FoxPolitics.net - Appleton, WI News - What's really going on in the Fox Cities

FoxPolitics.net Blogs

FoxPolitics News

Local/State Govt Links

Salaries

• Appleton School District, 2007-08
• City of Appleton
• Town of Grand Chute
• City of Menasha
• City of Neenah

Candidates

City of Appleton

• Elected Officials
• Salary Watch
• Directory
• Mtg. Agendas/Minutes

Advisory Board

Blogroll

Selected News Sources:
Business Jrnl of Milw
Christian Science Monitor
Daily Caller
Drudge Report
La Crosse Tribune
Milw Journal Sentinel
National Journal
New York Times
Public Policy Forum
Real Clear Politics
Stateline
The Hill
TPM
Washington Examiner
Washington Post
Washington Times
WI State Journal
Selected Blogs - from the Right:
American Mind
Blaska's Blog
Boots & Sabers
Charlie Sykes
Dad29
Freedom Eden
Heritage Foundation
Jerry Bader Blog
Life Voice
Marketplace of Ideas
Marquette Warrior
Natl Review Online
No Runny Eggs
Patrick McIlheran
Real Debate Wisconson
RedState
Rhymes with Clown
Shark and Shepherd
The Lote Tree
Vox Populi
Wall Street Jrnl, Opinions
WI State Jrnl, Opinion
Wigderson Library & Pub
Wisconsin Family Voice
WPRI
Selected Blogs - from the Left:
Big Money Blog
Blogging Blue
Brenda Konkel
Caffeinated Politics
Capital Times
FightingBob
Folkbum's rambles
Griper Blade
Huffington Post
Lost Albatross
MAL Contends
Mid coast views
Moneyed Politicians
One Wisconsin Now
Open Left
Playground Politics
Political Environment
Rock Netroots
Talk to Tony
Uppity Wisconsin
Waxing America

Today's Blog: Time for the Guv to morph into Chris Christie
My husband and I and a couple hundred friends watched in Green Bay as ...(more)

Search Archives

Blogs

Time for the Guv to morph into Chris Christie (6/28/2011)

Time for Gov. Walker to talk more about the cake (3/4/2011)

Today, reality hits home (3/1/2011)

FoxPolitics News going on hiatus (1/28/2011)

Brown County Executive candidate forum Feb. 8 (1/28/2011)

Education done right (1/27/2011)

To Obama, the ‘We’ is Government (1/27/2011)

(more)

1/7/2011
No way Obamacare reduces the deficit

Talk of how ObamaCare reduces the deficit is a biiig pet peeve of mine – and it’s received tons of press this week.

This “reduces the deficit” myth has bugged me since Senator Feingold sat right in front of me and told a voter that Obamacare saved the country $187 billion – but wouldn’t explain that it’s because of smoke and mirrors in the bill and huge new revenues raised via new taxes, fees and higher premiums for many.

This week’s discussion began Monday when it was reported the GOP wouldn’t count the cost of repeal.

Peter Suderman, health care expert at the Reason Institute nails it when he addresses just one small piece of Obamacare – “Even though the White House and members of Democratic leadership agree with Republicans that the [1099-reporting] provision should go, Congress has yet to come to an agreement about whether or how to replace the revenue raised by the provision—and, as a result, has yet to repeal it.” [Emphasis is mine.]

Yup, it’s the revenue.

Wednesday, stuff hit the fan, as Doug Elmendorf and his CBO reported that repeal would hike the deficit big-time.

(From this morning's New York Times) Republicans given price tag for health law repeal, but reject it

The budget office estimated that the health care law, including education provisions, would reduce deficits over 10 years by $143 billion. Tax increases and cuts in projected Medicare spending would more than offset the cost of extending health insurance to millions of Americans. The budget office projected that the law would result in even bigger savings beyond 2019.

Republicans have said they do not believe that many of the Medicare cuts will ever take hold. They say that government subsidies to help people buy health insurance will prove far costlier than the budget office has predicted, and that the Democrats wrote the law to mask the steep future costs of some provisions, like a new long-term-care insurance program.

…. In their own report on Thursday, intended to illustrate how the law would lead to job losses, Republican leaders put the cost of the health care law “when fully implemented” at $2.6 trillion and said it would “add $701 billion to the deficit in its first 10 years.”

Here's today's report on the same thing, from the Washington Post. Needless to say, much emanated this week from conservatives…

And from the left... Dems pounce on CBO deficit number

Cantor critical of CBO scoring

Reality check – repeal of Obamacare would not increase the deficit

Ryan: Actually, Obamacare will increase budget deficit by $700 billion over 10 years

Paul Ryan explains his objection to CBO estimates:

…. While the out years contain more fake deficit reduction, they also contain very real spending increases as the bill’s new subsidies and its expansion of Medicaid to childless adults continue to generate enormous costs. Moving past 2019 begins to give us a clearer picture of the total 10-year price tag of the bill – it will almost certainly be larger than $1 trillion, and will likely be closer to $2.6 trillion once a full 10 years of new costs are taken into account.

This is fun – if you’re a policy wonk, I guess. Ryan: I’ll eat my tie if Obamacare reduces the deficit

Kathryn Nix, The Heritage Foundation: Take CBO reports with a grain of salt

Senator Tom Coburn’s take on the fiscal effects of repeal

If you’re only going to read one piece on this whole business, read David Brooks’ piece in today’s New York Times. Mind you, though Brooks proclaims to lean Republican, you won’t find many that call him a Ryan/Cantor/Coburn conservative. Brooks lists, issue by issue, with substantiation for each, the clear and present dangers with Obamacare. Something must be done with Obamacare, driving, pushing forward on its current path.
Health law crackup coming – the issue won’t go away

When the crisis comes, Democrats will face an interesting choice — to patch the Obama system or try to replace it with something bigger. The administration may want a patch, but by a ratio of nearly 2 to 1, according to a CNN poll, Democratic voters would prefer a more ambitious law. Liberals could logically say that the mistake was trying to create a hybrid system, rather than moving straight to a single-payer one.

