Tag: medicare

Proposed Medicare Czar likes pretty, pretty pictures.

Witness this map.

It’s called the Dartmouth map, and as the New York Times and Hot Air notes, it was used by the Obama administration to argue that there were existing inefficiencies in the Medicare system that could be trimmed away, thus permitting a scenario where Medicare funding could be cut significantly while not sacrificing care (indeed, the map’s creators argue that it demonstrates that cutting Medicare will improve care). In fact, Sir Donald – that being the guy who loves the British Health Service to, ahem, death – is particularly enamored of this map:

Dr. Donald Berwick, nominated by President Obama to run Medicare, called it the most important research of its kind in the last quarter-century. In March, in response to the Congressional Democrats who would have otherwise withheld their support for the health legislation, the administration made a promise. It said it would ask the Institute of Medicine, a nongovernment advisory group, to consider ways of putting the Dartmouth findings into action by setting payment rates that would punish inefficient hospitals and reward efficient ones.

Just one small problem: it’s not actually a map of inefficient care. Just expensive care. More from the Times: Continue reading Proposed Medicare Czar likes pretty, pretty pictures.

CMS: Democratic bill would *raise* health care costs.

By almost 300 billion.

CMS: House health bill will hike costs $289B

The House-approved healthcare overhaul would raise the costs of healthcare by $289 billion over the next 10 years, according to an analysis by the chief actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

This would be infuriating, if I had taken seriously in the first place the notion that an interventionist, intrusive government program was capable of saving the taxpayer money.

Moe Lane

PS: For extra points, watch as the Democrats suddenly decide that CMS must be ignored.  As opposed to, say, 2004.

Crossposted to RedState.

Henry Waxman doesn’t *care* what President Obama said.

He doesn’t think that he has to care.

And he wants to make sure that the pharmaceutical companies understand that, too. The House Energy Chair intends to retroactively remove what Waxman calls a ‘windfall’ involving Medicare D drug charges, and never mind what either the President or PhRMA thinks:

Drug makers contend they have already worked out a 10-year, $80 billion cost-savings deal with the White House and crucial Senate gatekeepers on the trillion-dollar health care overhaul. The industry says that trying to add Mr. Waxman’s provision could scuttle that agreement.

Putting aside the actual merits of the argument for a moment – I (and Hot Air) may have excellent reasons to assume that a Democrat posturing about ‘windfall profits’ is simply posturing, but it’s still an assumption – it’s instructive to see how little a powerful House Democrat fears the wrath of the White House on this issue.  Then again, this is what happens when you’re a President who hands off responsibility for a bill in the first place; the people who do the work naturally end up deciding that their opinions on its final form are more relevant than yours, and unless you have the ability to do something about it they’re going to show little reluctance in showing public defiance.  Given that the President just hit 50% on Gallup, and lacks any real experience in leading people who don’t want to be led, I’m not surprised that Waxman is doing this.

And this is why people say “If you want something done right, do it yourself.”  Cliche, yes, but cliches exist for a reason.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Clift begs Obama; Surber educates Clift.

Eleanor Clift, in the process of depserately trying to encourage some strange alternate-world version of the President – one who actually believes in compromise and bipartisanship, and who might be willing to do some actual, unglamorous work – makes this howler:

Republicans stood together against Social Security and Medicare, and when those programs proved popular, opposing them left a residue of distrust for the GOP.

Don Surber snickers at that:

Not so. Jonah Goldberg reported: “The Social Security Act was passed in the House on April 19, 1935 by a vote of 372 yeas, 33 nays, 2 present, and 25 not voting. Eighty-one Republicans voted for it, fifteen against. Fifteen Democrats also voted against it. That’s over 80% Republican support.”

Also, Republicans backed Medicare in 1965, which was co-written by Republican Congressman John Byrnes. It passed 70-24 in the Senate and 307-116 in the House.

Goldberg link here, which was incidentally a correction of yet another liberal columnist getting the details wrong. Doesn’t anybody on the Left punditocracy do basic research anymore?

Moe Lane

PS: I’d discuss the central thesis of Ms. Clift’s article itself, except that I generally try to avoid theological disputes in religions that I don’t follow.

Crossposted to RedState.