Like the Jadoon teaming up with the Cybermen, the Solarans and the Daleks to lock the Doctor into the inescapable Pandorica in order to save the Universe from Him, Republicans are claiming that they - and only they - can save Medicare...
From President Obama.
What?! The! Actual! Frack!??
It's the like the New Coke, the New Republican Attack Line on President Obama/Defense of Paul Ryan is that "President Obama Cut $700 Billion from Medicare" - Do you Defend that? (Watch at 1:50)
Freeze frame this moment in time, Republicans - in order to provide cover for Paul Ryan - have gone on a massive ideological tirade against the "cruelty" of President Obama for cutting Government Spending.
(Head shaking double take)
um...Right. Isn't that what Republicans say We Need Them to Do! To make the hard decisions, take the tough choices?
If Obama is already making the hard, tough choices, what do we need Republicans for again?
The First Rule of Cut Club, you don't get all up in Rachel Maddow's Grill and try to force her to Defend Cut Club. Given a day, or so, to think about it, She Will.
You know what's going to happen now? Rachel is going Lead Off her Next Show with a detailed and pointed analysis of this subject. She's going to burrow into it, dig deep and dig hard. She, I Hope, will point of that it's not $700 Billion in "Cuts', it's $700 in SAVINGS, that most of it didn't come from traditional Medicare, that it comes from the already privatized Medicare Advantage, that it doesn't take a Second of service or quality away from Seniors, and that it has already extended the Medicare Trust Fund for Another 8 Years.
Oh, and Ryan would keep the exact same cuts if he could.
By this time on Tuesday, the Next Republican to use this despicable lie - just might be laughed right off the screen.
The source of the $716 Billion Figure from the CBO estimate for the cost of repealing the ACA, not the estimate of savings from the Original legislation ($500 B).
The ACA also includes a number of other provisions related to health care that are estimated to reduce net federal outlays (primarily for Medicare). By repealing those provisions, H.R. 6079 would
increase other direct spending in the next decade by an estimated $711 billion.
Deficits would be increased under H.R. 6079 because the net savings from eliminating the insurance coverage provisions would be more than offset by the combination of other spending increases and revenue reductions. In total, CBO and JCT estimate that H.R. 6079 would reduce direct spending by $890 billion and reduce revenues by $1 trillion over the 2013–2022 period, thus adding $109 billion to federal budget deficits over that period (see Table 2).
Since like, Forever the Rightwing - led by Paul Ryan - has been saying that CBO figures claiming that the ACA
improves the deficit were wrong because of the "Assumptions" they were given to evaluate the law. But this is the response to ,
their request on what the impact of repeal would be. Yet it still shows that on Net Balance, the plan
Cuts the Deficit.
Here's something else the Repeal of the ACA would do - Take Healthcare away from 30 Million people.
H.R. 6079 would repeal all of the provisions of the ACA that are designed to expand insurance coverage as well as related provisions. Most of those provisions are scheduled to go into effect in January 2014. Under H.R. 6079, about 30 million fewer nonelderly people would have health insurance in 2022 than under current law, leaving a total of about 60 million nonelderly people uninsured (see Table 3). About 81 percent of legal nonelderly residents would have insurance coverage in 2022, compared with 92 percent projected under current law (and 82 percent currently).Here's the specific figure that Lowry was talking about.Spending for Medicare would increase by an estimated $716 billion over that 2013–2022 period.
Within Medicare, net increases in spending for the services covered by
Part A (Hospital Insurance) and Part B (Medical Insurance) would total $517 billion and $247 billion, respectively. Those increases would be partially offset by a $48 billion reduction in net spending for Part D.
● Repeal of the reductions in the annual updates to Medicare’s payment rates for most services in the fee-for-service sector (other than physicians’ services) would increase Medicare outlays by $415 billion. (That figure excludes interactions between those provisions and others—,namely, the effects of those changes on payments to Medicare Advantage plans and collections of Part B premiums.) Of that amount, higher payments for hospital services account for $260 billion; for skilled nursing services, $39 billion; for hospice services, $17 billion; for home health services, $66 billion; and for all other services, $33 billion.
● Repeal of the new mechanism for setting payment rates in the Medicare Advantage program would increase Medicare outlays by $156 billion (before considering interactions with other provisions).
● Repeal of the reductions in Medicaid and Medicare payments to hospitals that serve a large number of low-income patients, known as disproportionate share hospitals (DSH), would increase federal spending by $56 billion.
So if you repeal the ACA,
Spending Will Increase in terms of payments to doctors and hospitals - but
nowhere does the CBO this would result in reduced services (the Medicare Trustees Concur with that) and for some reason, Republicans now claim
that's a Bad Thing.
Um... I don't think so.
I think saving the American People $716 Billion is a good thing, particularly if you do it without reducing services. This entire argument is like being in an brand new upside down world that must be the Red-Headed Love Child of Oz and Wonderland, where Superman gets stronger from Kryptonite and weaker from Lead, where Aquaman can't swim but he can fly.
And where Republicans think that they have an advantage over a Democratic President who Cut Nearly a $1 Trillion worth of Spending From Medicare, without weakening the quality of the program.
Hey wasn't "Cutting Government Spending" supposed to be the Republican Speciality? Why are you attacking a Democratic President who did it without you?
Oh, right, cuz he did it WITHOUT YOU.
Vyan