Paul Ryan, "This isn't a budget, it's a "cause"."

[kaz]

Ryan's plan is simple. He's going to make seniors and lower income Americans either pay more out of pocket for their healthcare, or go without.

Nothing wrong with that - that seniors should be immune to such a thing is a false premise.

Which further confirms my assertion of awhile back that the fundamental goal of conservative economic policy

is to make the gap between rich and poor as big as they possibly can.

Every conservative economic plan/policy shifts resources away from the low end of the economic ladder,

towards the high end.

This is such a perfect example of how intellectually dishonest and lazy you are. To take less money from some and give it to others even when it's driving our deficits to over a trillion a year is actually taking money from them. And it's intentional. Rather then defending the policy or debating it, you just say it's a "fundamental goal" to "make the gap between rich and poor as big as they possibly can." That's your argument. You are just a waste of skin.

 

[editec]

Obama wants to cut $400 billion from Medicare to pay for Obamacare. That is a fact. Obamacare wants to transfer more and more of the expenses to state governments.

No, they may not want to end it but they do want to cripple it or change it completely. It seems that every once in awhile they discover another secret funding or bailout in the bill. After all of this time they're still finding bogus accounting in it. It's too complex and convoluted to be honest. It's worse then the IRS. There are too many non-related provisions in the bill and other bills to address the real purpose it was supposed to address.

YUP!

Maine (and other states too, I'm guessing) is, in large part, in financial trouble because the FEDS changed the way they pay the states for medicade.care a couple years ago.


Or as we used to say in the NAV, the shit is rolling downhill.

So explain how forcing more of the expense on states is gonna fix that?

Did I suggest that forcing more expense on the statesa is going to FIX anything?

No, I did not.

Why do you imagine that I did?

 

[Greenbeard]

We've already shown that the plan would save Medicare, not end it.

You have to save that stuff for people who don't understand what Ryan's proposing.

The fact that Ryan has offered a repeal-and-replace for Medicare as opposed to simply a repeal doesn't mean he's trying to "save" it.

You don't think Democrats did a bit of hand waving and shuffled the books on Obamacare?

That's an interesting defense of Ryan's proposal. Doesn't inspire much confidence, though.

Obama wants to cut $400 billion from Medicare to pay for Obamacare. That is a fact.

The bulk of those cuts are pretty common sense: payments that Medicare makes to hospitals to treat the uninsured are scaled back as the number of people with insurance rises, and overpayments to private insurers administering the privatized portion of Medicare (which was sold as a way to reduce costs, yet now costs significantly more per enrollee than traditional Medicare) will be phased out. There's about $160 billion gleaned from slowing the growth of the market basket update for certain reimbursements, which is what I suppose you're talking about; those are designed to result from spending reductions achieved through the numerous delivery and payment innovations implemented in Medicare by the ACA.

The interesting note here is that Ryan has retained the ACA's cuts to Medicare. Yet his plan doesn't reduce the number of insured (so reducing DSH payments to hospitals that treat the uninsured doesn't make sense for him), and he repeals the Medicare payment and delivery reforms, so there's no reasonable expectation that some mechanism for slowing those Medicare market basket updates can work.

Obamacare wants to transfer more and more of the expenses to state governments.

You need to hit the books. Here's how Medicaid works now: a state spends however much it wants and the federal government matches its spending at least dollar-for-dollar (in most states, it matches more than a dollar for each state dollar spent). Under that system, the feds pick up between 50% and 67% of a state's Medicaid tab (technically the feds are paying a larger share right now due to the stimulus but that'll be expiring soon) but the state determines how much the feds give them because it's a match system.

Under the ACA, eligibility is expanded but anyone who becomes eligible for a state's Medicaid program because of the ACA has all of their costs borne by the federal government until 2016, they have 95% of their costs borne by the feds in 2017, 94% in 2018, and 93% in 2019. Starting in 2020 (and in perpetuity thereafter), the federal government pays 90% of the costs of anyone who is eligible for a state Medicaid program due to the expansions in the ACA.

That is not a shift to the states, it's a 90/10 match (which is significantly better than the match states already get for their traditional Medicaid population). That is, the federal government has taken on 90% of the additional burden (in the second decade; in the first it obviously averages out to more than 90%) and left 10% to the states. Yes, states and feds alike take on additional financial burdens but the state share hasn't been shifted off of the feds' shoulders.

A block grant, on the other hand, is exactly what that is. It eliminates the match system and tells the state we're going to give you X dollars next year, and presumably that will decline over time. Ryan's amazing "savings" or cuts or whatever you want to call them in Medicaid are simply him telling the states "you deal with this." The poor, the elderly, and those in need of long-term care don't magically disappear, but much of the federal funding states use to address their health needs does. Thus the state is put under a increasingly huge financial burden, which will not only strain the state's coffers but lead to cost shifts to hospitals (as states are forced to scale back coverage) and consumers.

