Sebelius: Yes, we’re double-counting Medicare savings

[TheSeeker]

I believe this could be filed under the heading of "FRAUD".

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius admits that Democrats double-counted the $500 billion cut in Medicare that supposedly goes for both cost control and to fund other parts of the program.

“There is an issue here on the budget because your own actuary has said you can’t double-count. You can’t count — they’re attacking Medicare on the CR when their bill, your law, cut $500 billion from Medicare.”

“Then you’re also using the same $500 billion to what? Say your funding health care. Your own actuary says you can’t do both. […] What’s the $500 billion in cuts for? Preserving Medicare or funding the health-care law?

Sebelius’ reply?: “Both.”

The actuary’s report made this crystal clear last summer:

Bad though all of this is, none of it is actually the worst gimmick in the official report’s advertised improvement in Medicare solvency. That involves the double-counting of Medicare savings. Earlier this year, Congress passed a health care bill containing various new Medicare taxes and constraints on program expenditures. Such savings are assumed in the official report to extend the solvency of Medicare. But Congress chose instead to spend the savings on a new health care entitlement.

The Medicare actuary wrote a memorandum on April 22 of this year calling attention to this “double-counting.” “In practice,” he stated, “the improved Part A financing cannot simultaneously be used to finance other Federal outlays (such as the coverage expansions under the PPACA) and to extend the trust fund, despite the appearance of this result from the respective accounting conventions.”

In other words, money can only be used once. Since the Medicare savings is being spent elsewhere on expanded health care coverage, it is not really being employed to extend Medicare solvency. To claim an improvement in Medicare financing is to mislead about the effects of recent legislation.

Even apart from the double counting, the actuary had little faith in ObamaCare’s ability to deliver the savings claimed by Sebelius in this clip, also noted last summer:

“(T)he financial projections shown in this report for Medicare do not represent a reasonable expectation for actual program operations in either the short range. . . or the long range. . . . I encourage readers to review the ‘illustrative alternative’ projections that are based on more sustainable assumptions for physician and other Medicare price updates.”

These remarkable words are found, in all places, in the “Statement of Actuarial Opinion” in the back of the 2010 annual Medicare Trustees’ Report.

It is difficult to overstate how unusual this development is. The normal process with the annual Trustees’ Reports is for the Trustees to develop and publish the best available projections for the future finances of Social Security and Medicare. The respective Social Security and Medicare actuaries then sign a pro forma blessing of those projections, which is tacked to the back of the report when released to the public.

This year, the Medicare Chief Actuary clearly did not feel he could in good conscience sign such a declaration.

 

[The T]

Just FYI?

There's another thread on this in the Healthcare Forum...

Sebelius Cracks! Admits the Obamacare Books Were Cooked

 

[TheSeeker]

Sorry...I searched THIS forum only thinking it belonged under Congress.

 

[PoliticalChic]

I believe this could be filed under the heading of "FRAUD".

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius admits that Democrats double-counted the $500 billion cut in Medicare that supposedly goes for both cost control and to fund other parts of the program.

This year, the Medicare Chief Actuary clearly did not feel he could in good conscience sign such a declaration.

[/QUOTE]

Welcome to the board, Seeker...

Actually, Paul Ryan exposed the fraud some time ago:

Rep. Ryan was interviewed 2/28/10 on Fox News Sunday re: President Obama’s latest plan:

1. CBO “bill cuts deficit by $132 billion in first 10 years…”Rep, Ryan indicates that this is illusory:
a. The bill double counts Medicare savings
b. And double counts increased taxes for Social Security
c. And double counts increased premiums for the CLASS (Community Living Assistance Services and Supports) Act, in which workers are stipulated to send a monthly premium in order to purchase coverage, usually via their employer. They need to pay into the program for five years at the very least in order to qualify for the benefits for the disabled, poor, or elderly people -which is believed to be least fifty dollars per day and assumed by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to reach up to seventy-five dollars per day.

d. Without the ‘double count’ aspect, the bill actually results in a $460 billion deficit in the first 10 years and a $1.4 trillion deficit in the second ten years.

2. The double count aspect is explained as follows:

a. The bill raises taxes $ ½ billion and cuts Medicare $ ½ trillion during the first 10 years, but provides only six years of ‘benefits.’
b. While the extra money derives from the premiums for the new CLASS Act entitlement, but then these premiums are then also counted as deficit reduction.
c. And, while additional money in Social Security taxes is supposedly reserved to pay for Social Security benefits, it is also claimed in the bill to be a form of deficit reduction. So, why is it tapped as both payment for benefits, and as reducing costs?
d. The administration claims that all the Medicare cuts are to increase the solvency of Medicare, as a reserve for the program, but if this is so then it is unethical to use the ‘saved’ funds to create another government program.

