Friday, March 15, 2013

Elsewhere: Medicare, ACA

Two today on Medicare, based on the latest evidence that the health care cost curve could be flattening. At Greg's place, I asked: what if there's no deficit problem?

At PP, I argued that the national press has basically been telling us a completely backwards story about Medicare reform. I thought that one was pretty good, actually.

Oh, and yesterday I had fun at the expense of Eddie Haskell because he apparently still believes both that "repeal and replace" is still a thing -- and that Republicans should and will get credit for the "replace" part of it.

4 comments:

  1. My quote of the week comes from Rep. Rush Holt of New Jersey: "We're not a poor impoverished country--we just act like one."

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  2. Really awful how so many mainstream and network news folks have more or less decided to agree that "provider-side cuts" to Medicare don't count as productive entitlement cuts. There's a logic to the GOP denying this: the strategy is to make their preferred form of cuts (on patient benefits) the only viable one, and they have key interest group support for health-care providers. But there's no reason for so many news folks to accept this framing against provider-side cuts, or never emphasize the distinctions and real progress made by the ACA. It's an unconscious bias against the ACA, not objective news reporting. Perhaps the Democrats need to more directly raise this distinction in their messaging, otherwise the message will never get out.

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    Replies
    1. This is similar to reporting on closing tax loopholes as new taxes rather than cutting expenditures. They've bitten that GOP talking point whole.

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  3. Is the projected long term deficit (say the 2030 deficit) now worse then it was in 2006? My guess it is now projected to be lower then it was in 2006 (taxes are up, ACA is projected to lower government deficits). So why is Washington obsessed with the long run deficit now in a way it wasn't in 2006. Seems to me that this obsession happens every time there is a D in the White House and goes away every time there is an R in the White House. So much for liberal bias of the MSM.

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