New Romney-Ryan Ads

A new ad from the Romney-Ryan campaign takes the Democrats' Medicare attacks on Paul Ryan head on. Watch the video below:

Video:  New Romney Ad: Obama Cut Medicare to Pay for Obamacare

"You paid into Medicare for years," the voiceover says. "Every paycheck. Now when you need it, Obama has cut $716 billion from Medicare. Why? To pay for ObamaCare. So now the money you paid for your guaranteed health care is going to a massive new government program that's not for you."

And Remember:  Nobody 55 or older will be affected by any Medicare changes made, but the program will be bankrupt by 2024 for people younger if nothing is done or changed!  Ryan’s plan will save the program for those under 55-years of age.

The campaign plans a large buy with this ad in important swing state media markets.

  Video: America Deserves Better

President Obama cannot run on his record, so he is committed to tearing down Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. Obama’s campaign tried to use the tragedy of a woman's death for political gain. Then, Obama’s top campaign aides were caught lying about it. Doesn't America deserve better than a president who will do and say anything to stay in power, regardless of the truth?

Romney-Ryan: America’s New Dream Team and a Clear Choice – Updated

Technorati Tags: Romney-Ryan,Romney ads,Medicare,ObamaCare,Election 2012,2012 Election,America's Come Back Team,videos

Obama “Fixed” Medicare…With Rationing

A Shovel Ready Project

Posted on June 24, 2011 by Guest Writer  John Goodman

While charges and counter-charges about Medicare are flying back and forth in Washington, hardly anyone seems to have noticed that Medicare’s financial problems have already been solved. They were solved by the health reform bill enacted last year, what some people call ObamaCare.

So why isn’t this front page news? Why aren’t people dancing in the street? Why isn’t the Obama administration boasting about this accomplishment far and wide? Probably because Medicare’s financial problems are slated to be solved by the unconscionable

rationing of health care for the elderly and the disabled, which will lead to the equivalent of death panels for senior Boomers and some disabled persons! Please stop laughing at Sarah Palin, she’s telling you the truth, and stop listening to the mainstream media and AARP, they aren’t!!

The most recent Medicare Trustees report conveys the same message as the last one: On the day that Barack Obama signed the health reform bill, Medicare’s long-term unfunded liability fell by $53 trillion. That sum is about three times the size of the entire U.S. economy. And, it gets better. Once the Baby Boomers work their way through the system, Medicare spending will grow no faster than the payroll taxes, premiums and general revenue transfers that pay for that spending.

So what does this mean for senior citizens who rely on Medicare? No one knows for sure. But it almost certainly means they will get less health care.

Last August, the Office of the Medicare Actuary predicted that within nine years Medicare will be paying doctors less than what Medicaid pays. Think about that. In most places around the country Medicaid patients have extreme difficulty finding doctors who will see them. As a result, they end up seeking care at community health centers and in the emergency rooms of safety net hospitals. In a few more years seniors will be in that same position — with this difference. From a financial point of view, the seniors will be perceived as less desirable customers than welfare mothers. Also, by that point one in seven hospitals will have to leave the Medicare system.

As Medicare Chief Actuary Richard Foster (page 282) said in the 2010 Medicare Trustees’ report, “Well before that point, Congress would have to intervene to prevent the withdrawal of providers from the Medicare market and the severe problems with beneficiary access to care that would result.”

But suppose Congress didn’t intervene. Suppose that the law continues on the books exactly as it is written.

Consider people reaching the age of 65 this year. Under ObamaCare, the average amount spent on these enrollees over the remainder of their lives will fall by about $36,000 at today’s prices. That sum of money is equivalent to about three years of benefits. For 55-year-olds, the spending decrease is about $62,000 — or the equivalent of six years of benefits. For 45-year-olds, the loss is more than $105,000, or nine years of benefits.

In terms of the sheer dollars involved, the planned reduction in future Medicare payments is the equivalent of raising the eligibility age for Medicare to age 68 for today’s 65-year-olds, to age 71 for 55-year-olds and to age 74 for 45-year-olds. But rather than keep the system as is and raise the age of eligibility, the reform law instead tries to achieve equivalent savings by paying less to the providers of care.

What does this mean in terms of access to health care? It almost certainly means that seniors will have extreme difficulty finding doctors who will see them and hospitals who will admit them. Once admitted, they will certainly enjoy fewer amenities (no private room, no gourmet meal choices, and no cable TV perhaps) as well as a lower quality of care. We will have a two-tiered health care system, with the elderly getting second class care.

