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According to Glenn Greenwald’s scale of liberal caving on cuts to our safety-net, social insurance programs, we are at Step Two:
“STEP TWO: As the deal gets negotiated and takes shape, progressive pundits in Washington, with Obama officials persuasively whispering in their ear, will begin to argue that the proposed cuts are really not that bad, that they are modest and acceptable, that they are even necessary to save the programs from greater cuts or even dismantlement.”
This week Peter Orszag wrote an editorial recommending cuts in order to ‘fix entitlements’. Jared Bernstein wrote a piece validating the trade of tax increases for cuts. He gave little or no detail on the cuts. Linda Bergthold wrote an enabling piece for HuffPo on the proposed cuts for healthcare. Her basic message is that these cuts don’t harm beneficiaries and basically, that they are not that bad. She referenced a CAP plan, without going through it in detail. All of the authors write with an air of “of course there will be cuts.”
Bernstein and Bergthold both reference the CAP plan for deficit reduction and the CAP plan for cuts in healthcare, (the Orwellian titled, Senior Protection Plan.) Orszag boasted that he has been working with CAP and has offered CAP ten ideas for reforming healthcare, saying that they are so innovative that they cannot be scored by the CBO. Senator Whitehouse also claims to have an unscorable (by the CBO) plan to reform healthcare. ACOs probably have unscorable outcomes. It should be noted that the CAP healthcare plan was partially funded by Pete Peterson, the infamous enemy of American social insurance programs.
My problem with the authors’ opinions is that they use their trusted, expert status to dismiss the realistic fear of the impact of significant changes to Medicare and Medicaid. They disarm those who should take action to fight increased copays, cuts to services, restrictions to healthcare, and changes in the structure of payments to providers. Changes which are very likely to reduce and degrade the quality of healthcare beneficiaries receive after the changes are made. And their claims that beneficiaries will not come to be harmed by these changes are not verifiable. Nor are they ever accountable when their ideas-gone-wrong, go wrong. How and when does one measure the cost of medical treatment never received?
It is not inevitable that these changes are made. Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are programs we can afford. We should fight cuts with all our might.
Notes: CAP is the Center for American Progress. The CAP tax plan referenced by Bernstein & Bergthold is titled, “Reforming our Tax System, Reducing Our Deficit.” The CAP healthcare cuts plan reference by Bergthold & Bernstein (indirectly) is titled, “The Senior Protection Plan”.
20 Comments
THANK YOU!!!
Forty years ago I was fortunate to hear Dick Gregory speak. My take away from that event was his admonition that to understand what is reported in the news we must look to see who is paying for it. At the time, cyclamate artificial sweeteners were under attack by a study funded by the “Sugar Growers Association”. That tie was rarely included in the news reports of the day.
Your acknowledgement that “the CAP healthcare plan was partially funded by Pete Peterson” says all I need to hear. Unfortunately, most news watchers have no idea who Pete is or what he is up to.
Peter O and Jared B are just mouth pieces for BO….that don’t live in the real world and all they care about is what is in it for them..we need to keep yjr pressure on them. Good work TT!
Thanks. Jared B has an editorial today calling for ‘stimulus’ but does not say ‘create jobs like the WPA’! Doesn’t the guy realize that extracting 385 to 400 billion dollars from Obama “cuts” to the healthcare sector is a drag on the economy?? At least he is moving away from the thinking “that the deficit is the problem”.
I’m a little stunned by Bernstein’s participation in this burlesque, and I’m god’s own cynic
could someone provide a link to Peterson’s $$ for CAP plan ? I don’t doubt it, just want to see it – thx
Thanks. I just put up a link to the CAP healthcare plan. The note about Peterson’s help to fund the report is at the end of the report.
From page 41:
thanks !
continuing to just shake my head at this folly – Jane Hamsher has been writing of Orszag, his infamous White Paper on ‘simply tweaking the current system’, and Obama’s continuing references to it, since before Obama’s first term …and here we are, jesus
Yes. Here we are: but all is not lost. Here’s something to cheer you up. It is James Galbraith in August of 2012 writing about the social value of the big 3. Scroll down read his remarks. Enjoy.
