The Homa Files

Ken’s Take: Rep. Paul Ryan (or simply “Paul” in Obama protocol) was the star of the ObamaCare infomercial on Thursday.  His pointed, fact-based questions about the “reduced deficit” accounting” went conspicuously unanswered by the President. 

Obama didn’t score them as “legitimate points” and they weren’t summarily dismissed as mere “talking points” … but Obama did say he didn’t want the discussion to get “bogged down in the numbers”. 

Why waste valuable time on facts when you can be hearing “legitimate points” about wingnuts wearing their sister’s dentures?

* * * * *

Excerpted from IBD: Rebuttals To Ryan? We’re Still Waiting, 02/26/2010 

It was the Wisconsin congressman who made the most pointed remarks about Obama’s reform proposal. For example:

• “This bill does not control costs (or) reduce deficits. Instead, (it) adds a new health care entitlement when we have no idea how to pay for the entitlements we already have.”

• “The bill has 10 years of tax increases, about half a trillion dollars, with 10 years of Medicare cuts, about half a trillion dollars, to pay for six years of spending. The true 10-year cost (is) $2.3 trillion.”

• “The $247 billion Medicare “doctor fix” was outboarded from the plan as an unfunded item.”

• “The bill takes $52 billion in higher Social Security tax revenues and counts them as offsets. But that’s really reserved for Social Security. So either we’re double-counting them or we don’t intend on paying those Social Security benefits.”

• “The bill takes $72 billion from the CLASS Act (long-term care insurance) benefit premiums and claims them as offsets.”

• “The bill treats Medicare like a piggy bank, (raiding) half a trillion dollars not to shore up Medicare solvency, but to spend on this new government program.”

• “The chief actuary of Medicare (says) as much as 20% of Medicare providers will either go out of business or have to stop seeing Medicare beneficiaries.”

• “Millions of seniors who have chosen Medicare Advantage (Medicare through a private insurer) will lose the coverage that they now enjoy.”

Full article:
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=522446

This entry was posted on March 1, 2010 at 7:59 am and is filed under Health Care / Medical Insurance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.