3. CBO: “[the bill] would not cause a net increase in deficits in excess of $5 billion in any year of the four 10-year periods beginning after 2019.”

a. In the original version of the bill, members of labor unions would not have to pay taxes on “Cadillac” healthcare plans, a pay-back by Democrats to the unions- but everyone else who had to pay increased taxes on these plans, and this would pay most of the costs of the new healthcare ‘reform.’ When this became public news, the administration changed the proposal to this: everyone would pay said taxes, but not until 2018! But, of course, logic suggests that the Congress in existence eight years from now would not impose a $1 trillion tax that this Congress had not the nerve to impose.

b. A new unelected bureaucratic Commission would be in charge of Medicare, to ration care and wring out even more cuts than the $1/2 billion in the bill. If unable or unwilling to do this, of course, the CBO estimates are invalid.

c. The Chief Actuary in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in the Obama Health and Human Services department issued a memorandum stating that HR 3200, the basis for the President’s plan would increase healthcare costs by $ 234 billion over the first 10 years. Obama on Health Care: Half Right | Cato @ Liberty

 

[The T]

Sorry...I searched THIS forum only thinking it belonged under Congress.

Not a problem just thought I'd let you know of it's existence so you might garner info there for your thread.

No apology necessary.

Welcome to the boards.

~T

 

[TheSeeker]

Thanks for the welcome!

I know this isn't absolutely brand new news for those that pay attention.

And of course since Ryan was on FOX News, progressives will dismiss it as a lie.

So when the head of HHS is forced to admit it on the floor of Congress, it leaves little (as in NO) room to squirm out of admitting it as a FACT.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Thanks for the welcome!

I know this isn't absolutely brand new news for those that pay attention.

And of course since Ryan was on FOX News, progressives will dismiss it as a lie.

So when the head of HHS is forced to admit it on the floor of Congress, it leaves little (as in NO) room to squirm out of admitting it as a FACT.

I wasn't criticizing the OP, sorry if it came across that way.

It's an important point.

 

[TheSeeker]

I wasn't criticizing the OP, sorry if it came across that way.

It's an important point.

Nope...I didn't take it as such.

Just pointing out that when they are forced to admit it on the floor of Congress, it carries a lot more weight and allows no wiggle room as compared to a Republican pointing it out on FOX News.

 

[iggy pop]

I believe this could be filed under the heading of "FRAUD".

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius admits that Democrats double-counted the $500 billion cut in Medicare that supposedly goes for both cost control and to fund other parts of the program.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukaIZ7pmabo&feature=player_embedded

“There is an issue here on the budget because your own actuary has said you can’t double-count. You can’t count — they’re attacking Medicare on the CR when their bill, your law, cut $500 billion from Medicare.”

“Then you’re also using the same $500 billion to what? Say your funding health care. Your own actuary says you can’t do both. […] What’s the $500 billion in cuts for? Preserving Medicare or funding the health-care law?

Sebelius’ reply?: “Both.”

The actuary’s report made this crystal clear last summer:

Bad though all of this is, none of it is actually the worst gimmick in the official report’s advertised improvement in Medicare solvency. That involves the double-counting of Medicare savings. Earlier this year, Congress passed a health care bill containing various new Medicare taxes and constraints on program expenditures. Such savings are assumed in the official report to extend the solvency of Medicare. But Congress chose instead to spend the savings on a new health care entitlement.

The Medicare actuary wrote a memorandum on April 22 of this year calling attention to this “double-counting.” “In practice,” he stated, “the improved Part A financing cannot simultaneously be used to finance other Federal outlays (such as the coverage expansions under the PPACA) and to extend the trust fund, despite the appearance of this result from the respective accounting conventions.”

In other words, money can only be used once. Since the Medicare savings is being spent elsewhere on expanded health care coverage, it is not really being employed to extend Medicare solvency. To claim an improvement in Medicare financing is to mislead about the effects of recent legislation.

Even apart from the double counting, the actuary had little faith in ObamaCare’s ability to deliver the savings claimed by Sebelius in this clip, also noted last summer:

“(T)he financial projections shown in this report for Medicare do not represent a reasonable expectation for actual program operations in either the short range. . . or the long range. . . . I encourage readers to review the ‘illustrative alternative’ projections that are based on more sustainable assumptions for physician and other Medicare price updates.”

These remarkable words are found, in all places, in the “Statement of Actuarial Opinion” in the back of the 2010 annual Medicare Trustees’ Report.

It is difficult to overstate how unusual this development is. The normal process with the annual Trustees’ Reports is for the Trustees to develop and publish the best available projections for the future finances of Social Security and Medicare. The respective Social Security and Medicare actuaries then sign a pro forma blessing of those projections, which is tacked to the back of the report when released to the public.

This year, the Medicare Chief Actuary clearly did not feel he could in good conscience sign such a declaration.

Sweet