Posted on 10/18/2012 9:02:41 AM PDT by bobsunshine
President Obama had a big political problem: Obamacare destroys the popular Medicare Advantage program, which offers private insurance plans to supplement Medicare. Something like a quarter of Medicare beneficiaries use this program. (It’s funny how free-market competition is both popular and effective when it’s actually tried, isn’t it?)
Obamacare sucks over $200 billion out of Medicare Advantage, something that would have been very noticeable through price increases and benefit reductions during open enrollment… which began in October, right before the election.
If you’re Barack Obama, you solve a problem like that by throwing huge amounts of other peoples’ money at it. So it was that a little “demonstration project” to reward the most effective Medicare Advantage plans was suddenly inflated into a titanic $8.3 billion slush fund – bigger than the 85 previous demonstration projects combined – in order to delay the pain of Medicare Advantage cuts until after the election. The standards for receiving payouts from this “incentive” program were lowered so much that even mediocre plans could receive a “reward.” It wouldn’t do to have seniors opening envelopes that say their premiums have skyrocketed or some of their favorite benefits have been dropped, right before the election! The House Oversight Committee began investigating this jumbo Slurpee of slush in May, and ran into a Health and Human Services stonewall so obvious that it’s comical. A request for documents on May 23 was ignored by HHS. It was repeated on August 1, and ignored again. House Oversight fired off emails to a couple of HHS staffers, and didn’t get a response for weeks… at which point the HHS Deputy Director for Oversight and Investigation said, “I’m checking on the status and will get back to you,” but never got back to anybody.
(Excerpt) Read more at humanevents.com ...
They should be frog marched into Leavenworth. Club Gitmo is too cushy for them.
I’m tired of the Republicans talking about and threatening what they are going to do-they need to just do it
Zackly.. Huff, puff, cave, cry. Repeat as necessary.
Charlie Brown...Lucy....Football
Romney should be making a bigger deal out of the looting of Medicare Advantage
I hope Republicans take the Senate the House and the White House this year, but are my hopes up thatthey will do better? They are not.
Republicans who have sat on their hands and watched as Democrats passed Obamacare, Obama made recess appointm,ents illegally and passed Amnesty, aren’t going to do much better when they are in charge.
They will elect Mitch McConnell, Harry Reids Bi7ch ,to be Senate Leader, and cry Baby Boehner in the House and split the spoils like they did last time Republicans were in charge.
Exactly. Everyone knows that the administration will stonewall this and every other request for information. Therefore, issue the subpoena and get it over. Deliver it with a smile and a pair of handcuffs. The Secretary can take her choice.
right. Issa should put Sebelius on the defensive and drop it in her lap ASAP
I hope you are wrong, but am afraid you are correct.
The Republicans have lost so many chances to bring down Obama’s administration.
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