Years 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

Outlays:
Mandatory:
Medicare 325 367 386 409 434 475 482
Medicaid and SCHIP 186 198 209 223 239 257 277

Bottom line: a $1.4 billion cut in Medicare in FY 2010 would be a reduction in the growth of Medicare, just like Bush’s proposal last year, not an absolute cut.

The cost pressures were no different under Bush’s proposal than under Obama’s.

Take a bite of my DeathCake, it’s good.

faraway on September 2, 2009 at 2:27 PM

But I like yellow cake with chocolate frosting. Can’t I have that instead?

It’s all well and good to encourage more doctors to go into general family practice, but the fact is that the longer we live, the more cancer and heart disease cases will arise and we need specialists in those areas.

In the mind of the Communist, I suppose it’s not what you do feel but how you should feel, and not if something doesn’t work, but rather that it should work.

Take a bite of my DeathCake, it’s good.

faraway on September 2, 2009 at 2:27 PM

I thought it was the salmon mousse…!

Smells like a rationing spirit crap samich!

Just a thought Ed…

oops !!!

Smells like rationing spirit

This may be off topic but just as scary…

According to a contract which you presumably read and signed and if you didn’t like you went shopping elsewhere. I suppose you think the govt is going to cover everything you want and smile as you ask for more?

Ignorance is bliss.

WitchDoctor on September 2, 2009 at 3:49 PM

Heh, I wouldn’t waste my time with the orange troll, he hasn’t tried to defend his insipid comment when responded with this:

Hmmm….funny but if I remember correctly it is AGAINST THE LAW for a hospital to refuse treatment to anyone regardless of their ability to pay!

Now if your defenition of evil for-profit bureaucrats includes those in the hospital that Michelle is on the board of you could be on to something as I seem to recall she and the hospital board she sits on advocated patient dumping for those that couldn’t pay!

So, what was it you were saying about those evil for profit bureaucrats again?

Liberty or Death on September 2, 2009 at 3:42 PM

Perhaps orange is still waiting for a response to the e-mail he sent to Herr Obama on how to respond as it’s obvious orange’s strong suit isn’t logic or facts, however orange does excel in lefty rhetorical memes though!

According to a contract which you presumably read and signed and if you didn’t like you went shopping elsewhere. I suppose you think the govt is going to cover everything you want and smile as you ask for more?

Ignorance is bliss.

Or have they?

Shambhala on September 2, 2009 at 3:16 PM

It’s coming up:
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/10582301/President-Obama’s-Address-to-Students-Across-America-September-8-2009

THEY ARE NOT UNINTENDED!

As more Americans delve in the disturbing details of the nationalized health care plan that the current administration is rushing through Congress, our collective jaw is dropping, and we’re saying not just no, but hell no!

The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply REFUSE TO PAY THE COST. And who will the suffer the most when they RATION care? The sick, elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are WORTHY of health care. SUCH A SYSTEM IS DOWNRIGHT EVIL.

Health care by definition involves life and death decisions. Human rights and human dignity must be at the center of any health care discussion.

Rep. Michele Bachmann highlighted the Orwellian thinking of the president’s health care advisor, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of the White House chief of staff, in a floor speech to the House of Representatives. I commend her for being a voice for the most precious members of our society, our children and our seniors.

We must step up and engage in the most crucial debate. Nationalizing our health care system is a POINT OF NO RETURN for government interference in the lives of its citizens. If we go down this path, there will be no turning back. Ronald Reagan once wrote, “Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on earth.” Let’s stop and think and make our voices heard before it’s too late.

Sarah Palin

(BOLD PRINT FROM ME)

TRANSLATION:

At once Sarah Palin disabuses the notion put out by some Democrats that Obamacare will not lead to socialized medicine. Her indignation and opposition to Obamacare is clearly in evidence from the get-go.

She then debunks the premise of Obamacare reducing the costs of health care delivery and then affirms that the goal of government is to not live up to its moral responsibility but instead to ration care and refuse to pay the bill. That’s like a restaurant owner advertising he can lower the cost of a cup of coffee to its patrons but doesn’t tell them the reason he can do it is that he just cut all his staff’s wages in half.

Now the tie-in which is absolutely brilliant is when Sarah subtly implies that Obama does not represent ‘the America I know and love and that divergence from the American norm in terms of “death panels” and subjectively deeming who is worthy of care imputes evil intentions or machinations to a system that Obama and his bureaucrats have sanctioned.

Michele Bachmann has clearly been energized and emboldened by being mentioned in Sarah’s Facebook post. She is now talking about slitting wrists and taking a blood oath, calling Obamacare slavery (a Palin term) and being proud of being the second most hated female Republican woman.

Ezekiel Emmanuel’s credibility is now on life support and he is now referred to as Dr. Death. He has become the omnipresent symbol of doom, even more so than Obama, of what is wrong with Obamacare and hopefully soon its death knell.
Sarah also invokes Orwell and 1984 and Big Brother which proves she does read and knows what she is talking about: a great line to appeal to independents.

And finally Sarah pay homage to Reagan. She never forgets to throw some red meat to the base. Unless Sarah screws up big time the hardcore conservatives in America will never desert Sarah.

Good thing there’s no rationing in our current system where for-profit bureaucrats make the decisions about who gets health care and who doesnt.

orange on September 2, 2009 at 3:34 PM

Hmmm….funny but if I remember correctly it is AGAINST THE LAW for a hospital to refuse treatment to anyone regardless of their ability to pay!

Now if your defenition of evil for-profit bureaucrats includes those in the hospital that Michelle is on the board of you could be on to something as I seem to recall she and the hospital board she sits on advocated patient dumping for those that couldn’t pay!

So, what was it you were saying about those evil for profit bureaucrats again?

orange on September 2, 2009 at 3:34 PM

Insurance companies can be regulated, who regulates the government?

Good find.

Vashta.Nerada on September 2, 2009 at 3:26 PM

Thanks, I’ve been sending that cartoon strip to everyone I know!

Did my 2:26 comment seriously need a /sarc tag?

BadgerHawk on September 2, 2009 at 2:37 PM

No, but then again I’ve been lurking around HA long enough to know you were being sarcastic Hawk…

No, but if you think what Barry says are lies, then Bush and Cheney lied about other things.

Jimbo3 on September 2, 2009 at 2:38 PM

Let me guess what you are alluding to:

“Bush Lied and People Died!”

“No war for oil!”

“terrorists have habeas corpus rights, detaining them without trial is unconstitutional”

Or this favorite lame lefty “moral equivalency” meme:

“Cheney and Bush are guilty of war crimes!”

Sounds to me like Jimbo3 needs to get some new lefty talking points from Herr Obama as his/her comment only proves his/her ignorance, proves he/she can’t think for themselves, and it makes him/her look childish by throwing out such comments when this thread is obviously about HCR, not Bush and Cheney!

And “large cuts in the growth of Medicare” are not the same thing as cuts to the program. Are you being intentionally obtuse or are you really too dumb to know the difference?

BadgerHawk on September 2, 2009 at 2:29 PM

Is that similar to what Ted Kennedy and cohorts decried “spending cuts” when it was a reduction in the increase.

1. Automobile manufacturers (cars are too expensive!)
2. Drug manufacturers (drugs are too expensive!)
3. Farmers (food is too expensive!)
4. Clothing manufacturers (clothes are too expensive!)
5. Construction firms (houses are too expensive!)

This is fun! Look at all the free things I can get from the government! Why, I may never have to work again! Woo-hoo!