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Obama Medicare Cuts Target Providers, Then Beneficiaries For …

WASHINGTON — President Obama wants to extract $320 billion in savings from the health care system in his push to trim the deficit, starting with cutting payments to Medicare and Medicaid providers and ending with making …

Publish Date: 09/19/2011 15:51

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/19/president-obama-targets-p_n_969991.html

Obama to Pitch Higher Taxes, Means-Testing Medicare – Politics …

Political News and Headlines From ABC News Radio.

Publish Date: 09/19/2011 9:54

http://abcnewsradioonline.com/politics-news/obama-to-pitch-higher-taxes-means-testing-medicare.html

President Obama tried for months to convince critics on the far left that entitlement programs such as Medicare had to be cut in order to save the programs.

"With an aging population and rising health care costs, we are spending too fast to sustain the program", he said.

"And if we don’t gradually reform the system while protecting current beneficiaries, it won’t be there when future retirees need it. We have to reform Medicare to strengthen it".

But after those speeches, several Democratic groups and lawmakers sent letters, held news conferences and even staged protests, including one in front of the White House by activists challenging the idea of any cuts in Medicaid benefits.

The president appears to have heard the objections, because in his Rose Garden speech Monday, he proposed only half as much in savings as he did in debt talks this summer, offering $320 billion in changes instead of $650 billion, and he took a very different tone:

"We will reform Medicare and Medicaid, but we will not abandon the fundamental commitment that this country has kept for generations", he said.

Alison Fraser, of the conservative Heritage Foundation had this to say;

"He’s pulled way back on those proposals specifically on Medicare, Medicaid".

"Even on Social Security, which at one point was in the mix, now it’s completely off the table. So it’s a disappointing step, rather than an encouraging one".

"If we continue with even more of these provider crackdowns, you know, you’re going to have a lot more doctors, hospitals, pharmacists, and so forth, dropping out of the program".

Will Obama’s Backtrack Help Him?

His recent comments on Medicare may or may not soften criticism from the left however, and the liberal group MoveOn.org urged its members last week to call the White House, and warned in a letter,

"If the President comes out on Monday calling for cuts to Medicare and Medicaid benefits, the enthusiasm he’s built up in the last week will disappear in an instant".

Many Doctors Are Already Quitting

90% of the changes that Obama has proposed so are in the form of cuts to providers, such as doctors and hospitals, and many policy experts are concerned about access to care for seniors on Medicare, which is a trend already under way in some areas of the country.

Many doctors in rural areas are now saying that they will either have to seek alternative employment or go work at a hospital or clinic, because they’re no longer getting enough income to continue their practices.

More Price Controls

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan said,

"So what we’ve seen from the president so far is, more price controls and rationing, but no plans to save it from bankruptcy".

The Bottom Line

Taken together, the Medicare and Social Security programs are committed to $46 trillion dollars more in benefits than the government can pay for from the revenues it now receives, and cuts are inevitable.

Sounds like a Ponzi scheme?

The Mask Drops

Following nearly a whole week of embarrassment, happy hour finally arrived at the White House on Thursday.

Following all the hoopla, President Obama finally sat down in the Rose Garden and maybe drank some beer, with Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and police Sgt. James Crowley of Cambridge, Mass.

Who knows which of them even drinks beer?

This was Hollywood at its best, or worst, and Obama was showing his practiced Hollywood smile.

Obama’s humiliation began when he stupidly said, “that the police had acted stupidly in arresting Gates”, without having any idea of the facts surrounding the case, and he admitted as much.

The facts are and were, that on July 16th;

Crowley investigated a report of a potential burglary at Gates’ house, and he discovered two men trying to force their way into the house.

In his written report, Crowley said that Gates became angry when he told him he was investigating a report of a break-in, and then yelled at him and called him a racist.

In a radio communication with a dispatcher, that was released on Monday, Crowley said Gates was not cooperating.

“I’m up with a gentleman, says he resides here, but was uncooperative, but keep the cars coming”.

Crowley arrested the professor on a charge of disorderly conduct.

Gates, who is black, accused the white sergeant of racial profiling.

So why did the President of the United States get involved in this?

Obviously, because he, like Reverend Wright, has not personally resolved the black white issue, which at least one half of Americans clearly have, since they voted for him.

Back To The Beer

After a beer or lemonade, Obama had this to say;

“I have always believed that what brings us together is stronger than what pulls us apart. I am confident that has happened here tonight, and I am hopeful that all of us are able to draw this positive lesson from this episode”.

Crowley said;

“This was a positive step in moving forward as opposed to reliving the events of the last couple weeks, and I hope that it will be the basis of meaningful conversations in the future. I think what you had today was two gentlemen agreeing to disagree on a particular issue. I don’t think that we spent too much time dwelling on the past. We spent a lot of time discussing the future”.

Gates wrote;

Gates followed with a message on a website entitled The Root, which he edits that he had “developed a greater appreciation for police officers and their daily sacrifices on our behalf. It is incumbent upon Sergeant Crowley and me to utilize this great opportunity that fate has given us”.

The Cambridge police commissioner said that his department is deeply pained by President Barack Obama’s statement that his officers acted stupidly when they arrested a renowned black scholar in his home.

Crowley Teaches Racial Profiling

More embarrassing for Obama is that he shot from the hip without knowing that Crowley is a police academy expert on understanding racial profiling, and has taught a class on the subject for five years at the Lowell Police Academy.

He was hand-picked for the job by former police Commissioner Ronny Watson, who is black.

Obama fell several points in the polls after this incident, and deservedly so.