from Big Government

Is medicare the real target of health care reform?

by Dr. Jane Orient

Nobody outside the inner halls of Congress really knows what’s going on in the negotiations on health care “reform. Every now and then, someone emerges from the formerly smoke-filled rooms and throws another 2,000 or so page “bill” out into the public and then disappears to continue talks to carve up one-sixth of the nation’s economy.

But we do know some of the critical unforgiving numbers. And we have strong reason to suspect that radical changes to Medicare Part E (as in Medicare for Everybody) is the real endgame, whatever the interim steps are called: public option, cooperatives, or mandated Insurance Exchanges.

We have the unmentionable truth that Medicare is insolvent. And the common dogma that Medicare is efficient, popular, and impregnable. Is it a Hegelian thesis and antithesis? With the synthesis being to throw the whole rest of the system, which is also allegedly bankrupting the country, into Medicare?

Are our leaders stark, raving mad? Or diabolically clever?

The on-the-books public debt is around $12 trillion, and Congress needs to pass still another law to increase the debt limit. The annual deficit is close to, or even exceeds, 40% of expenditures, the point that some call the tipping point for hyperinflation.We’re not going to grow our way out of this, not with GDP already down 25%, compared to 2000, if calculated in euros.

Then there are the unfunded liabilities of Medicare and Social Security, about which former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker has been sounding the alarm for years. Estimates are as high as $100 trillion or more—orders of magnitude greater than any conceivable ability to pay.

So here we have a legal obligation to pay back the $12 trillion we have loaned out, much of it to Chinese, Saudis, and other overseas investors. And the moral obligation, backed by politicians’ full faith and credit, to soon-to-be-retiring Baby Boomers.

The Chinese and the Saudis have the industry and the oil we absolutely need to live. Not to mention the Chinese army, nuclear weapons, and missiles. American seniors have—the vote.

It is incontrovertibly true that seniors, especially of the Baby Boomer generation, have been taxed all their working lives to pay for their medical needs in retirement. Their money has gone—into the “lock box”? Wherever it is, it is in the form of IOUs. Whose IOUs will get paid first?

Americans have been robbed by the Medicare system, just like Bernie Madoff’s investors were, only in vastly greater amounts. And they are just as likely to get their full benefits from Medicare as investors are to get their money back from Madoff’s prison cell.

No politician, however, wants to default openly, not on his own watch. There’s the danger to his career, from a voter revolt. And when voting doesn’t work, and peaceful demonstrations don’t work, people could become very surly indeed—and worse possibilities loom.

So here’s the con: We put everybody into the comprehensively reformed system. We suck in huge amounts of new revenues, not called “taxes” but rather “premiums,” “penalties,” “fees,” “surcharges,” or “shared responsibility payments.” Since the thresholds aren’t indexed for inflation, the “responsibility” to “share” the load for other people’s needs migrates down the social scale as the dollar deteriorates. Remember, also, that current health care proposals envision the government collecting new revenue for several years before full benefits–i.e. costs–kick in. Its health care on a layaway plan. A neat trick to plug some budget holes without admitting it.

Now comes the allocation part. We make everybody dependent on the system: patients for their care, doctors for their livelihood, so everybody is in a cooperative mood. An inspiration from a consummate politician named Bismarck, also implemented by Lenin and Stalin. Is there any other way than promising “universal care” that politicians could get away with cutting hundreds of billions from expected Medicare expenditures?

We let politicians off the hook by delegating the key decisions to an appointed Federal Reserve-like agency.

We set up a “fair,” “evidence-based” system, with the apparently laudable goal of improving the overall health of society. No discrimination of course—“disparities” are to be eliminated.

Remember, however, that age discrimination is not “invidious.” Every 60-year-old was once 20. The “complete lives system” (a.k.a. “Reaper Curve”) favored by Ezekiel Emanuel is by this logic completely fair.

Here is what it means: people over age 65 would get 3.4 times less care than a 50-year-old. At present, however, spending on people over age 65 is about 3.1 times higher than for 50-year-olds (Uwe Reinhardt, Health Affairs November/December 2003). Under the Emanuel system, older people would get only about one-tenth as much care as they do now

The elderly would not all be cut off at once. They would simply be placed in an overloaded boat with everybody else, with lower-priority people pitched overboard—one at a time.

No death panel is needed. The system simply ratchets down doctors’ pay to the minimum they will tolerate, then punishes those on the top end of the spending curve. It will know who they are because of intense electronic monitoring of everything. Rational rationing—“equitable redistribution”—will occur.