All these problems will be exacerbated by what ObamaCare does in the rest of the health care system. In just two years, 32 million people will become newly insured. If economic studies are correct, they will try to double the amount of health care they have been consuming. In addition, almost everyone else (including most above-average income families) will be forced to obtain more generous insurance than they have today. With more coverage for more services these people will also try to greatly expand their consumption of care. Yet the health reform act did not create one new doctor or nurse or other paramedical personnel to meet this increased demand.

We are about to experience a system wide rationing problem, which will be reflected in longer waits at doctors’ offices, emergency rooms and clinics and delays in getting almost every kind of care.

In such an environment you will be at a real disadvantage if you are in a health plan that pays doctors less than what private plans are paying. The disadvantaged patients will be the elderly and the disabled on Medicare, poor families on Medicaid, and (if Massachusetts is any guide) people who are newly enrolled in government subsidized health plans.

And here is the final tragic irony: The most vulnerable population are the ones whose access to care is likely to decrease the most under a health care act that was widely touted at the time of its passage as a humanitarian measure~

John Goodman is President and CEO/Kellye Wright Fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis.

This article originally appeared on Conservative Battleline Online and is reprinted with permission.

h/t to A at  Sovereignty in Colorado  -  re-posted at Floyd Reports and at True Health Is True Wealth

And the items covered in this article are only the tip of the iceberg of what is wrong about ObamaCare!

There is only one solution to this and that is to repeal and replace ObamaCare in its entirety and well as the people who engineered and passed it!!

Is it Time to Push Cass Sunstein over the Cliff? - American Thinker

They laughed when Sarah Palin (R) mentioned death panels. And remember the liberal Agenda Project’s commercial showing a Paul Ryan look alike pushing Grandma off a Cliff? 

It is not Paul Ryan or the GOP… it is Cass Sunstein and the Democrats who will be pushing grandma over the cliff if ObamaCare is not repealed!!

You've seen the Democratic commercial of a man pushing a terrified wheelchair bound grandma off a cliff.  In real life the head driver and chief  pusher is Professor Cass Sunstein.

So now Cass Sunstein isn't laughing.  Because he is one of the chief proponents of death panels.  Of course he didn't call them that but nevertheless Palin accurately picked up his intention.  The former University of Chicago law professor (and doesn't that sound familiar?) and now Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, (yes,  this is a real position, not a fabrication of George Orwell) has disavowed them; has made light of his early academic research.

"I'm a lot older now than the author with my name was, and I'm not sure what I think about what that young man wrote," Sunstein, 56, told the House panel. "Things written as an academic are not a legitimate part of what we do as a government official. So I am not focusing on sentences that a young Cass Sunstein wrote years ago. So the answer is no."

Uh, Professor Sunstein, "things written as an academic," often funded by the government, are often exactly "a legitimate part of what we do as a government official;" the basis of programs for government officials.  So no, you can't ooze out of your past evil drivel so easily.  You wrote that paper "Lives, Life-Years, and Willingness to Pay" a mere eight years ago in 2003 when you were a not so young pup of 48, inhabiting the ivory towers of the University of Chicago located on the academic island of Hyde Park, so safely removed from the realities of Chicago and the real world.  No, you can't dismiss your responsibility for this.

Read what the 48 year old academic now turned government official wrote about older folks; they're worth less (one or two words depending on their age and infirmities).

Lives, Life-Years, and Willingness to Pay

"Many analysts, however, have suggested that the government should rely instead on the 'value of a statistical life year' (VSLY), in a way that would likely result in significantly lower benefits calculations for elderly people, and significantly higher benefits calculations for children," the 2003 paper said.

"I urge that the government should indeed focus on statistical life-years rather than statistical lives. A program that saves young people produces more welfare than one that saves old people," it added.

(snip)

"Older people are treated worse for one reason, they are older. This is not an injustice.

(snip)

A program that saves young people produces more welfare than one that saves old people. Nor does a focus on life-years run afoul of ethical limits on cost-benefit analysis. It is relevant in this connection that every old person was once young, and that if all goes well, young people will eventually be old," Sunstein added.

"In fact, a focus on statistical lives is a more plausibly a form of illicit discrimination than a focus on life-years, because the idea of statistical lives treats the years of older people as worth far more than the years of younger people," the 2003 paper continued.

