At a fundraiser for Virginia Democratic candidate for governor Creigh Deeds last Thursday, President Obama told his critics to shut up and get out of his way. “I don’t want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking,” he said. “I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess.”
Perhaps the time has come for the Talker-in-Chief to consider taking his own advice. Take his repeated assurances that his health reforms will not require any cuts in either Medicare or Medicaid. In his radio address yesterday, for example, the president said the argument that his reforms would “cut Medicaid” was an “outlandish rumor” that’s “simply not true.” Similarly, in his remarks at the AARP on July 28 he attempted to refute the
misperception that’s been out there that somehow there is any discussion on Capitol Hill about reducing Medicare benefits. Nobody is talking about reducing Medicare benefits.
Nobody is talking about reducing Medicare benefits? Really? Nobody? Then what in the world is the Washington Post referring to this morning when it reports that
[p]roposals to squeeze more than $500 billion out of the growth of Medicare over the next decade have fueled fears that his effort to expand coverage to millions of younger, uninsured Americans will damage elder care.
….
From the raw numbers, it appears seniors are the net losers under bills approved by three House committees last week. The legislation trims $563 billion out of Medicare’s growth rate over the next 10 years while pumping in about $320 billion….
But you don’t have to believe the Washington Post (I know I often don’t). But do you believe … President Obama himself? (Don’t answer that.) In a June 2, 2009, letter to Senators Kennedy and Baucus (HatTip to Legal Insurrection), the president wrote:
I am committed to working with the Congress to fully offset the cost of health care reform by reducing Medicare and Medicaid spending by another $200 to $300 billion over the next 10 years, and by enacting appropriate proposals to generate additional revenues. These savings will come not only by adopting new technologies and addressing the vastly different costs of care, but from going after the key drivers of skyrocketing health care costs, including unmanaged chronic diseases, duplicated tests, and unnecessary hospital readmissions.
To identify and achieve additional savings, I am also open to your ideas about giving special consideration to the recommendations of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), a commission created by a Republican Congress. Under this approach, MedPAC’s recommendations on cost reductions would be adopted unless opposed by a joint resolution of the Congress. This is similar to a process that has been used effectively by a commission charged with closing military bases, and could be a valuable tool to help achieve health care reform in a fiscally responsible way.
So, the argument that Medicaid will be cut is an “outlandish rumor,” and “[n]obody is talking about reducing Medicare benefits.” But the president himself supports “reducing Medicare and Medicaid spending by another $200 to $300 billion over the next 10 years” and empowering a new board of bureaucrats (MedPac) to reduce costs even further, none of which, we are supposed to conclude, would result in any reduction of benefits even though millions of additional people would be covered.
If it’s true that “Nobody” is talking about these things, perhaps we should start referring to Obama as “President Nobody.”
