SECRET’S OUT: Cantor’s Secret Memo For $350bn In Cuts

[kpete]

What are their policy goals? They want to eliminate Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. They want to eliminate all discretionary spending: no more EPA, no more Department of Education, no more NIH, etc etc.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2011/07/not_dumbfounding_at_all.php?ref=fpblg

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A Democratic source passes along a memo listing cuts to Medicare and Medicaid that House Majority Leader (R-VA) proposed at a contentious White House debt limit meeting on Monday.

The cuts themselves were first identified by a bipartisan working group of legislators led by Vice President Joe Biden as cuts that could garner bipartisan support -- contingent on the assumption that Republicans agree to put new tax revenue of some kind on the table.

President Obama reportedly rejected this proposal on the grounds that the GOP has refused anything other than revenue-neutral deficit reduction. A Cantor spokesman was not immediately available for comment.



MORE HERE!!!:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/07/memo-cantor-pushes-350-billion-in-medicaremedicaid-cuts-savings.php?ref=fpa

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............. here's the rich, hair-pulling, you-got-to-be-kidding-me part:

When the parties sat down yesterday at the White House for another round of hashing out a deal, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) laid out the spending cuts House Republicans hammered out in earlier failed talks with Vice President Joe Biden aimed at a grand bargain on the long-term budget. Now set aside that there's an open question as to whether Democrats ever did or ever would agree to those cuts Cantor laid out. And set aside that the deal Cantor is proposing doesn't offer any compromise to Democrats on the tax side (it's still spending cuts only).

Set all that aside and guess what?

Cantor's own numbers don't add up to $2 trillion!

Let me say that again.

Cantor was unable to put on the negotiating table a list of $2 trillion in spending cuts Republicans would propose that have any chance of passing

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2011/07/is_that_all_you_got.php?ref=fpblg

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[xchrom]

1. recommend

[meegbear]

2. For those of you playing at home ...

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[kpete]

3. Thanks Meegbear

The BIG picture is STUNNINGLY clear now...
AND documented.

EVERY American needs to see this!

peace, kpete

[meegbear]

10. HUGS!!

:hi:

[itsrobert]

4. So Cantor puts the other players chips on the table?

Is that how the game of poker is played?

[russspeakeasy]

13. He learned that by watching big banks and insurance companies.

[NYC_SKP]

5. K/R and here's one of my questions to the Progressive Community:

Now I preface this with wanting to share that I manage the care of my two aging parents, both living at home and both on 12+ meds daily including Aricept.

Mom's suffers from polio/post polio syndrome/breast cancer/pace maker/multiple crushed vertebra/broken hip X2/and more, and dad's had multiple 90 day stays in long term care.

I've seen how Medicare works, and I've seen how it DOESN'T work very well, much of the time, with lots of unnecessary effort and costs and abysmal record keeping/sharing.

And opportunities for abuse and gaming the system.

Question:

If somebody proposes a way to streamline, for example, record sharing and thus save on costs, is that a "Medicare cut"?

If somebody proposes a way to cut down on cheating and gaming and corruption, is that a "Medicare cut"?

Because what I'm seeing seems to suggest that many among us see any tweaking at all as unacceptable, and I find that position unreasonable.

TIA, gotta go to work now but will be checking in.

:hi:

[flamingdem]

7. Tweaking is surely needed but with the utmost caution used with the description

of what it is about and how it will not impact benefits or eligibility.

The big concern now seems to be age eligibility for Medicare. It would be nasty to raise that limit but there is some validity for doing that for decades out since people really are living longer. To do it now is insane, but it would make republicans very happy.

[starroute]

11. The "living longer" argument is a sham

For one thing, the rich are living longer -- the poor and even the middle class, not so much. And life expectancies are even falling in the poorer areas of the country.

But for another, the real question is the cost of private insurance. Anybody over 60 who has to buy their own insurance is already paying a fortune -- so you're talking about tens of thousands of dollars out of their pockets if you raise the Medicare eligibility age. And anybody who manages to hang onto a job for the sake of employer-provided insurance when they're 65 or 66 is going to push up the cost of that insurance for the employer and for all their fellow employees.

And even beyond that, there was an article the other day saying that people who don't have insurance often put off seeking medical care until the Medicare kicks in -- and then hit the program with a lot of expenses all at once, many of them higher than they would have been if they hadn't been deferred.

So keeping people off Medicare for an extra couple of years may look viable on paper, but it would significantly increase costs to the overall system of government, private business, and individuals.

[flamingdem]

22. Good points. I think eligibility should be lowered to 55, tomorrow! nt

[mzmolly]

8. Excellent questions.

Sadly, I surmise the word "cut" refers to any change that saves money.

[Bobbie Jo]

9. Thank you. nt

[elleng]

17. Hey, SKP, your suggestion is correct, of course,

'Cuts' can and should be reasonable; what's unreasonable is folks wailing about ANY 'CUTS,' about which none understand or are aware (until now, these, apparently.)