If you want to argue the merits of converting Medicaid into an incredibly shrinking block grant, so be it. But learn what that means first so you don't make silly arguments about other proposals transferring "more and more of the expenses to state governments" that will quickly come back to haunt you.

 

[Skull Pilot]

Review & Outlook: Medicare for a New Century - WSJ.com

 

[The Rabbi]

We've already shown that the plan would save Medicare, not end it.

You have to save that stuff for people who don't understand what Ryan's proposing.

The fact that Ryan has offered a repeal-and-replace for Medicare as opposed to simply a repeal doesn't mean he's trying to "save" it.

You don't think Democrats did a bit of hand waving and shuffled the books on Obamacare?

That's an interesting defense of Ryan's proposal. Doesn't inspire much confidence, though.

.

Which part of his bill repeals Medicare? What is the new system to be called?
You are right, I made a poor argument by pointing out the Democrats use legerdemain all the time. Really the argument should have been, where do you see sleight of hand in Ryan's budget? If it is merely sleight of hand, then why don't the Dems sign on to it, since they like that sort of thing?

 

[mudwhistle]

Ryan's plan is simple. He's going to make seniors and lower income Americans either pay more out of pocket for their healthcare, or go without.

Nothing wrong with that - that seniors should be immune to such a thing is a false premise.

Which further confirms my assertion of awhile back that the fundamental goal of conservative economic policy

is to make the gap between rich and poor as big as they possibly can.

Every conservative economic plan/policy shifts resources away from the low end of the economic ladder,

towards the high end.

Then explain why after two years of lib programs the gap still widened?

 

[The Rabbi]

Nothing wrong with that - that seniors should be immune to such a thing is a false premise.

Which further confirms my assertion of awhile back that the fundamental goal of conservative economic policy

is to make the gap between rich and poor as big as they possibly can.

Every conservative economic plan/policy shifts resources away from the low end of the economic ladder,

towards the high end.

Then explain why after two years of lib programs the gap still widened?

You mean four years, right? BEcause the Dums controlled COngress for that time and Bush wasn't much about fiscal restraint.

 

[mudwhistle]

What I'm seeing here is a bunch of idiots that think the Dems are out to only screw the rich in the ass. Instead they'll end up eventually screwing everyone. You must love anal because they want to screw you so bad they can taste it because they love people that will take it and beg for even more.

 

[skookerasbil]

Slash education

slash the arts

slash Medicare

slash Social Security

Tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires

Tax breaks for companies

Subsidies for corporations

Break unions

Ship jobs to China

End Abortions

Starve the poor

Deregulate Wall Street

Deregulate the EPA

Shut down the government

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

Perhaps the right wingers on this board can explain what the goal is?

Where do "jobs" fit in? Besides sending them to China? And what kind of unskilled jobs?

The right is doing more damage than al Qaeda ever could have imagined.

lmao.........how easy is it to identify board members who have no responsibilites in life and no kids????!!!!

 

[skookerasbil]

What I'm seeing here is a bunch of idiots that think the Dems are out to only screw the rich in the ass. Instead they'll end up eventually screwing everyone. You must love anal because they want to screw you so bad they can taste it because they love people that will take it and beg for even more.

Indeed mud.........whoever supports the Dums are suckers. But these far left assholes on here are beyond the pale........the motto being, "Screw all people who are succssful!!!!!". Miserable fcukks who can only blame others for their own personal fcukk ups..........

 

[kaz]

What I'm seeing here is a bunch of idiots that think the Dems are out to only screw the rich in the ass. Instead they'll end up eventually screwing everyone. You must love anal because they want to screw you so bad they can taste it because they love people that will take it and beg for even more.

You're dead on right. The left set out to blast the hated rich and screw everyone because whatever your ideological goals is, they drive economic activity which drives job creation and everything we want to happen. You don't drive the economy by giving the poor spending money. It's not "trickle down" conservatives want, it's "trickle up" liberals want, but the only thing that results from their policies is economic stagnation.

 

[kaz]

What I'm seeing here is a bunch of idiots that think the Dems are out to only screw the rich in the ass. Instead they'll end up eventually screwing everyone. You must love anal because they want to screw you so bad they can taste it because they love people that will take it and beg for even more.

You're dead on right. The left set out to blast the hated rich and screw everyone because whatever your ideological goals are, the rich drive economic activity which drives job creation and everything we want to happen. You don't drive the economy by giving the poor spending money. It's not "trickle down" conservatives want, it's "trickle up" liberals want, but the only thing that results from their policies is economic stagnation.