Key words include “universal” and “consensus.” With “everybody in, nobody out,” social hydraulics will occur. Pull one lever at the top, and everybody beneath it is complicit in the “hard” decisions.

Default? No, no. Just a change.

also:

Obama’s labor department ignores freedom of information act

by Don Loos

On Friday, 20 November 2009, The National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation (Foundation) decided enough was enough and filed a complaint with the U.S. District Court demanding that they compel the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to comply with the Foundation’s April 6th Freedom of information Act (FOIA) request.

The Foundation’s FOIA requested:

* Records from communications and recorded events where specified Obama appointees and Big Labor official were present
* Lists of lawsuits involving the Department of Labor and Deborah Greenfield within the past eight years.
* List of any gifts received by Solis in the past 5 years from Big Labor or its officials
* Specifically provide in detail (a) notes, (b) agreements, (c) communications, and (d) agendas related to the regulations related to the labor union and officer disclosure rules
* Copies of phone logs
* Copies of any notes or documents related to any enforcement of any labor laws and any outside groups such as labor unions, American Rights at Work, or ACORN

Obama’s Labor Department Ignores His Transparency Guidance

Remember January 21, 2009, when President Barack Obama proclaimed the new era of more open and transparent government began? This U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy memorandum is a good reminder:

On his first full day in office, January 21, 2009, President Obama issued a memorandum to the heads of all departments and agencies on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The President directed that FOIA “should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails.” Moreover, the President instructed agencies that information should not be withheld merely because “public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears.”

Agencies were directed to respond to requests “promptly and in a spirit of cooperation.” The President also called on agencies to “adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure” and to apply that presumption “to all decisions involving [the] FOIA.” This presumption of disclosure includes taking “affirmative steps to make information public,” and utilizing “modern technology to inform citizens about what is known and done by their Government.”

(For more information about FOIA, visit the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy.)

Under any reading of the this memorandum, DOL is not following Obama’s orders. Why?…

DOL Gifts of Secrecy to Big Labor Bosses

So far, Obama’s Labor Department has rescinded regulations that required union bosses to disclose their forced-union-dues financed perks. The Obama Labor Department established an official policy of ignoring a regulation that requires disclosure of union boss conflict of interests. The Obama Labor Department set aside a court decision that would have provided teachers and other public employees much needed transparency; transparency teacher union bosses have fought since 2003.

As a long time political friend of Big Labor Bosses, Secretary Solis’ actions and many others came as no surprise to The National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation, which sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in April to the Department of Labor (see video below).

Solis is not only a close friend of Big Labor who voted for every union boss supported bill in congress; she was a treasurer for a Big Labor front group known as American Rights At Work (ARAW). In addition, the Labor Department now employs the radical former ARAW Executive Director Mary Beth Maxwell as a senior advisor to Solis.

But, the Foundation’s FOIA was not limited to Secretary Solis and her activities; it included a request for more information about the comings-and-goings of AFL-CIO lawyer and Obama appointee Deborah Greenfield. Greenfield cruised the halls of the Labor Department months before the Obama Administration officially began.

In her position on the Obama Organizing America Transition Team, Greenfield appears to have mapped out a plan to repeal regulations, ignore regulations, and stop court cases that undermine workers and benefit union bosses.

One Greenfield’s more shocking conflict-of-interest involves a lawsuit where Greenfield is one of the AFL-CIO’s named attorneys. The case formerly called AFL-CIO v. Chao, now AFL-v. Solis, is an attempt by Greenfield and the AFL-CIO to stop union boss conflict-of-interest reporting. And was has happened to the lawsuit since Greenfield has been at DOL? DOL made a side agreement (Joint Motion To Stay Proceedings) with the AFL-CIO to hold the suit until DOL has time to rescind the union boss conflict-of-interest report. Apparently, the Obama Administration sees no ethical dilemma here.

During January, Greenfield was one of only two Obama appointees at DOL; she reportedly assumed the role of the Secretary of Labor during this time. She was Executive Secretariat Director at the time.

Now, Greenfield remains Executive Secretariat Director while simultaneously serving as Acting Deputy Solicitor of Labor. With the Solicitor of Labor position unfilled, Greenfield is the defacto Solicitor of Labor as well.

From her current positions, Greenfield, read Big Labor Bosses, can influence every significant action that the DOL takes. Her positions provide her more than enough departmental power to shutdown the Foundation’s FOIA that remains unfulfilled. Hardly the most ethical administration Obama promised. It may even be time to FOIA Greenfield actions at DOL regarding her activities involving the Foundation’s original FOIA.