"The hard question involves not whether to undertake this shift, but how to monetize life-years, and here willingness to pay (WTP), despite its many problems, is generally the place to begin. Discussion is also devoted to the uses and limits of the willingness to pay criterion in regulatory policy, with reference to the underlying welfare goal and to the nature of moral and distributional constraints on cost-benefit balancing," it added.

The 2003 paper goes on to say, "Under the life-years approach, older people are treated worse for only one reason: They are older. This is not an injustice. Every old person was young once, and every young person will be old too (if given the chance). In fact an important form of reciprocity is built into the life-years approach. If regulatory policy is based on life-years, every person will, in a sense, be both benefited and burdened, and in exactly the same way. Indeed, every person will be both a beneficiary and a victim of the relevant discrimination. People--the same people--will be benefited when they are younger and burdened when they are older."

Cass Sunstein, over the cliff you go.

Source:  American Thinker  -  hat tip to: www.lucianne.com

Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Cass Sunstien

Red Alert!!!!!!  Related Video:  ObamaCare at the Center of Obama Depopulation Policy Exposed!

Do You Support The Emergency Senior Citizens Relief Act?

Do you even know about it? So far no one I have asked does. Here's the deal:

Unless Congress passes the Emergency Senior Citizens Relief Act, Social Security monthly benefits would drop because the cost of Medicare prescription drug premiums, which are deducted from Social Security payments, are scheduled to increase.

The bill was introduced by Senators Sanders and DeFazio on September 17.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) today introduced legislation to provide Social Security recipients an extra one-time payment next year of $250. Without the legislation, millions of seniors will see their Social Security checks shrink because – for the first time since 1975 – there will be no cost-of-living adjustment.

Sanders said millions of senior citizens are especially hard hit by the recession. "Many have seen their savings disappear, their pension funds severely decline and the value of their homes dramatically diminish – all while poverty among seniors has gone up, as has the number of seniors declaring bankruptcy. Seniors deserve a fair increase in benefits to keep up with these added costs and economic hardships." Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) cosponsored Sanders’ bill.

DeFazio said too many seniors are experiencing a decline in their living standards. "Failure to provide a cost-of-living increase for seniors could not come at a worse time. It would simply be unacceptable for seniors on fixed incomes to not receive the help they deserve to keep up with increased prices seniors pay for prescription drugs and medical care."

Nearly 70 percent of beneficiaries depend on Social Security for at least half of their income, and Social Security is the sole source of income for 15 percent of recipients.

To pay for the benefits boost, the legislation Sanders introduced in the Senate and DeFazio offered in the House of Representatives would apply the Social Security payroll tax on household incomes above $250,000 and below $359,000 in 2010. Under current law, only the first $106,800 of earned income is subject to the payroll tax. A worker earning $106,800 pays the same payroll tax as a CEO who makes millions of dollars a year. Their legislation begins to correct that inequity in 2010, while making sure that seniors receive a fair increase in benefits next year.

No one earning $250,000 or less would see their taxes go up under the Sanders and DeFazio bills.

Contacts:

Michael Briggs (Sanders) 202 224-5141

Molly Simmons (DeFazio) 202 226-5740

Tell AARP Goodbye and Checkout ASA: American Seniors Association

I have gotten madder and madder at the AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) for claiming to represent America's elderly when, in fact, it is just a vendor seeking to get revenue under the Obama health care plan. It was just such a conflict of interest that impelled the AARP to endorse Bush's prescription drug plan. The AARP has morphed from a group that speaks for seniors to one that tries to make money from them.

My wife, Eileen, and I were thrilled to learn of a rival to the AARP that has sprung up -- The American Seniors Association (ASA) -- which opposes Obamacare and is willing to be an independent, disinterested voice speaking up for the elderly. We reached out to Stuart Barton, its President, and suggested that we send a letter from him to our readers (this is not a paid mailing; we are sending it around because we deeply believe in fashioning an alternative to AARP).

We both suggest that you do as we are doing -- join ASA -- as a way of showing AARP that they do not speak for America's seniors. Obama's proposals represent a wholesale transfer of medical services away from the elderly and will force government rationing and denials of care for the very old and very ill. We need to fight against them and that is what ASA is doing and AARP is not!

The letter from ASA's President, Stuart Barton, is below.

Thanks,
Dick Morris

Order a Copy of:

Catastrophe

The American Seniors Association (ASA) invites any members of the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) to mail us your torn AARP card in order to receive a 2-year-for-1-year ASA membership. Indeed, anyone of any age can become an ASA member -- especially since young people, baby boomers, seniors, and just about all Americans are now under assault by various Obama healthcare proposals and by the sell-out AARP leadership.

