Romney and Ryan Are Peddling Fear to Seniors by Grossly Distorting the Facts on Medicare

[babylonsister]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/26/romney-and-ryan-are-peddling-fear-to-seniors-by-grossly-distorting-the-facts-on-medicare.html


Romney and Ryan Are Peddling Fear to Seniors by Grossly Distorting the Facts on Medicare
by Michael Tomasky
Aug 26, 2012 4:45 AM EDT

The GOP ticket says it wants to ‘protect and strengthen’ Medicare, when in fact its proposals would accomplish precisely the opposite, writes Michael Tomasky.

snip//

Death panels were a lie then, in 2009, in that perfervid summer of town-hall hysteria, and were named the “Lie of the Year” by the independent fact-checking group Politifact. Others said much the same. So how do Ryan and his supporters defend this claim? Because the new law does establish a body called the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). The way things are going in Washington, it will never even come into existence—more on that later. But if it does, this body of 15 presidentially appointed experts will indeed be given the responsibility to recommend Medicare cost savings, beginning most likely in 2018, if certain cost-reduction targets aren’t reached by then.

Medicare must save money. The Social Security Trust Fund is solvent well into the future; the Medicare variant will run dry in 2024, or, if Romney really has his way, the frighteningly close 2016. Costs under the original fee-for-service system—the more services, the higher the reimbursements, regardless of outcome—have gone crazy. New approaches are desperately needed, like the promising Accountable Care Organizations—networks of doctors and hospitals that can, it is hoped, offer better-coordinated care to seniors that will keep them healthier while tamping costs down. Sure it’s an experiment. But we need experiments, and pronto.

It’s understandable that seniors would greet any change with anxiety. What isn’t understandable, or excusable, is politicians cynically hyping that anxiety and converting it into outright fear. But that is just what Ryan is doing—while at the same time, remember, proposing his own Medicare plan that will undoubtedly raise seniors’ out-of-pocket costs! That’s some twofer.

The IPAB will have a hell of a hard job: It will have to identify savings that do not harm care. The new law says expressly—on page 409, if you want to check it—that the IPAB’s proposals “shall not include any recommendation to ration health care.” But that’s assuming the panel even comes into existence. Its members will have to be confirmed by the Senate, and given what we’ve seen on that front since 2009, there seems little chance, if President Obama is reelected, that the Republicans will permit approval of even one member of this board. Killing off IPAB will become a rallying cry in Limbaughland, and we’ll likely see a replay of 2009, when previously rational GOP senators like Chuck Grassley started tweeting about killing grandma.

And if IPAB doesn’t exist? It will basically be up to Congress to control Medicare costs. Now that inspires confidence, doesn’t it? And so we face a familiar situation. We have an enormous, and enormous complex, public problem that requires attention. One side is at least trying to do something about it. The other side is doing nothing but poking around for weaknesses so it can peddle lies and stoke fear, all for the purpose of diverting seniors’ attention from its own plans. And meanwhile, of course, we already have death panels that have the power to deny coverage to sick and dying people. They’re called “insurance companies.”

[Major Hogwash]

1. They're in for a surprise.

Senior citizens aren't as dumb as those 2 think they are.

It looks to me like Romney is now going for the old, rich, white, male, who's own father was a Governor, vote.
He may gain up to 4 votes before this is all over.
But, that's still less than 1%.

[Zoeisright]

2. Why don't they ever just fucking say LIE??

I am so sick of that namby-pamby "distort" and "misspoke" shit. They are LYING.