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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sea_biscuit who wrote (505977)	12/8/2003 1:35:05 PM
From: Skywatcher	Respond to of 769670

Gee...you might get lucky and have the BUSHMAN talk down to you! meanwhile DUMBYA is getting his wish to DESTROY MEDICARE....Wonder what his MOTHER WOULD SAY!!!? George....you're a dumbshit probably December 8, 2003 By BOB HERBERT On July 30, 1965, Lyndon Johnson flew to Independence, Mo., and in the presence of a smiling Harry Truman, signed the bill that created Medicare. "No longer will older Americans be denied the healing miracle of modern medicine," said Johnson. The growls of opposition in the background were muted. Medicare was a desperately needed program, and it grew to be a wildly popular one. But conservatives were outraged by it. Socialized medicine, they snarled. Un-American. Truman had proposed a health care program for the elderly back in the 40's. It went nowhere. Jack Kennedy pushed it in the early 60's. Same result. It took Johnson's legislative genius and his enormous mandate from the 1964 presidential election to bring the program into being. And even then it wasn't easy. Johnson's biographer, Robert Dallek, recalled that Ronald Reagan "saw Medicare as the advance wave of socialism, which would `invade every area of freedom in this country.' " "Reagan," wrote Mr. Dallek, "predicted that Medicare would compel Americans to spend their `sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was like in America when men were free.' " Newt Gingrich ranted against Medicare in the 1990's, comparing its operations to "centralized command bureaucracies" in Moscow. And George W. Bush tried to fashion a prescription drug benefit that would require senior citizens to leave the traditional Medicare program before they could get the benefit. After nearly four decades, during which Medicare significantly improved the health and economic conditions of the nation's elderly, this unrelenting hostility can fairly be called an obsession. Today President Bush will sign into law a prescription drug benefit under Medicare that will introduce the first cold drafts of bitter reality to the G.O.P.'s long dream of dismantling Medicare as we've known it. Think of Medicare as a giant chicken coop. Keep in mind that the hostile-to-Medicare Republicans control the presidency and both houses of Congress. Now you decide who the foxes and the chickens are. (Hint: we're not talking about spring chickens.) When Lyndon Johnson and Harry Truman got together for the debut of Medicare, they were genuinely concerned about the medical needs of the nation's elderly. "These people," said Truman, "are our prideful responsibility and they are entitled, among other benefits, to the best medical protection available." The bill that President Bush will sign today is a giant windfall for the drug companies, opening up a huge new market with virtually no effort to restrain prices. It will give Medicare recipients a modest drug benefit, but at a potentially dreadful cost. The bill starts the process of undermining Medicare by turning parts of it over to insurance companies, H.M.O.'s and other private contractors. The drug benefit will be delivered almost entirely through private insurance plans. It would have been more efficient and cheaper to deliver it the same way other Medicare benefits are delivered. But that's not the idea. The Bush administration has mastered the art of legalized banditry, in which tons of government money - the people's money - are hijacked and handed over to the special interests. Drug company stock prices soared with the passage of the Medicare bill, a sign that another government vault had been blown open and the big Medicare money was in play. The Republicans are not subtle about these matters. The bill, for example, specifically prohibits the government from negotiating discounts or lower drug prices, and bars the importation of cheaper drugs from abroad. And then there's the "demonstration" project, to begin in 2010, in which Medicare will be forced in several cities to compete against private, profit-making health plans. It will be a rigged competition in that, among other things, the private plans will be heavily subsidized by Medicare money and will be able to cherry-pick the healthiest patients. As one Capitol Hill staffer told me last week: "This is more than the camel's nose under the tent. This is like the head, the hump and everything else." Harry Truman would be beside himself. nytimes.com

To: sea_biscuit who wrote (505977)	12/8/2003 1:57:19 PM
From: Oeconomicus	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

I am saying to reduce payroll taxes to the extent so that SS and Medicare are balanced. . . Any increases should be only to keep the SS and Medicare budgets balanced going forward. Oh, I get it. You want current workers to only put in enough money to pay the benefits of current retirees, leaving funding of their own retirement benefits to future generations. Yeah, that makes sense. I'm sure your grandchildren won't mind when we hike "payroll taxes" far beyond current levels to support me in retirement. Cool. I get to be as spendthrift as I want - your grandkids will pay. Hey, this income redistribution thing ain't so bad. LOL. Moron.