ASA is fighting congressional healthcare proposals that could cost perhaps $1.8 trillion or more over the next 10 years, to be accompanied by cuts in Medicare of $500 billion. ASA opposes a government-run plan that increase taxes and limit doctor-patient choice. We object to one House bill that would actually force individuals or their employers who do not have approved health insurance plans to pay a fine. Furthermore, none of these congressional proposals have a provision that people enjoying healthcare benefits must have their citizenship and legal residency status verified by all 50 states. That opens the door for citizen taxpayers to be gouged for the healthcare coverage of possibly 15-20 million illegal aliens!

Please visit our website at AmericanSeniors.org and consider joining our important crusade. We are for targeted healthcare reforms, but Obamacare and a dismantling of our private enterprise system is not the cure! Also check out the rich variety of membership benefits that ASA provides.

With kindest regards,
Stuart Barton

News exposes AARP and reveals ASA as an excellent option for seniors.

Related Resources:

• ObamaCare and me – Doctor Zane F. Pollard
• Why Won’t abc and nbc run this ad?
• ObamaCare and me – Doctor Zane F. Pollard, MD
• Prescription for Truth – Daniel Hannan From England: HealthCare Worse for Elderly
• Unease in Britain Following Assisted Suicides
• Overhauling health-care system tops agenda at annual meeting of Canada's doctors
• Healthcare: Does Canada Do It Better?
• Canadian Health Officials: Our Universal Health Care Is 'Sick,' Private Insurance Should Be Welcomed
• Outcry Over Vets’ ‘End of Life Care’
• Click here to read the "Your Life, Your Choices" guide.
• Woman in Oregon Told Healthcare Would Not Pay for Cancer Treatment But Would Pay for Assisted Suicide… Welcome to Government Controlled Healthcare
• Video: Oregon says no to chemotherapy, offers assisted suicide instead
• Dr. & Rep Tom Price: Americans Need Patient-Centered Reform, Not Democrats’ Costly Government Takeover of Health Care
• Senator Lieberman: Postpone Universal Healthcare
• Rep. Tom Price (former physician) Admonishes Government Takeover of Healthcare
• Kristol: Kill It, And Start Over
• Obamacare: Beware the Rhetoric
• No Turning Back from Obamacare

Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer Say Citizens Exercising Their First Amendment Rights Are “Un-American”… The Desperation is Showing!

This morning’s column in USAToday quotes Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer as saying, “Un-American’ attacks detail health care debate” and go on to say, “Now — with Americans strongly supporting health insurance reform, with Congress reaching consensus on a plan, and with a president who ran and won on this specific promise of change — America is closer than ever to this century-deferred goal.” This comes after Speaker Pelosi’s comments last week, that people are bringing Swastikas and the like to Town Halls, another fabricated Pelosism like saying she was lied to by the CIA under Bush, that she has no proof for. (You can bet if there were Swastikas at meetings, there would be photos!!).

Both these statements just highlight how far out of touch the House leadership is. There are Americans who are rightfully afraid exercising their First Amendment Right that the Speaker and Hoyer are calling “Un-American” for doing so and both the Healthcare Bill itself and President Obama’s along with Nancy Pelosi’s personal and job performance polls on this issue are at an all-time low and still dropping. The drop in the polls and the continues desperate comments by Speaker Pelosi prove that Obamacare is a bust and

Boehner Statement on Speaker Pelosi & Majority Leader Hoyer’s “Un-American” Comments

Washington, Aug 10 - House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) issued the following statement on comments by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) in this morning’s USA Today calling Americans who express vocal opposition to the Democrats’ health care plan “un-American”:
“For months, House Democratic leaders have worked to silence any opposing views in this health care debate, both here in Washington and around the country where millions of Americans are struggling in this economy. Every poll taken in the last month shows that a majority of Americans are concerned about, if not outright opposed to, the Democrats’ plan because of the cost and consequences it would mean for their own health care. Each public forum should give every participant the opportunity to express their views, but to label Americans who are expressing vocal opposition to the Democrats’ plan “un-American” is outrageous and reprehensible.
“The American people deserve answers to basic questions about whether the Democrats’ plan will increase health care costs, add to the deficit, increase taxes on middle-class families and small businesses, put government between doctors and patients, force anyone to lose their current health coverage, kill jobs, promote taxpayer-funded abortion, or cut Medicare. The fact is Democrats have not been able to address the very real concerns the American people have.