Republicans are going to have to move beyond their current “Repeal!” posture and cohere behind a positive alternative…

Jo Egelhoff, FoxPolitics.net

COMMENTS

Yes. Jo, you and I disagree on this issue. You'd prefer HSAs and I prefer Medicare-for-all. But we both agree that ObamaCare is atrocious. I agree that it will increase costs. Not only does it leave the $800 billion of insurance profits in the loop but it also requires a claimed 16,000 new IRS agents to oversee the mandated policies. Will it actually double the current $2.7 trillion in healthcare costs? It sure could, but look at all the extra workers (the taxpayers must pay for).

So to you and other conservatives that opposed doing it the right way from the beginning, I say, you deserve the outcome!

Yes, if you are a banker the HSAs are attractive. But they have serious health care problems as we've discussed. To leave the unnecessary insurance industry in the loop makes absolutely zero business sense, unless you sell insurance. It's equivalent to giving your delivery guy a chauffeur.

With Medicare, if I get sick I get care and the caregiver gets paid. Yea, simple, but efficient.

Jack Lohman (Fri Jan 07 08:05:50 2011)

>>>…. In their own report on Thursday, intended to illustrate how the law would lead to job losses, Republican leaders put the cost of the health care law “when fully implemented” at $2.6 trillion and said it would “add $701 billion to the deficit in its first 10 years.”<<<
From a link you provided;
>>>
“Today, Congress’s impartial referee found that your health care proposal — repeal and erase — will add $230 billion to the deficit. From where I sit, the promises you made during the campaign — the rhetoric you relied upon — impel you to come up with an offset for that $230 billion,” Vermont Rep. Peter Welch told the committee.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/47189.html#ixzz1AMcSWUQS<<<

So who ya gonna believe, the CBO or the republican leadership?.... I will go with the CBO.

If you can explain how the R's are correct...go ahead or get a non-biased source. Ryan don't cut it either.

>>>>>Talk of how ObamaCare reduces the deficit is a biiig pet peeve of mine <<<<<
Kinda a peeve of mine how R's have their own imaginary reality.

Dean Weichmann (Fri Jan 07 09:33:17 2011)

Krugman comments on this subject;

>>>If You Read This Blog Post, You Will Die
Eventually. Of course, if you don’t read it you’ll eventually die, too.

So, would it make sense to consider the fact of your eventual mortality a cost of reading this blog post? Everyone who thinks so, raise your hands.

And yet, Republicans are applying exactly the same logic to health care reform. They’re insisting that the cost of the “doc fix” — the routine increases in Medicare fees that are necessary to avoid making it impossible to get doctors to cover patients — should be counted as part of the cost of the Affordable Care Act. That’s even though the doc fix would have been equally necessary if the Act had never passed.

And yes, we’ve been through this many times. Another day, another zombie lie attacks our brains.
<<<

Dean Weichmann (Fri Jan 07 09:46:10 2011)

Ezra Klein has an excellent post on this, it explains a lot.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2011/01/omnibus_post_on_the_gimmicks_i.html#more

Dean Weichmann (Fri Jan 07 10:28:45 2011)

***So who ya gonna believe, the CBO or the republican leadership?.... I will go with the CBO. ***

This is GIGO to the max and squared. CBO can only hand out final figures on the figures they've been given.

The Dems give them false numbers and the DBO, working with false numbers, issues false numbers.

I'll back any of the present-day Tea Party Republicans against any of the Socialist Democrats any day!

You can give me all the sources you want (all of which are Liberal) but saying something is correct over and over doesn't make it correct if it's wrong.

Krugman? Don't make me laugh. He operates in an alteernate universe.

C. R. Stevenson (Fri Jan 07 12:42:24 2011)

Yea, Dean, I wouldn't listen to Krugman, a guy not on the payroll of the healthcare industry. I'd listen to Paul Ryan instead.

Jack Lohman (Fri Jan 07 14:59:15 2011)

>>>Krugman? Don't make me laugh. He operates in an alteernate universe<<<

I gotta point out that the universe he operates in, while alteernate from yours, is real.
Seriously CR, he is the best out there, you ought to try to comprehend what he says rather than just dismissing it.

Dean Weichmann (Fri Jan 07 17:04:35 2011)

Actually, Jack, the caregiver does NOT get paid! Drs get around $10/hr for M'care/aid. Why go to all the hassle of medical school, malpractice insurance, etc for that? An unintended consequence of all this, is a dr shortage, now (small) and in the future, when it will be huge. Our best ER dr is currently training to go into another field.

Just this AM, I had to transfer a pt to another hospital, and they almost didn't take him due to Medicare. Yes, it happens, and it will get worse.

emily matthews (Sat Jan 08 09:30:28 2011)

Please don't tell my doctor. He has been bugging me to come in for my yearly physical and must not realize (after 7 years) that I am on Medicare and he'll lose money on me. And don't tell the other 59% of physicians that support Medicare-for-all, or the 17,000 physicians at Physicians for National Health Program (pnhp.org).

I'd tell your ER Doc that they are hiring plumbers in North Dakota, though I expect that he is studying to be a hospital CEO.

All of that said, I agree about Medicaid. It is terrible.

Jack Lohman (Sat Jan 08 10:19:29 2011)

Robert Reich;

When it comes to health care, Republicans should be careful what they wish for.

http://robertreich.org/

Dean Weichmann (Sun Jan 09 10:54:24 2011)

Post a Reply

Print this Article

Email Article to a Friend