http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb...re24-2010feb24

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/02/...ion/index.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/26/op...26krugman.html

What is this, the battle of the links?

Yoda

Courtesy would suggest at least a comment about the point one is attempting to make!!!

btk

You are right. I'm sorry for just including the links. To be honest it's the first time I tried it to see if it worked. In my happiness over my success I forgot to write a little synopsis of each post.
The first is a post telling about the 39% increase for health care costs in California. I thought it was important for 2 reasons. One to show the status quo is not working and 2 we know that what starts in CAL.usually makes it way east. The second is a description of the summitt I found interesting and the 3rd is another opinion from the NY Times that most of you will disagree with but what the heck.

Back to the summitt....the editorial I am linking is a good one and one that I agree on....I even agree that the President showed a great grasp of the facts and as always is a great public speaker....HOWEVER, most of the citizens of this country have other concerns that he did not speak to and Paul Ryan hit them all.....and the President did not respond...

"• "This bill does not control costs (or) reduce deficits. Instead, (it) adds a new health care entitlement when we have no idea how to pay for the entitlements we already have."

• "The bill has 10 years of tax increases, about half a trillion dollars, with 10 years of Medicare cuts, about half a trillion dollars, to pay for six years of spending. The true 10-year cost (is) $2.3 trillion."

• "The bill takes $52 billion in higher Social Security tax revenues and counts them as offsets. But that's really reserved for Social Security. So either we're double-counting them or we don't intend on paying those Social Security benefits."

• "The bill takes $72 billion from the CLASS Act (long-term care insurance) benefit premiums and claims them as offsets."

• "The bill treats Medicare like a piggy bank, (raiding) half a trillion dollars not to shore up Medicare solvency, but to spend on this new government program."

• "The chief actuary of Medicare (says) as much as 20% of Medicare providers will either go out of business or have to stop seeing Medicare beneficiaries."

• "Millions of seniors who have chosen Medicare Advantage (Medicare through a private insurer) will lose the coverage that they now enjoy."

• "When you strip out the double-counting and ... gimmicks, the full 10-year cost of the bill has a $460 billion deficit. The second 10-year cost of this bill has a $1.4 trillion deficit."

• "The 'doc fix' (restoring cuts in Medicare reimbursements) costs $371 billion ... a price tag (that) made the score look bad. (So) that provision was taken out, and (put) in stand-alone legislation. But ignoring these costs does not remove them from the backs of taxpayers. Hiding spending does not reduce spending."

• "Are we bending the cost curve down or are we bending the cost curve up? If you look at your own chief actuary at Medicare, we're bending it up. He's claiming that we're going up $222 billion, adding more to the unsustainable fiscal situation we have."


These are economic factors that the President just chooses to ignore...

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnal...aspx?id=522446