Clearly there is not transparency at here. Obama’s DOL has failed to fulfill his transparency directive. Its secretive behavior adds to the continuing failures of this Administration and Congress to comply with transparency and openness. It is likely there will be more fall out as seen after the Recovery Act documents were released. This Administration needs to be pushed to play by the rules and it is good to see groups like The National Right To Work Foundation and Rep. Darrel Issa and others finally begin to hold this Administration accountable.

To paraphrase Edmund Burke: All that is necessary for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing. There need to be more FOIA suits and other lawsuits that challenge this Administration’s trampling of the Administration Procedure Act.

Finally:

US Media Ignores Obama’s Muffed Japan Visit

by Warner Todd Huston

The Japanese media has reported that Obama’s recent state visit to their island nation was a big failure, but the U.S. media is mum on the mess that Team Obama made in Japan. He made multiple diplomatic gaffs and this is quite aside from the absurdly low bow that the incompetent president perpetrated upon greeting the Japanese Emperor Akihito.

Before we get to his other multiple fluffs and diplomatic errors, let’s explain what Obama was telling the Japanese people with his absurdly low bow. The sort of bow that Obama made is almost that of a “dogeza” bow. This is a sort of bow that is so low as to be considered a prostrated position. It is seen as an apology, a supplication, not a sign of respect. So, as we see, Obama once again showed that he wants to be known as the less-than president, that he is representing a prostrated people, and that he feels that to everyone he meets overseas he must apologize for this horrible U.S.A.

The inappropriate bow, however, wasn’t the only mistake that Obama committed in Japan. According to the mainstream Japanese weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun the visit was termed “miserable,” and “the worst US-Japan summit meeting in history” by Japanese insiders. Worse, the Japanese government was so upset at the visit that it retaliated at various points issuing slights right back to President Obama during his stay on Japanese soil.

From a translation by an American living in Japan comes news that Obama began the trip on a sour note when, with little advanced notice, the president seemed to arbitrarily change his arrival schedule in Japan throwing Japanese officials into chaos.

Obama was originally set to land in Japan on November 12, attend a summit meeting with Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama on the 13th, and then leave for Singapore on the 14th to attend the APEC Summit meeting. But according to the Japanese magazine, on Nov. 7 the Obama Administration abruptly changed plans and rescheduled the president’s arrival for the 13th instead of the 12th, shaving a day off the visit.

… their excuse for the delay was the shooting at Ft. Hood, Texas on the US Army base on November 5. But the fact of the matter is, the memoral service was on the November 10 and only took a day trip for Obama whereupon he returned immediately to Washington. After that, he had the National Security Council meeting on policy in Afghanistan on November 11th. However, he could have departed Washington D.C. right after that and could have still landed in Japan as everyone agreed and planned on, for the 12th.

In another slight to Japan, a Japanese ruling party spokesman noted that it was obvious to them that Obama was more interested in China on this trip anyway as four days were scheduled for the Communists while only two were scheduled for them.

The magazine notes that Obama was left waiting in a car for five minutes at the entrance to the Prime Minister’s Official Residence and this may have been a message of rebuke sent to Obama by Japanese officials for the president’s abrupt change of schedule.

Shukan Bunshun magazine also notes that while the Japanese had “a total of 14 officials, including six cabinet ministers, the Foreign Minister Okada, the Defense Minister Kitazawa,” the president’s retinue only consisted of members of “Team Obama” and no other American officials of high standing. This was taken as a message that Obama did not consider this meeting very important.

Consequently, after the meeting with Japanese officials, PM Hatoyama immediately left Japan for the APEC Summit essentially leaving Obama alone on Japanese soil even though Obama had several other high profile visits to wrap up in Japan. Japanese journalist Michael Yu noted that this was a message that Hatoyama did not feel much respect for Obama since, as host, he essentially abandoned his guest, President Obama, and flew off to Singapore.

The Japanese magazine characterizes this visit as the “worst” one ever.

“To tell you the truth, it had to have been the worst US-Japan Summit Meeting in history,” a source of ours at the Foreign Ministry revealed to us.

This is just one more example of “Team Obama” issuing one slight after another to our allies while slavishly devoting himself to our enemies. The British have felt it, the Germans, the French, and now the Japanese.

It all adds up to a White House that places little interest in good diplomatic relations with our allies.