“It’s time for Democrats to start listening. When we return to Washington in September, Democrats should scrap their costly plan and finally work on bipartisan reforms that give Americans what they are seeking: better access to affordable care.”

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin says President Obama's plan to overhaul healthcare is evil

The former Republican vice presidential candidate posted her thoughts Friday on Facebook.

Palin says in the America she knows, people won't 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 healthcare."

She says such a system is "downright evil."

An e-mail sent to Palin's spokeswoman confirming authorship was not immediately returned.

Palin resigned as Alaska governor July 26. She promised to speak out on issues but has largely been silent on both Facebook and Twitter since resigning.

But Palin does urbe restraint a few days after suggesting that Democratic healthcare proposals being debated in Washington may imperil the life of her son, Trig. Palin, on Sunday urged reform opponents not to give the opposition fodder by disrupting town halls.

Palin's comments, posted on her Facebook page, come after weeks of raucous town halls in which conservatives have shouted down members of Congress.

"There are many disturbing details in the current bill that Washington is trying to rush through Congress, but we must stick to a discussion of the issues and not get sidetracked by tactics that can be accused of leading to intimidation or harassment," Palin wrote. "Such tactics diminish our nation’s civil discourse which we need now more than ever because the fine print in this outrageous health care proposal must be understood clearly and not get lost in conscientious voters’ passion to want to make elected officials hear what we are saying. Let’s not give the proponents of nationalized health care any reason to criticize us.

However we are heaing more and more that at the town halls, even though Nancy Pelosi and other Dems are trying to make concerned Americans look like crazed and staged mobs, it is actually the Democrats who are packing the first four rows at the town halls with their supporters and then not calling on or allowing the people in the back with questions to speak. These people who just came with questions become frustrated and begin to shout to be heard and are then point at or focused on as being disruptive crazies.

People are also saying that the idea that kids like Trip Palin will not receive medical care is extreme. And it probably is... in the beginning, but it really won't be eventually!! Below are articles and papers written by 3 of the people on TEAM OBAMA that were involved in writing the Healthcare Bill (the one that nobody in Congress has read, but somebody had to write...), some other related articles, as well as 3 articles where people have read and outlined HR3200 at the end of this article.

Also keep in mind that none of Democrats would sign the amendment to the bill which said that they would accept the same healthcare as the package they are passing and forcing in us. That one factor should say it all if you really think about it!

• Prescription for Truth – Daniel Hannan From England: HealthCare Worse for Elderly
• GovernmentCare’s Assault on Seniors
• Obamacare for Illegal Aliens – While Granny Gets Duty to Die Lecture
• Meet Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel: Deny Coverage to Elderly and Disabled for the Greater Good
• Obama’s Rogues Gallery: Ezekial Emanuel – Goodnight Grandma
• Complete Lives System by Ezekial Emanuel
• Ezekiel Emanuel, architect of ObamaCare..please read
• Meet Your Science Czar
• Ghoulish Science Plus Obamacare Equals Health Hazard
• Absolutism Redux – Review of the Second Bill of Rights: FDR’s Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More Than Ever
• Useless Eaters
• Kennedy: Let’s Ration Healthcare
• ObamaCare For Seniors: Sorry, You’re Just Not Worth It
• Who Will Tell Michael J. Fox He Needs to Die?
• America Senses Something Isn't Right
• Senator Grassley (and Others): Democrats Want to Nationalize Healthcare
• The Ultimate Resting Place of Socialized Medicine
• Dick Morris Says Obamacare Will Replace Medicare – What to do to Save Health Care
• The Community Organizer Doesn’t Like People Organizing
• Reparations By Way of Health Care Reform
• Obama in 2007 Said He Wanted to Eliminate Private Health Insurance
• Kristol: Kill It, And Start Over
• ACORN CRACKED: Exposes ACORN"S Push for Socialized Medicine
• Malkin on ObamaCare Thuggary...
• Seniors Left Behind
• President Obama, Linda Doublas, and the Very Very Stubborn Facts
• Father of Handicapped Son Received Threats After Confrontation with Rep Dingell
• Why is the White House Attacking and Making Fun of Americans?

