Comments for President Obama Did Not "Raid" the Medicare Trust Fund at http://www.cepr.net , comment 1 to 8 out of 8 comments http://www.cepr.net Wed, 19 Jun 2013 05:52:07 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/president-obama-did-not-qraidq-the-medicare-trust-fund#comment-18182 So let me get this straight, replacing currency in the trust fund with IOUs isn't raising the trust fund? Has this author ever heard of Enron? It's an accounting gimmick to "balance" the books of the trust account. It's smoke and mirrors. It may have been true at some point that US bonds were as good as cash, but guess what? With no real prospects of paying off our debts, the security of treasury bonds is seriously suspect. The bank analogy is the most asinine I've heard. Banks loan money at interest to earn a rate of return higher than they pay on checkings or savings accounts. Taking money out of Medicare/Medicaid to pay for new spending programs is not the same...at all. That this author brazenly demagogues the Romney campaign as being misleading or clueless on the economy as he conspicuously demonstrates his own profound ignorance is a sweet but alarming irony. - Truthteller Fri, 17 Aug 2012 06:02:38 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/president-obama-did-not-qraidq-the-medicare-trust-fund#comment-18132 No raid on Medicare - only a reduction in the overpayments to Medicare Supplement Insurance providers. No reduction in benefits for this but actually an increase in benefits due to the doughnut hole elimination WHICH PRIVATE RYAN WOULD ELIMINATE BUT KEEP THE VERY SAME REDUCTIONS. What a joke he is. - jumpinjezebel Tue, 14 Aug 2012 09:54:02 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/president-obama-did-not-qraidq-the-medicare-trust-fund#comment-18130 no matter how much the r boys try & tar obama, the facts are out on them which is the whole key to the election. is obama bad? of course. are the r boys the antichrist? definitely! - mel in oregon Tue, 14 Aug 2012 09:29:23 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/president-obama-did-not-qraidq-the-medicare-trust-fund#comment-18123 Lie unrelentlessly about your opponent's strong point and add your counterpoints (who care about its veracity) to cloud up your opponent's so-called strenght. No average people would have the time and analytics to sift through all those muddy points. At the end, your opponent's strength become irrelavant. And it's a winning formula. Yet, Bishop Romney insists he is very faithful as he tithe, etc., I guess lie is ok in LDS. - James Tue, 14 Aug 2012 08:53:04 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/president-obama-did-not-qraidq-the-medicare-trust-fund#comment-18111 And of course the Ryan budget also uses the same reductions. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/14/ryans-budget-keeps-obamas-medicare-cuts-full-stop/?hpid=z1 - AndrewDover Tue, 14 Aug 2012 05:11:51 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/president-obama-did-not-qraidq-the-medicare-trust-fund#comment-18109 By Gillespie logic, Mitt Romney is proposing to raid the Social Security Trust fund by lowering COLAs and raising the retirement age. Actually Gillespie is stumbling while trying to attack Obama for lowering the growth in Medicare spending. He gets his data from the Heritage Foundation: http://blog.heritage.org/2012/08/01/obamacare-robs-medicare-of-716-billion-to-fund-itself/ comes up with: "According to the CBO, the PAYMENT CUTS in Medicare include (billions): $260 for hospital services. $39 for skilled nursing services. $17 for hospice services. $66 for home health services. $33 for all other services. $156 cut in payment rates in Medicare Advantage; $56 for disproportionate share hospital payments. ... "In total, Obamacare raids Medicare by $716 billion from 2013 to 2022." The CBO reference 43471-hr6079.pdf has those numbers on page 14. At other times Romney and Ryan complain that Obama has increased spending wildly. Consistency is not their strong point. - AndrewDover Tue, 14 Aug 2012 04:36:32 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/president-obama-did-not-qraidq-the-medicare-trust-fund#comment-18103 @Salzberg [quote]All the money came from reductions in payment to providers.[/quote] Exactly. This is why Romney the Rent Seeker is ranting about Obama cutting Medicare with Obamacare at the same time ranting on about excesses of big government. It's all about the economic rent imbedded in higher prices and unnecessary wasted quantity volumes of Medicare, exactly the part of Medicare Romney wants to preserve that provides zero benefits to users since they're all shifted to providers as rents. - Last Mover Tue, 14 Aug 2012 02:40:01 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/president-obama-did-not-qraidq-the-medicare-trust-fund#comment-18101 The Medicare Trust funds had absolutely nothing to do with the Medicare cuts. There was no money lent out or borrowed from the trust funds. All the money came from reductions in payment to providers. - Robert Salzberg Tue, 14 Aug 2012 01:38:06 +0100