{"id":5892,"date":"2011-09-20T00:04:38","date_gmt":"2011-09-20T07:04:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=5892"},"modified":"2011-09-20T00:04:38","modified_gmt":"2011-09-20T07:04:38","slug":"the-plan-economic-patriotism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/09\/20\/the-plan-economic-patriotism\/","title":{"rendered":"The Plan: Economic Patriotism"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Obama for whom I worked and voted in 2008 came out of hiding yesterday morning and his plan, while not perfect, is far more progressive than I had anticipated.  I have an article that summarizes it and video of the speech, in case you missed it.  However, the devil is in the details, and I was particularly concerned about Medicare and Medicaid.  I have gone over the details and have analyzed those areas.  In addition, I have interviews of three people who have criticized Obama in the past: Robert Reich, Michael Moore, and Katrina vanden Heuvel.<\/font><\/p>\n

First, here is the summary.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"20Obama\"President Obama struck a combative tone on Monday as called for $1.5 trillion in new tax revenue as part of a proposal to tame the nation\u2019s rocketing federal debt<\/a>, drawing a sharp contrast with the Republican vision and resetting the terms of the economic debate in Washington this fall.<\/p>\n

In a defiant Rose Garden appearance, Obama threatened to veto any plan to tame the debt that does not pair cuts to Medicare and Medicaid with increases in taxes on the rich.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t just cut our way out of this hole,\u201d Obama said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to take a balanced approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

Combined with his call this month for $450 billion in new stimulus, the proposal represents a more populist approach to confronting the nation\u2019s economic travails than the compromises he advocated earlier this summer. <\/p>\n

It is also diametrically opposed to many of the views supported by Republicans, who want to balance the nation\u2019s books mainly through cutting spending, particularly in Medicare and Medicaid. <\/p>\n

Republicans argue that Obama\u2019s plan to tax the rich is a divisive political strategy. But Obama rejected that view Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not class warfare,\u201d Obama said. \u201cIt\u2019s math.\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Washington Post<\/a>><\/p>\n

If you misses the speech, here\u2019s the complete video.<\/font><\/p>\n

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I particularly enjoyed the way he trashed <\/font>Agent Orange<\/font>, by implying he is both stupid and wrong.<\/font><\/p>\n

You can download the fact sheet about the Obama plan here<\/a>. (PDF)<\/font><\/p>\n

You can download Obama\u2019s entire plan here<\/a>. (PDF)<\/font><\/p>\n

For Medicaid the adjustments deal primarily with abuse by both providers and state governments, and should not impact the coverage for beneficiaries.<\/font><\/p>\n

For Medicare, there are several adjustments.  <\/font>Reduce subsidies for high-income beneficiaries, starting in 2017<\/strong>.  <\/font>Reduce coverage of bad debts from 70% – 25%.  <\/font>Reduce the IME adjustment for teaching hospitals by 10%  <\/font>End an add-on payment for physicians and hospitals in low population states.  <\/font>Eliminate the 1% subsidy for critical access hospitals within 10 miles of other hospitals.  <\/font>Realign payments for post-acute care to reflect what that care actually costs.  <\/font>Equalize payments for similar conditions between SNFs and IRFs.  <\/font>Align Medicare drug reimbursement policies with Medicaid.  <\/font>Recover erroneous payments to insurers participating in Medicare Advantage.  <\/font>Reduce improper payments.  <\/font>Add penalties for failure to use electronic record keeping.  <\/font>Adjust reimbursements for advanced imaging to reflect the actual cost.  <\/font>Require prior authorization for advanced imaging.  <\/font>Increase premiums for parts B and D by 15% for top 25% only, starting in 2017<\/strong>.  <\/font>Increase the Part B deductible by $25 in 2017, 2019, and 2021 for new beneficiaries only<\/strong>.  <\/font>Add a $100 copayment per incident for home health care, under certain (dubious) conditions, starting in 2017 for new beneficiaries only.  <\/font>Add a 15% (of Medi-Gap premium) surcharge for new beneficiaries who also enroll in Medi-Gap plans, starting in 2017.<\/font><\/p>\n

The items I don\u2019t like are the ones I bolded, but none of them are a deal breaker.<\/font><\/p>\n

On the whole I like the plan, and here are the opinions of three individuals who have often criticized Obama in the past.<\/font><\/p>\n

Lawrence O’Donnell interviewed Robert Reich.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/font><\/p>\n

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n

Rachel Maddow interviewed Michael Moore.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/font><\/p>\n

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n

Ed Schultz interviewed Katrina vanden Heuvel.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/font><\/p>\n

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n

In a recent discussion we had about Republicans blackmailing America, over a $1 billion loan guarantee program, I said disagreed with several of you and said that, if Democrats are going to take it to the edge, it\u2019s important that we pick an issue that directly effects millions of people, not just thousands.  This is the issue over which Obama and the Democrats must dig in their heels.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Obama for whom I worked and voted in 2008 came out of hiding yesterday morning and his plan, while not perfect, is far more progressive than I had anticipated.  I have an article that summarizes it and video of the speech, in case you missed it.  However, the devil is in the details, and […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5892\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}