----------------

There are plenty of Republicans and others who have alternative and better ideas than HR3200 and/or experience in improving healthcare. And almost everyone that falls into that group says… Obamacare and the Dem’s proposals will bankrupt the Country unless taxes go up and rationing for grandma and grandpa (which will eventually be all of us), people with special needs and even babies with problems are enacted. And it is a proven fact that socialized medicine (which this is) takes away choice, creates a shortage of medical personnel, creates waiting to receive care and even a primary care physician, and involves Government in personal decisions. So even if government having real time access to your bank accounts, government paying for abortions, and government breaking the law by forcing ‘legal ‘aliens and people with permanent resident status here in the U.S. into Nationalized Healthcare, while covering all the illegals in this Country doesn’t bother you, maybe thought of a bureaucrat telling you that your 69 year old parent or your handicapped baby can’t have a life and death procedure because they aren’t worth it, will?!?

Please read the bill… or at least some analyzes of it!

There are articles and breakdowns of this bill available (below are a few) to anyone who is looking for the truth and the full bill - HR-3200 - full report I would advise everyone to read it for themselves and unless you are in favor of Big Brother running your life… speak up! And not just once!!

Click Here To Find A Town Hall Near You!

Senators from your State.

Phone Numbers for both houses of Congress & Speaker Pelosi:

1-202-224-3121

1-202-225-3121

(202) 225-0100 - Speaker of the House Pelosi

Speaker Nancy Pelosi
http://speaker.house.gov/contact orhttp://www.speaker.gov/contact

and visit: www.house.gov/writerep

• DETAILED ANALYSIS OF THE 1000 PAGE HEALTH CARE PLAN BY AN ATTORNEY & DEAN AND PROFESSOR OF LAW
• *Letter to Your Congress Person on Health Care (Obamacare) HR3200
• *A Look at What is Really in the Health Care Bill (HR 3200): Chilling!

Related Resources:

• Catastrophe
• American Progressivism
• Liberal Fascism
• The Second Bill of Rights
• Culture of Corruption
• Liberty and Tyranny
• Glenn Beck's Common Sense
• Cloward-Piven.com

Seniors Left Behind?

by Ken Connor

One of the most controversial issues of the current health care reform debate is the concept of health care rationing—allocating medical care according to predetermined criteria that dictate how much and what kind of care a given patient will receive under a government-run system. Setting aside the comparative merits of various reform proposals on the table in Congress, Americans—particularly the elderly—should be wary of any plan that would limit access to health care based on the arbitrary and discriminatory criteria of age.

As many have pointed out in the course of the ongoing national discussion on health care, America's population is aging rapidly, placing a growing strain on entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security. Health care costs continue to rise, and America's younger population cannot long foot the bill for elderly retirees and their significant health care requirements. This conundrum (caused not by taxpayers but by decades of gross government mismanagement of taxpayer dollars) seems to have bred an underlying antipathy towards seniors, the undisputed "resource hogs" of public health care. This feeling of resentment is exacerbated by an increasingly utilitarian view of human life that sees no value in prolonging one's twilight years, especially on the public dime.

This situation makes proposals for "comparative effectiveness" research seem like a pretty good idea. Who, after all, wants to waste their taxpayer dollars on treatment for old folks who are going to die soon anyway? Wouldn’t it be better to allocate the bulk of our health care resources towards more productive members of society while reducing the spectrum of costly options available to seniors and the terminally ill among us?

But do Americans really want government bureaucrats dictating access to care based on their perception of one’s worth to society? This question goes to the heart of the problem with rationing: a stranger far from the scene decides who gets care and who doesn't. The person making these decisions knows neither the patient nor the healthcare provider, yet he or she is charged with the responsibility of allocating scarce resources among a demanding population rather than providing the best possible care.

Instead of allowing the market to dictate cost and availability, the buck will stop with the government. Instead of allowing doctors to work dynamically with their patients to tailor a health care approach best suited to the individual in question, the government will use its regulatory power to force physicians into applying narrow "quality of life" criteria when evaluating treatment options for society's elderly citizens. This utilitarian approach to life and death is already affecting seniors in North America, in places like Canada (no surprise there), Texas, and Wisconsin.

A health care system that bases its fiscal solvency on rationing undermines the fundamental American values of self-determination and choice. This nation has always been known as a land of opportunity and innovation. For hundreds of years, people have traveled from all over the globe at risk to life and limb just for a chance to build their own dreams here in America. This includes the opportunity to live a full and free life, even into one's golden years of retirement and senior citizenship. But what criteria will America's elderly citizens have to meet in order to retain access to the best health care if our leaders institute a Brave New World of "comparative effectiveness" in health care? Age? Productivity? Societal "usefulness?" Level of sentience?