Robert Reich also has a piece out advocating for ‘managed care’ for seniors entering Medicaid and Medicare:
Reich is laying blame for the need to drop to managed care because of the looming retirement of 76 million boomers. Isn’t that a GOP talking point?
(Another example of demonizing Boomers and turning a non-crisis into “The Attack of the 50 Foot Woman”, in which all of the Boomers become radioactive after they have contact with aliens.)
Wow. A second former Obama campaign official, Neera Tanden, who co-authored the CAP deficit reduction plan cited above has made the NYTimes, in an article on the impact of rising tax rates for the rich:
“Left leaning Center For American Progress”????
Who invents these false memes?
Great read thanks for the updates on all this, it’s horrific and well, totally expected when your nation is owned and operated by corporate fascists, from the military to every erected and annointed offal in office.
Rcc’d, of course.
Hi Tom,
Thanks, as I mentioned at #1. And, rec’d, of course.
But, I don’t follow your claim about Reich:
Here’s the full text of the stuff you quoted, but even in this larger segment, I don’t see him advocating for managed care:
Perhaps you view “fee-for-healthy outcomes system of health care” as synonymous with “managed care.” IMHO, fee-for-service provides perverse incentives for services that are both unnecessary and often harmful. The best healthcare systems in the world have their providers on salary and rate them on outcomes.
Am I missing something here?
In any case, this is an outstanding post that I very much appreciate.
x2
This is the expected result from giving a “mandate” to LOTE. This is analogous to waking up on a Sunday morning saying you won’t do that to yourself again, try to remember that next Saturday night, 2014.
Rather this is like a military unit expecting an enemy attack soon but not knowing where, when, and the enemy’s order of battle. Glenn Greenwald accurately called the stages on November 7. There’s nothing unexpected happening here. But we now know:
* The current attack will be against Medicare and not yet against Social Security.
* White House officials and alumni will be pitching innocuousness of necessity for the cuts on the pages of the big newspapers.
* We know that the public says they’ll blame the GOP if we go over the fiscal cliff.
* And we know that today the White House said that they’re prepared to go over the fiscal cliff.
So, it’s likely to go down as Greenwald said it would, superficial tax hikes for the wealthy in exchange for incremental austerity for the non-wealthy, with liberals saying “He won’t cave this time, and besides He caved to save America.”
Thank you, we must fight back. It will be painful,but generations to come must know we didn’t just give up. The people i know are ready and willing and this might be the spark to light the fire. Thanks again & peace
The terms may change (from managed care to integrated care) but the ripoff for beneficiaries is still the same. I sympathize with your perception of Reich. It is possible that Reich is being scammed by the claims for greater efficiencies in integrated care, but he is smarter than that, IMHO.
The liberal enablers are singing the praises of plans which claim to save 30% but are actually playing musical chairs with Medicare patients.
Check out the critique of the Dartmouth Atlas plans from 2009
Actually, the linked article is a better presentation of the counter arguments
And the original Times argument is HERE. Cheaper is not always better!
The other tell for me, in Reich’s piece, is the focus on people who are soon to retire as somehow the source of soaring healthcare costs. These government healthcare programs have fully anticipated the healthcare needs of this group, and it is the rising cost of medical care, not the retiring group who have earned these benefits, which is the core problem. The rising cost of medical care is the problem, not the group who need access to healthcare.
I am writing here of necessity, not due to my own expertise in the areas of economics or healthcare, so please feel free to bring links, challenges, and corrections when you see me entering into the stupid zone. Thanks.
Did you even read the CAP plan to cut Medicare by 385 billion dollars?
The cost saving mechanism of ACOs and HMOs primarily achieve their so-called efficiencies by reducing the capacity of healthcare systems to provide services, and by denying access to their patients to medical services within those artificially restricted systems of care. When the government agrees to pay a fixed fee and then pays a bonus if fewer dollars are spent on care, a perverse incentive is created to both reduce capacity and to restrict access to care.
They say they have saved 30% of ‘wasted dollars’. In my opinion, they have cut capacity and services by X% to do that.
Fee for service means ‘freedom of choice’ and access to all providers to me.
This might help.