OF COURSE streamlining and cutting cheating etc. are reasonable, should be advocated here, and are almost certainly accepted by PrezO+VPB.

There MUST BE cuts.

[zipplewrath]

19. Why should cost savings be removed from Medicare?

Isn't that a DISincentive for Medicare and its affiliated programs to NOT seek cost reductions, because it will merely result in lower operating funds? "saved" money should be poured BACK into improved care, expanded coverage, or infrastructure investments.

Yes, taking money away from Medicare is, well, taking money away from medicare. It's pretty simple really. Should your wages go down when you refinance your mortgage and reduce your monthly payments?

We don't do "zero sum" budgeting at the federal level. We decide what we're going to do, and then decide to pay for it. There is an interaction, but they are not that rigidly connected.

[Loge23]

6. Who the hell is Eric Cantor versus us?

Why are we allowing this piece of shit (no apologies here, he is what he is) to dictate fiscal policy?
He represents a district of approx. 650K people - 80% of whom are white - many rabidly right-wing.
Clearly, this guy is in the bag for his special interests.
It's time to barrage any public forum reachable about who exactly is holding up the debt deal. This guy, and his 140K voters, will fundamentally change a wildly successful government program that works. This is pure insanity.

[Mimosa]

12. They're scum and the right wing are too dumb to understand what's going on. n/t

[russspeakeasy]

16. I think they understand it. I don't think they give a shit.

It's easier to blindly follow the party line than think.

[monmouth]

14. Cantor should recuse himself from these talks, he has skin in the game..n/t

[Joe Bacon]

15. They are NORQUISLINGS!

I like what a poster came up with on the Talking Points Memo comment area. He's right! These people are NORQUISLINGS. They are committed to destroying this country and instituting theocratic dictatorship.

[JuniperLea]

20. Saw that!

Love that name!

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. Color me surprised...NOT

This is what happens to dyoing empires.

[donheld]

21. Kpete you are a gem!

[myrna minx]

23. K&R n/t

[Divernan]

24. "Diabetic Strip Pharmacy Payments" (Medicare) is one of the proposed cuts.

The 8th line item entry in the OP's chart refers to Diabetic Strip Pharmacy Payments (Medicare).

It is critical to the management of diabetes that diabetics self-test their blood sugar levels several times each day. This requires a device to prick their fingers, a fresh lancet which is inserted into said device each time, a fresh test strip for each test, which absorbs blood from the prick, and then a computerized monitor into which the strip is inserted. The monitor gives you an instant readout of your sugar levels.

Each strip costs $1.00. My physician has instructed me to test myself at least 3x per day.
That's $1,095 per year. I have Medicare and 2ndary health insurance, so that once I pay a small annual deductible, all my health care costs are covered. If this item is no longer covered by Medicare, then my secondary insurance will not pay anything for it either.

I know diabetics who are too young for Medicare, or diabetics on Medicare who have no secondary insurance, who cannot afford those strips, so rarely self-test. This risks diabetic coma and a myriad of other complications - heart disease and stroke, hypertension, blindness and eye problems, kidney disease, nervous system disease, amputations, dental disease, microvascular complications and/or complications of pregnancy.

These "strips" are key to heading off any of these complications. For want of a nail, the horse,rider, battle, war and kingdom were eventually lost. So this does not have SHIT to do with simplifying paperwork, or reducing overhead or administrative costs. This cut directly and most seriously impacts diabetics. Let me say this loud and clear:

WITHOUT THESE TEST STRIPS, YOU CANNOT MANAGE THIS DISEASE!

So any GOP leader who slips this "adjustment" or "cut" or whatever they choose to call it onto the negotiating table, now or next year, or ever - and any Democrat on the other side, whether Biden or Obama, or congressional leaders, who agrees to such a cut, is setting themselves up as a Death Panel member to withhold treatment which has inevitable lethal consequences. Any politician who either proposes or agrees to such a cut is, like diabetes, a "Silent Killer."

How many diabetics are there in the US? How many US citizens would be hurt by this innocuous little line item in the list? Here are the facts from the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services.

http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/dm/pubs/statistics/

Diabetes affects 25.8 million people of all ages, or 8.3 percent of the US population.
DIAGNOSED: 18.8 MILLION PEOPLE
UNDIAGNOSED: 7.0 MILLION PEOPLE

An additional 79 million American adults ages 20 years or older have blood glucose levels rated as pre-diabetic.
Diabetes is the leading cause of kidney failure, non-traumatic lower limb amputations and new cases of blindness among adults in the US. It is a major cause of heart disease and stoke & the 7th leading cause of death in the US.

[annabanana]

25. It's clear. He hates America. How can any other conclusion be drawn?. . . n/t