The elderly often don't score well along these lines, and once American society becomes comfortable with the idea that certain members may be deemed less worthy than others in the eyes of the government, we have rendered the heart and soul of our Constitution meaningless. Once we decide that the elderly are expendable, not worth their share of society's resources and attention, we are setting a dangerous precedent that opens the door for government bureaucrats to assign other vulnerable members of the human community to the same second-class status.

The idea that senior citizens are less deserving of the best medical care our system has to offer smacks of gross ignorance and ingratitude. Among the ranks of America's elderly are countless American heroes—veterans of numerous wars, entrepreneurs, farmers, businessmen, teachers, scientists... men and women who have worked hard and paid taxes their whole lives. Our society wouldn't be what it is today without their contributions, and they deserve just and equitable treatment as they live out their final years.

As the August recess commences and our leaders head home for some straight talk with their constituents at Rotary Clubs, community centers, and town halls, hopefully they will recognize that America's seniors are vital members of our nation's communities and integral to our democratic way of life. If Uncle Sam is determined to assume the mantle of responsibility for health care in America, the elderly should not automatically be relegated to the back of the bus.

Medicare Fraud Arrests… Finally - APHouston TX USA

Federal agents escort suspects out of the FBI offices Wednesday, July 29, 2009 in Houston. Federal authorities arrested more than 30 suspects, including doctors, and were seeking others in a major Medicare fraud bust Wednesday in New York, Louisiana, Boston and Houston. (No doubt ACORN related) (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)

Related Resources:

• Prescription for Truth – Daniel Hannan From England: HealthCare Worse for Elderly
• GovernmentCare’s Assault on Seniors
• Obamacare for Illegal Aliens – While Granny Gets Duty to Die Lecture
• Meet Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel: Deny Coverage to Elderly and Disabled for the Greater Good
• Obama’s Rogues Gallery: Ezekial Emanuel – Goodnight Grandma
• Complete Lives System by Ezekial Emanuel
• Ezekiel Emanuel, architect of ObamaCare..please read
• Meet Your Science Czar
• Ghoulish Science Plus Obamacare Equals Health Hazard
• Absolutism Redux – Review of the Second Bill of Rights: FDR’s Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More Than Ever
• Useless Eaters
• Kennedy: Let’s Ration Healthcare
• ObamaCare For Seniors: Sorry, You’re Just Not Worth It
• Who Will Tell Michael J. Fox He Needs to Die?
• America Senses Something Isn't Right
• Senator Grassley (and Others): Democrats Want to Nationalize Healthcare
• The Ultimate Resting Place of Socialized Medicine
• *Letter to Your Congress Person on Health Care (Obamacare) HR3200
• *A Look at What is Really in the Health Care Bill (HR 3200): Chilling!
• Dick Morris Says Obamacare Will Replace Medicare – What to do to Save Health Care
• The Community Organizer Doesn’t Like People Organizing
• Reparations By Way of Health Care Reform
• Obama in 2007 Said He Wanted to Eliminate Private Health Insurance
• Kristol: Kill It, And Start Over
• ACORN CRACKED: Exposes ACORN"S Push for Socialized Medicine
• Catastrophe
• American Progressivism
• Liberal Fascism
• The Second Bill of Rights
• Culture of Corruption
• Liberty and Tyranny

Posted: Knowledge Creates Power

Social Security and Medicare finances worsen

Recession hurts latest forecast for two biggest benefit programs

updated 2 hours, 31 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Social Security and Medicare are fading even faster under the weight of the recession, heading for insolvency years sooner than previously expected, the government warned Tuesday.

Social Security will start paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes in 2016, a year sooner than projected last year, and the giant trust fund will be depleted by 2037, four years sooner, trustees reported.

Medicare is in even worse shape. The trustees said the program for hospital expenses will pay out more in benefits than it collects this year, just as it did for the first time in 2008. The trustees project that the Medicare fund will be depleted by 2017, two years earlier than the date projected in last year's report.

 Social Security, Medicare finances worsen   | Video
May 12: The government's two biggest benefit programs, Social Security and Medicare, will start paying out more in benefits than they collect in taxes sooner than experts previously predicted. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

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The trust funds — which exist in paper form in a filing cabinet in Parkersburg, W.Va. — are bonds that are backed by the government's "full faith and credit" but not by any actual assets. That money has been spent over the years to fund other parts of government. To redeem the trust fund bonds, the government would have to borrow in public debt markets or raise taxes.

