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Title: Paul Ryan's Speech: A Round-Up Of His Most Audacious Untruths
Source:
The Guardian
URL Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/201 ... dacious-untruths?newsfeed=true
Published: Aug 30, 2012
Author: Tom McCarthy
Post Date: 2012-08-30 15:35:00 by Brian S
Keywords: None
Views: 5159
Comments: 13
In his barnstormer of a speech to the swooning crowd at the Republican national convention on Wednesday night, Paul Ryan laid a mound of misdeeds at President Obama's door. To sustained applause from the floor, the vice-presidential candidate accused Obama of raiding Medicare, lying to auto workers and turning his back on the poor. But the speech (transcript here) was not always at pains to adhere to the historical record. At times, we are disappointed to report, Ryan baldly lied. Here's a round-up of Ryan's most audacious untruths: And the biggest, coldest power play of all in Obamacare came at the expense of the elderly … So they just took it all away from Medicare. Seven hundred and sixteen billion dollars, funneled out of Medicare by President Obama. Barack Obama's budget plan calls for $716bn in cuts to Medicare spending over the next 10 years, but in reimbursements to insurers and hospitals, not in payments to beneficiaries, which would be preserved. Ryan knows this because he has written these same cuts in to successive drafts of his famed budget. The cuts are designed to extend the solvency of Medicare for an estimated eight years. Repealing the cuts would likely increase payments by hundreds of dollars a year for beneficiaries, who share costs with the government. Politifact has weighed in on Ryan's Medicare claim and found it to be "mostly false." Ryan said Obama held out false hope to workers in his hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin, that a GM plant there could be saved. A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that GM plant. Right there at that plant, Obama said: 'I believe that if our government is there to support you … this plant will be here for another hundred years.' That's what he said in 2008. Well, as it turned out, that plant didn't last another year. Ryan accurately quotes Obama, who visited the plant as a presidential candidate in February 2008. Four months later, GM announced the plant would drastically scale back production. The plant laid off most of its workforce in December 2008, before Obama took office. The "government support" Obama spoke of – his auto bailout plan, which took effect in early 2009 – did not arrive early enough to save the Janesville plant, but it is credited with saving the American auto industry. The full audacity of this attack cannot be appreciated without noting that Ryan's would-be boss, Mitt Romney, published an op-ed in the New York Times in November 2008 under the headline Let Detroit Go Bankrupt. [Obama] created a bipartisan debt commission. They came back with an urgent report. He thanked them, sent them on their way and then did exactly nothing. In early 2010 Obama created a bipartisan committee known as Bowles-Simpson to figure out how to balance the budget and hand its recommendations to the president. The final draft of the committee's report failed to win the necessary support of its members, however, falling three votes short. Paul Ryan was on the committee, a fact that he neglected to mention in his speech. In the straw poll on the final draft, he voted "no" – against the plan that he now accuses the president of ignoring. We have responsibilities, one to another – we do not each face the world alone. And the greatest of all responsibilities, is that of the strong to protect the weak. The truest measure of any society is how it treats those who cannot defend or care for themselves … We can make the safety net safe again. If Paul Ryan's budget is notable for anything, it's for cuts to Medicaid and other programs on which low-income households depend. As the Washington Post economics blogger Ezra Klein points out: "The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities ran the numbers and said two-thirds of Ryan's cuts will end up falling on programs for the poor." The Ryan plan cuts spending on Medicaid and other health assistance programs for the poor from just over 3% of GDP to just over 1%. It cuts home mortgage deductions, veteran's benefits, farm subsidies and other aid programs. Ryan said the president was responsible for Standard and Poor's downgrading US credit from AAA to AA+ in August 2011. He said of Obama's first term: It began with a perfect Triple-A credit rating for the United States; it ends with a downgraded America. In fact, the downgrade was the result of refusal of Republicans in Congress to vote to raise the debt ceiling, despite pressure from the White House and most outside analysts. So stubborn was the Republican resistance that treasury secretary Timothy Geithner suggested the president could unilaterally raise the ceiling under the 14th amendment. Ultimately the Republicans capitulated, but the damage was done; days after the Budget Control Act of 2011 was signed, the rating was cut. In its statement on the rationale behind the downgrade, Standard and Poor's blamed the political circus: "The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America's governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed."
Medicare
Ryan's hometown GM plant
Government debt
Aid to the poor
Credit rating downgrade
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#1. To: Brian S (#0)
I'm sure they equal a ghost-written book full of lies and untruths... called (IIRC) the "audacity of hope", yes? Ryan or biden, o'bungler and mcRomney... they're all a bunch of political whores, and they'll phuck you over for the almighty dollar. What makes you think the "opposition" whores are any worse than your sides' whores? Are you REALLY that stupid???
More Journalists without information... The loons on MSNBC spent half of last night embarrassing themselves about this. The plant made SUVs and light trucks. Obama promised that this plant would stay open in TWICE in 2008 -- once in February and once just before the election. The SUV line was shut down in December 2008. But the light truck line stayed open until April 2009 -- four months after Obama took office. Obama could have insisted that it stay open as part of the GM bailout to keep his promise. He didn't. The plant was never shuttered. It remains on standby. It could still reopen today. Paul Ryan is correct on the facts. MSNBC are once again a bunch of no-nothing, propagandists, as usual. It's so sad to see a British news outlet with such a poor grasp of the facts. We usually look to Britain as a source of facts. Not this time.
Libs only have mouths to blab. They don't have ears to listen or brains to think.
Barack Obama's budget plan calls for $716bn in cuts to Medicare spending over the next 10 years, but in reimbursements to insurers and hospitals, not in payments to beneficiaries, which would be preserved. Here is the real plan. It's not a conspiracy theory. It's been talked about openly since Hillarycare in 1992. Doctors are already losing money on Medicare and Medicaid patients. They are losing a lot of money on Medicaid patients, so 50% of doctors just refuse to accept Medicaid any longer. Doctors aren't currently losing as much on Medicare patients, so they can still sluff off the loses to the rest of us who have private insurance. Obama's PLAN is to take a bunch of doctors out of the Medicare system. Why??? It will cause a shortage of doctors and increase waiting lists. As a result some people just won't get care. That will lower costs. Some of those people didn't need care in the first place -- they had a little sniffle and ran to the doctor. So, that's okay, Others have serious illnesses. There are long waiting lists in Canada for people with serious illnesses. The smart Canadians head to U.S. emergency rooms, where they will get treated. Others just DIE on waiting lists. The mortality rate for people with serious diseases is much higher in Canada than it is in the U.S. That's how Obama plans to save $716 billion in Medicare payments over the next decade -- create a shortage of doctors who will accept Medicare, which will increase waiting lists, and result in fewer people getting care. That will lower costs. It's not a conspiracy. It's not even a secret. This is their actual PLAN. It's well documented.
So Romney's plan to save Medicare is to increase spending on payments to doctors? How do you cut back on spending in Medicare without cutting something?
Keep whining brian, you know that obama is heading for certain defeat in the election.
You have to reform the entire healthcare system to lower costs. The way to do that is by putting people back in charge of their healthcare finances through Medical Savings Accounts for the general population and government subsidized Medical Savings Accounts for the poor. Let individuals (not business or government) decide on insurance versus out-of-pocket expenses. Singapore did this in the 1980s and they lowered health spending from 6% of GDP to 3.7%. America went in the opposite direction in the 1960s when we created 2 single payers systems called Medicaid and Medicare. That plus our system of employer based health insurance drove the cost of healthcare from 6% of GDP to 17% today. We need to take third parties out of the loop. Romney's plan would be to stop giving employers tax breaks for buying health insurance for their employees and instead give employers and employees tax breaks for putting money into a medical savings account. I also think that we should eliminate Medicaid and instead subsidize Medical Savings accounts for the poor, but Romney's plan is to block grant Medicaid to the states and let them experiment on creating something better.
So how can you cut costs without reducing payments in some way to doctors since doctors are one of the major drivers of costs.
And you don't think doctors have anything to do with the escalating costs?
I found this article interesting. High Healthcare Spending On Physicians Due To High Doctors Fees And Not Practice Costs http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/234120.php
Did you read anything that I posted? Apparently not. Today, consumers of healthcare don't pay the bills. Employers and government pays the bills. So, healthcare consumers over use the the system. The solution is to make healthcare just another economic choice like FOOD. Overtime time, this will drive costs down and also improve outcomes, just like it did in Singapore.
Any reduction in costs no matter the method is going to affect the physician's bottom line, period. That is my point. So your caterwauling about cutting physician's payments is irrelevant. Its going to happen anyway.
You are a very confused person. There is all the difference in the world between politicians arbitrarily reducing payments, which will drive providers out of the market and create shortages versus a competitive market process that will result in business model innovation, technology innovation, and usage pattern changes to make the system more efficient.
Paul Ryan's ... Most Audacious Untruths
"I am relying on my personal experience with Morons, which have been universally positive." -jwpegler
#2. To: Brian S (#0)
(Edited)
Ryan's hometown GM plant
"we must as a species go into a period of shrinkage that we have not experienced since the Dark Ages and the Black Plague" -- lucysmom
#3. To: jwpegler (#2)
#4. To: Brian S (#0)
(Edited)
Medicare
"we must as a species go into a period of shrinkage that we have not experienced since the Dark Ages and the Black Plague" -- lucysmom
#5. To: jwpegler (#4)
Doctors are already losing money on Medicare and Medicaid patients.
#6. To: Brian S (#0)
#7. To: NewsJunky (#5)
So Romney's plan to save Medicare is to increase spending on payments to doctors? How do you cut back on spending in Medicare without cutting something?
"we must as a species go into a period of shrinkage that we have not experienced since the Dark Ages and the Black Plague" -- lucysmom
#8. To: jwpegler (#7)
The way to do that is by putting people back in charge of their healthcare finances through Medical Savings Accounts for the general population and government subsidized Medical Savings Accounts for the poor. Let individuals (not business or government) decide on insurance versus out-of-pocket expenses.
#9. To: jwpegler (#7)
hat plus our system of employer based health insurance drove the cost of healthcare from 6% of GDP to 17% today.
#10. To: jwpegler (#7)
#11. To: NewsJunky (#8)
(Edited)
So how can you cut costs without reducing payments in some way to doctors since doctors are one of the major drivers of costs.
"we must as a species go into a period of shrinkage that we have not experienced since the Dark Ages and the Black Plague" -- lucysmom
#12. To: jwpegler (#11)
Overtime time, this will drive costs down and also improve outcomes, just like it did in Singapore.
#13. To: NewsJunky (#12)
(Edited)
Any reduction in costs no matter the method is going to affect the physician's bottom line, period. That is my point. So your caterwauling about cutting physician's payments is irrelevant. Its going to happen anyway.
"we must as a species go into a period of shrinkage that we have not experienced since the Dark Ages and the Black Plague" -- lucysmom
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