual distortion is seen enough times it is interpreted as the truth no matter what the facts are.
As an example, President Obama’s grandma ad has appeared over and over again. The grandma ad is totally false. However “the media is the message. ”
This false message has become part of the American psyche.
Who needs facts or the truth when the media presents such a vivid image?
Paul Ryan’s plan will change Medicare as we know it. The simple truth is Medicare is going broke. If nothing is done the Medicare program will be bankrupt and disappear. Then seniors will not have any healthcare insurance coverage.
IT WILL NOT CHANGE MEDICARE COVERAGE FOR ANYONE PRESENTLY 55 YEARS OLD OR OLDER.
Obamacare will hasten the bankruptcy of Medicare and balloon our debt and deficit. Medicare coverage will be forced to disappear.
In order to convince the American public that he is going to reduce spending President Obama played an accounting trick play on the American public.
It goes by the name of "double counting."
It is clear to me that neither Democrats nor some Republicans understand President Obama’s double counting. Double counting will hasten the demise of Medicare.
Paul Ryan is trying to explain double counting once more to seniors. He is calling out President Obama and David Axelrod as they try to obfuscate the truth about double counting and the Paul Ryan’s plan to save Medicare.
American seniors are starting to catch on slowly but surely. The public is getting tired of the Obama/Axelrod false hope, half-truths and outright lies.
Putting the Medicare payroll tax hikes and spending constraints on the "pay-as-you-go" ledger was instrumental in getting the health law through Congress, because doing so fostered a widespread misperception that the law would reduce future deficits.
“No such prohibition exists in the budget process against committing Medicare savings simultaneously to Medicare and to pay for a new federal program (Obamacare).”
“It's this budget loophole, unique to Medicare, that gives the health law's spending constraints and payroll tax hikes the appearance of reducing federal deficits.
But it is appearance, not reality. If you have only $1 of income and are obliged to pay a dollar each to two different recipients, then you will have to borrow another $1. This is effectively what the health law does. It authorizes far more in spending than it creates in savings.
It is one of President Obama’s many trick plays on the American public.
The cartoon presents a simple explanation of double counting. Paul Ryan should use this simple explanation of double counting.
It is important to listen carefully with our eyes wide open and hear President Obama’s lies about Medicare spending and Obamacare in the next two months.
Now President Obama says he is going to reduce fraud and abuse in Medicare by $731 billion dollars.
Who is he kidding?
His plan is to reduce payment to physicians and hospitals. He will be forced to play favorates with certain hospital systems.
A reduction in Medicare cost will not will not happen as long as President Obama permits the healthcare insurance industry to do the administrative services for Medicare and not address the issue of Tort Reform.
The Accountable Care Organizations and its payment changes will not save money. In fact it might cost more if ACOs can be organized at all.
Medicare’s administrative services have been outsourced to the healthcare insurance industry since 1965. Medicare has never had a chance of being fiscally viable and sustainable. The healthcare insurance industry takes 40-60% of every healthcare dollar spent of the top.
Obamacare does not change this procedure one bit.
President Obama continues to say that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan allegedly are going to end Medicare and leave seniors without coverage.
The exact opposite is true. However, Romney and Ryan have not explained this simply enough to be understood by all. They must explain in detail and sound bites why President Obama’s assertion is false.
In fact, Obamacare is going to change Medicare as we now know it. Actually it already is causing the rationing of cancer drugs and a de facto rationing of care.
“It is ObamaCare that was specifically designed to destroy Medicare, and to herd seniors into a one-size-fits-all plan where care to them can be rationed with impunity.”
“ And even Dr. Donald Berwick, President Obama's personal choice to run Medicare and Medicaid, admitted that this rationing is one of ObamaCare's ultimate aims, as did Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, one of the president's chief health care advisers.”
Under Obamacare, Medicare has already changed as we know it. In 2014 it will change drastically.
In view of this fact for President Obama to say that the Ryan plan will change Medicare as we know it is arrogant and disingenuios.
There are many differences in both plans. I will try to explain the differences in simple terms in future blogs.
The huge difference is Obamacare is an entitlement that promotes dependence on the central government where the Ryan plan promotes self-responsibility and independence from government and government controls over our freedoms of choice and decision-making.
President Obama is taking a dangerous chance with his criticisms of the Ryan plan.
Hopefully the Romney/Ryan ticket will be able to explain away President Obama’s criticisms in simple, understandable terms.
The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone
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adipex • September 7, 2012
What an precise manner of journalism, which does the article visual along with elegant.