'The harder the options will be'
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the head of the trustees group, said the new reports were a reminder that "the longer we wait to address the long-term solvency of Medicare and Social Security, the sooner those challenges will be upon us and the harder the options will be."

Geithner said that President Barack Obama was committed to working with Congress to find ways to control runaway growth in both public and private health care expenditures, noting the promise Monday by major health care providers to trim costs by $2 trillion over the next decade.

However, Republicans pointed to the newly dire assessments as evidence the Obama administration has failed to come forward with actual entitlement reform to close the funding gaps.

"Instead of getting existing public programs in order right now, some are saying we should create a new government-run health insurance plan," Sen. Chuck Grassley, the top Republican on the Finance Committee, said in a reference to the administration's health care proposals. "When we can't afford the public health plan we have already, does it make sense to add more?"

House Republican leader John Boehner said the trustees report "confirms what we already knew: Our nation cannot afford to continue this reckless borrowing and spending spree."

The findings in the trustees report, the annual checkup given the two benefit programs, did not come as a surprise. Private economists had been predicting that the dates the programs would begin to pay out more than they take in and the dates the trust funds would be insolvent would occur sooner given the economic recession.

The deep recession, the worst the country has endured in decades, has resulted in a loss of 5.7 million jobs since it began in December 2007. The unemployment rate hit a 25-year high of 8.9 percent in April.

Less being paid into funds
Fewer people working means less being paid into the trust funds for Social Security and Medicare.

The Congressional Budget Office recently projected that Social Security will collect just $3 billion more in 2010 than it will pay out in benefits. A year ago, the CBO had projected that Social Security would have a much higher $86 billion cash surplus for the 2010 budget year, which begins Oct. 1.

The trustees report projected that Social Security's annual surpluses would "fall sharply this year," then remain at a reduced level in 2010 and be lower in the following years than last year's projections. The report said that the Social Security annual surplus would be eliminated entirely in 2016, reflecting increased demands from the wave of 78 million baby boomers retiring.

That means Social Security will have to turn to its trust fund to make up the difference between Social Security taxes and the benefits being paid out beginning in 2016. The trustees projected the trust fund would be depleted in 2037, four years earlier than the 2041 date in last year's report.

At that point, the annual Social Security taxes collected would be enough to pay for three-fourths of current benefits through 2083. To tap the trust fund, the government would have to increase borrowing or raise taxes because Social Security bonds exist only as bookkeeping entries.

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 No cost of living adjustment on Social Security - Social Security, Medicare finances worsen   | Video
May 4: Budget officials say the low inflation rate makes it unlikely that there will be any cost of living adjustment on Social Security checks this year. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

Nightly News

While the smaller surpluses that will begin this year will not have any impact on Social Security benefit payments, the government will need to borrow more at a time when the federal deficit is already exploding because of the recession and the billions of dollars being spent to prop up a shaky banking system.

Medicare's condition is more precarious
Medicare's condition is more precarious, reflecting the pressures from soaring health care costs as well as the drop in tax collections.

The options available to deal with the Social Security shortfall include raising the payroll tax that funds Social Security, such as removing the cap on income subject to the tax, or cutting benefits in some fashion such as raising the retirement age.

he administration is pushing Congress to pass legislation this year to extend health care coverage to some 50 million uninsured Americans, preferring to tackle health care before Social Security.

The trustees report is likely to set off renewed debate over Social Security and Medicare. Critics have charged that the Obama administration has failed to tackle the most serious problems in the budget — soaring entitlement spending.

The administration on Monday revised its federal deficit forecasts upward to project an imbalance this year of $1.84 trillion, four times last year's record, and said the deficits will remain above $500 billion every year over the next decade.

Posted:  MSNBC

And the sad truth is that everyone… both parties and any American that wanted to take the time to think about it has known for at least 15-years that both social security and Medicare was going to run out of money and bankrupt us when the huge Baby-Boomer retirement time came, if the those programs weren’t addressed and if the government didn’t stop borrowing money as quick as it was put in for everything but related needs… without ever paying a penny back.

This is a huge ‘shame on us issue’ for which we all need to take some responsibility.  Now the recession, depression, U.S. and World financial crisis or whatever you choose to call it has hit to make it even worse.  Or perhaps it was always part of ‘the’ bigger plan.  But however you want to see it… senior citizens and Americans in general are in big trouble!!! 

We must wake up and stand up!!  M~