 

[M14 Shooter]

Ryan's plan is simple. He's going to make seniors and lower income Americans either pay more out of pocket for their healthcare, or go without.

Nothing wrong with that - that seniors should be immune to such a thing is a false premise.

Which further confirms my assertion of awhile back that the fundamental goal of conservative economic policy
Is to make the gap between rich and poor as big as they possibly can.

Non sequitur.

Why do you even bother posting this crap?
I mean other than you, like a good useful idiot, have no capacity to think for yourself and are forced to parrot the talking points fed to you by your masters?

 

[LibocalypseNow]

Paul Ryan is proving to be a real leader on this. Shame on the President & Democrats for putting Party before Country. We have real problems and they're not going to magically disappear. They have to be addressed. So Kudos to Paul Ryan for at least trying.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Slash education

slash the arts

slash Medicare

slash Social Security

Tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires

Tax breaks for companies

Subsidies for corporations

Break unions

Ship jobs to China

End Abortions

Starve the poor

Deregulate Wall Street

Deregulate the EPA

Shut down the government

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

Perhaps the right wingers on this board can explain what the goal is?

Where do "jobs" fit in? Besides sending them to China? And what kind of unskilled jobs?

The right is doing more damage than al Qaeda ever could have imagined.

Did you know that liberals are criticizing Ryan for not going far enough? For not actually trimming Social Security, which you falsely claimed he is cutting? That they actually think this gives the Republican party the edge in intellectualism?

Paul Ryan's budget proposal and Medicare: The Republican's plan is brave, radical, and smart. - By Jacob Weisberg - Slate Magazine

 

[rdean]

What I'm seeing here is a bunch of idiots that think the Dems are out to only screw the rich in the ass. Instead they'll end up eventually screwing everyone. You must love anal because they want to screw you so bad they can taste it because they love people that will take it and beg for even more.

You're dead on right. The left set out to blast the hated rich and screw everyone because whatever your ideological goals is, they drive economic activity which drives job creation and everything we want to happen. You don't drive the economy by giving the poor spending money. It's not "trickle down" conservatives want, it's "trickle up" liberals want, but the only thing that results from their policies is economic stagnation.

"Supply and Demand" drives job creation, not "rich people". If no one else has any money, then there is no demand, that means "no jobs". "Creating jobs" is charity. We know that's not going to happen.

Republicans think they know so much about economics. They don't even know the basics. It's why their policies always fail.

 

[LibocalypseNow]

Paul Ryan & John Boehner have led on this issue. The Democrats are refusing to do anything. So while the President heads off for some more Golf,Paul Ryan & John Boehner will continue trying to save future generations. Both have earned my respect.

 

[The Rabbi]

Paul Ryan & John Boehner have led on this issue. The Democrats are refusing to do anything. So while the President heads off for some more Golf,Paul Ryan & John Boehner will continue trying to save future generations. Both have earned my respect.

I agree. The GOP clearly got the message after '08 and have gotten back on track. There is a tremendous need to reform the entitlement state and start living within our means. They are starting that process. It is too bad the Dums are interested in playing politics and angling for votes.

 

[Mr. Shaman]

Slash education

slash the arts

slash Medicare

slash Social Security

Tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires

Tax breaks for companies

Subsidies for corporations

Break unions

Ship jobs to China

End Abortions

Starve the poor

Deregulate Wall Street

Deregulate the EPA

Shut down the government

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

Perhaps the right wingers on this board can explain what the goal is?

Where do "jobs" fit in? Besides sending them to China? And what kind of unskilled jobs?

The right is doing more damage than al Qaeda ever could have imagined.

Good for you Mr. Ryan!

Conservative-economists:

"This isn't a budget, it's a BOMB."​

"It doesn't address in any serious or courageous way the issue of the near and medium-term deficit," David Stockman told me in a Thursday phone interview. "I think the biggest problem is revenues. It is simply unrealistic to say that raising revenue isn't part of the solution. It's a measure of how far off the deep end Republicans have gone with this religious catechism about taxes."

Doug Holtz-Eakin -- a former McCain and George W. Bush economic adviser -- told Huffington Post Ryan's plan is "implausibly optimistic."

The libertarian economist Tyler Cowen wrote up a point-by-point critique of the plan. His principle objections are that the plan doesn't do anything to control health care costs, and cutting Medicaid is neither good policy, nor urgent. Indeed, he notes, "Medicaid should be one of the last parts of the health care budget to cut."

Pauley Bit The Big One​

 

[M14 Shooter]

Paul Ryan & John Boehner have led on this issue. The Democrats are refusing to do anything. So while the President heads off for some more Golf,Paul Ryan & John Boehner will continue trying to save future generations. Both have earned my respect.

Indeed - they are doing impressive work.
Let us hope, for the sake of the country - then, by extension, the world - they do not cave.