GOP Touts Parker Griffith On Health Care -- After Previously Accusing Him Of Abusing Cancer Patients

Rep. Parker Griffith (R-AL), who switched from the Democrats to the GOP in December, will be delivering tomorrow’s weekly Republican YouTube address — presumably from the standpoint of being a medical doctor who is opposing the Dems on health care. As we’ve previously noted, there is a huge irony in this particular doctor being embraced by the GOP — after they openly accused him of some very serious acts of medical malpractice, when they ran against him in 2008

“The fact that a doctor who left the Democratic caucus is delivering the address this week is no coincidence,” an anonymous senior GOP aide boasted in an e-mail to news organizations. “This is a shot across the bow of any ‘moderate’ Democrat in the House who is considering voting for a health care bill loaded with tax hikes, Medicare cuts, and notorious backroom deals.”

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GOP Touts Parker Griffith On Health Care — After Previously Accusing Him Of Abusing Cancer Patients (VIDEO) | TPMDC.

And irony died.

Now, Mr. Gingrich was just repeating the current party line. Furious denunciations of any effort to seek cost savings in Medicare — death panels! — have been central to Republican efforts to demonize health reform. What’s amazing, however, is that they’re getting away with it.

Why is this amazing? It’s not just the fact that Republicans are now posing as staunch defenders of a program they have hated ever since the days when Ronald Reagan warned that Medicare would destroy America’s freedom. Nor is it even the fact that, as House speaker, Mr. Gingrich personally tried to ram through deep cuts in Medicare — and, in 1995, went so far as to shut down the federal government in an attempt to bully Bill Clinton into accepting those cuts.

After all, you could explain this about-face by supposing that Republicans have had a change of heart, that they have finally realized just how much good Medicare does. And if you believe that, I’ve got some mortgage-backed securities you might want to buy.

No, what’s truly mind-boggling is this: Even as Republicans denounce modest proposals to rein in Medicare’s rising costs, they are, themselves, seeking to dismantle the whole program. And the process of dismantling would begin with spending cuts of about $650 billion over the next decade. Math is hard, but I do believe that’s more than the roughly $400 billion (not $500 billion) in Medicare savings projected for the Democratic health bills.

What I’m talking about here is the “Roadmap for America’s Future,” the budget plan recently released by Representative Paul Ryan, the ranking Republican member of the House Budget Committee. Other leading Republicans have been bobbing and weaving on the official status of this proposal, but it’s pretty clear that Mr. Ryan’s vision does, in fact, represent what the G.O.P. would try to do if it returns to power.

The broad picture that emerges from the “roadmap” is of an economic agenda that hasn’t changed one iota in response to the economic failures of the Bush years. In particular, Mr. Ryan offers a plan for Social Security privatization that is basically identical to the Bush proposals of five years ago.

But what’s really worth noting, given the way the G.O.P. has campaigned against health care reform, is what Mr. Ryan proposes doing with and to Medicare.

In the Ryan proposal, nobody currently under the age of 55 would be covered by Medicare as it now exists. Instead, people would receive vouchers and be told to buy their own insurance. And even this new, privatized version of Medicare would erode over time because the value of these vouchers would almost surely lag ever further behind the actual cost of health insurance. By the time Americans now in their 20s or 30s reached the age of eligibility, there wouldn’t be much of a Medicare program left.

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Op-Ed Columnist – Republicans and Medicare – NYTimes.com.

The study found that health spending, which accounts for about one-sixth of the economy, would increase by less than 1 percent than it otherwise would over the coming decade even with so many more people receiving coverage.

Over time, cost-cutting measures could start to reduce the annual increases in health care spending, offering the possibility of substantial savings in the long run. At the same time, however, some of the Senate’s Medicare savings could be unrealistic and cause lawmakers to roll them back, according to Medicare’s top number crunchers.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the report released Saturday shows the Senate bill would slow the rate of health care costs, strengthen Medicare and provide millions more people with insurance coverage.

President Barack Obama used his weekly radio and Internet address to play up the brighter side of the overhaul he hopes to sign in time for his first State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress in a matter of weeks.

He said it would ban “the worst practices of the insurance industry” even as he acknowledged it would take several years – until 2014 in some instances – for some of the changes to be fully in place. That has disappointed consumers and their advocates.

“Now, it’ll take a few years to fully implement these reforms in a responsible way,” the president said. “But what every American should know is that once I sign health insurance reform into law, there are dozens of protections and benefits that will take effect this year.”

Among them, Obama said:

-People with illnesses or medical conditions will be able to buy affordable health insurance.

-Children with such conditions will no longer be denied coverage.

-Small-business owners who can’t afford to cover their employees will get tax credits to help them do so.

-Insurance companies will be required to offer free preventive care to their customers and will be prohibited from dropping coverage when someone becomes ill.

“In short, once I sign health insurance reform into law, doctors and patients will have more control over their health care decisions and insurance company bureaucrats will have less,” Obama said.

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News | Opelika-Auburn News.

Stop HCR?

Opponents of the health-care reform bill are not giving up the fight, and some think their last, best hope to halt the legislation lies not in the U.S. Capitol but in the court across the street.

A small but vocal contingent of legal scholars and many Republican lawmakers argue that the measures passed by both chambers are unconstitutional and will be ruled so by the Supreme Court. Their primary target: the individual mandate, which requires people to get health insurance or pay a financial penalty of at least 2 percent of their income to the government.

Although it would affect only those who do not get insurance from their employer, Medicare or Medicaid, the mandate is a central component of Democrats’ reform plans, which operate under the assumption that bringing everyone into the national insurance pool — particularly young, healthy people who do not have coverage — will reduce premiums across the board. By adding millions of new customers, the mandate is also designed to make reform more palatable for insurance companies, which will face new restrictions and requirements.

But some critics dismiss the economic merits, saying the bills would force people to buy a particular product. Laws requiring drivers to carry auto insurance do the same thing, but people can choose not to own a car. The health insurance mandate includes no such alternative.

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Some foes of health-care bill hope courts will stop legislation – washingtonpost.com.