If Obama is able to cut Medicare without cutting benefits for those who need them. . .

. . .is he selling us out?

If he introduces savings that cut out waste and saves us significant money, makes it operate more efficiently do we punish him for that?

Or since he dared to consider cuts is he automatically selling us out without us knowing what he actually plans to do.

Also, has he spent all of his political capital with you that it won't matter if benefits for those who need them aren't touched?

some people would still complain that he's hiding the cuts someplace else and its going to somehow hurt us down the road someplace, but I'm just going by tonal track record.

...but not benefits.

If you look at how much he has been beaten up just for having a discussion.

if he ever shares them - and he's not great about that. Then there's the question of if he can get them implemented with the notorious Obstinant Pee Party in his way.

cool with me.

:hi:

:kick;

because apparently there's an inability to conceive of the fact that Medicare can be tweaked to be more efficient.

Some people cannot understand how that's possible, so they do the Chicken Little thing and scream "He's destroying Medicare!"

And apparently knowing the details just isn't relevant.

It's crazy. The lack of rational thought is strange to behold.

be mandated to negotiate drug costs! The entire system should have been computerized years ago. Double testing by providers should hav been stopped. I see a LOT of places to "cut" medicare costs and not harm either the recipiants or the providers.

Obama is probably baffled by accusations that he wants to dismantle it.

:kick:

negotiating drug costs.

:kick:

one would think it would have been done already. Is it really conceivable that there is a half trillion dollars in waste, fraud, abuse and inefficiency?

:kick:

Reforms to prevent waste and fraud and modest cuts to providers are realistic and I am totally for them. President Obama has said this is what he wants to do repeatedly.

you used that twice. Does that refer to something specific?

As it stands now, Medicare is for ALL OLD PEOPLE. Is that going to change?

But he needs to by specifying exactly where the savings will come from, and how they will be accomplished, and why there is certainty that they will work.

Health care reform just said something like "Cut $500 billion by eliminating waste and fraud and improving efficiency". Sounds great. But is it really possible? The $500 billion is gone and what happens if those savings are not possible. Did they really exist in the first place or was someone just pulling a number out of their ass?

I'm not going to believe we can save another $500 billion without very specific details on the first cut from health care reform as well as the additional cuts. And I want to hear doctors and hospitals agree that they will continue to accept medicare after the cuts - "benefits" are useless if you can't use them.

:kick: