Few pieces better illustrate the uselessness of so much corporate media political journalism than Kathleen Hennessey’s piece in the L.A. Times (4/4/11) on Republican Rep. Paul Ryan’s deficit reduction plan.
The piece is headlined “House Republican Budget Plan Would Revamp Medicare,” and the lead explains that the GOP budget proposal outlined by Ryan “includes an overhaul of Medicare and Medicaid and would aim to chop at least $4 trillion from the federal deficit over the next decade.””Revamp,” an “overhaul”–well, that sounds good, doesn’t it? How does Ryan plan to do that, exactly?
Despite reporting that Ryan’s “broad overview” offered “the clearest picture yet” of Republican deficit-reduction plans, the piece is far from clear: Hennessey reports that Ryan is suggesting “changes to entitlement programs”–“dramatic changes”–and is “addressing the rising costs of the program.” Then, in the seventh paragraph, we get this:
Under the proposed rework of the Medicare program, seniors would chose from several federally subsidized health plans. The changes would take effect in 2021 and would not affect people who are 55 or older now, Ryan said.
Oh, OK–so how’s that going to save $4 trillion? The piece doesn’t say–that’s the full description.
Then in the 26th paragraph, we get a quote from a partisan critic of Ryan’s plan, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D.-Md.), who says that the plan cuts “health security for seniors.” He’s not allowed to get any more specific than that, but Ryan gets four paragraphs of rebuttal to Van Hollen’s one paragraph of vague criticism, starting with:
Ryan described the Medicare plan as a version of a “premium support” system he crafted along with former Clinton administration budget director Alice Rivlin. He acknowledged the proposal would shift more of the burden for healthcare costs to seniors, saying the wealthiest seniors would bear the largest portion.
“More for the poor, more for people who are sick, and we don’t give as much to the people who are wealthy,” Ryan said. “This saves Medicare.”
Whoa, whoa, wait a second–“shift more of the burden for healthcare costs to seniors”? Why is this the first we’re hearing about this, in the 27th paragraph of a 31-paragraph article?
Ryan’s plan is not very hard to explain: He wants to replace Medicare with a system where seniors would receive vouchers to buy health insurance. As the cost of health insurance rises every year, the value of the vouchers would rise by not as much. Eventually the difference between the value of the vouchers and the cost of buying health insurance, along with a similar scheme for cutting Medicaid reimbursements, would amount to $4 trillion–which would be the amount that would come out of the pockets of seniors and the poor, plus the amount of healthcare they would do without.
That’s what the L.A. Times means by “revamping.” But if the paper explained that to its readers, they would mostly think Ryan’s idea was a terrible one. And that would be biased–so it’s better to leave the readers not knowing any more than they did before they read the article.
“More for the poor, more for people who are sick …”
There will be indeed be more for these folks, if Ryan and his ilk have their way.
More illness, death, poverty and despair.
Never say austerity didn’t give you nothin’.
More and more are saying, get rid of the cushy benefits that legislators voted for themselves. Let them recieve no more than the rest of us. Medicare for all. Education (propaganda, if you like) to teach our children the importance of a healthy life-style. / Unfortuneately, Special Interest propaganda tries to scare us with those code-terms from the brainwashing of the better-dead-than-red era, “socialized medicine” for example. We need to listen to reason rather than be manipulated with the fear-propaganda. // jean Clelland-Morin
‘Revamping’ Medicare? The Word They’re Looking for Is ‘Slashing’
i’d go one step further : The Word They’re Looking for Is ‘Eliminating’
Well W and B(good to see you by the by)I have been studying his budget and I just don’t see that.Revamping yes -but we all know that is/was coming.Will it work to better the program is the essential question .Is it a nightmare change akin to Obama cares change for healthcare.Honestly i think you are jumping the gun .Lets let it percolate a bit.Let the ideologs and numbers crunchers have their say.Then the special interest groups.Then we can begin the discussion.Bottom line is big changes are coming.Irregardless of what Rs or Ds try to hand you.And my guess is it will be painful.
That’s right, Woodward burnstein. Hmm. The sheer vagueness surrounding the whole enterprise is there for a reason. Ryan and his cohorts know that if they actually tell us what’s in his bag, people will throw him out onto the curb (where he belongs). It’s like what’s happening in Wisconsin–thousands of working people and unionists voted for Walker, out of ignorance and vague promises about curing what ills us from the reactionary governor. (See this month’s Progressive magazine for some interesting stuff about this.) The Republicans have/i> to lie and cheat and steal in order to exalt themselves. They are the minority party and always have been. The brazenness, the sickness, of their core desires, finally out in the open, has even the most ignorant among us upset and outraged. The good news is that Walker and others have awakened the average working person–as Matt Rothschild reports, ” . . . Ed Garvey, the eminence grise of Democratic progressives in Wisconsin, told me, ‘Scott Walker is the best union organizer we ever had.'”
Okay, I sort of have the italics thing down. What would be awesome here is full text editing. Coming soon? Sorry about the double post:
That’s right, Woodward burnstein. Hmm. The sheer vagueness surrounding the whole enterprise is there for a reason. Ryan and his cohorts know that if they actually tell us what’s in his bag, people will throw him out onto the curb (where he belongs). It’s like what’s happening in Wisconsin–thousands of working people and unionists voted for Walker, out of ignorance and vague promises about curing what ills us from the reactionary governor. (See this month’s Progressive magazine for some interesting stuff about this.) The Republicans have to lie and cheat and steal in order to exalt themselves. They are the minority party and always have been. The brazenness, the sickness, of their core desires, finally out in the open, has even the most ignorant among us upset and outraged. The good news is that Walker and others have awakened the average working person–as Matt Rothschild reports, ” . . . Ed Garvey, the eminence grise of Democratic progressives in Wisconsin, told me, ‘Scott Walker is the best union organizer we ever had.'”
“Premium support,” more euphemism for privatization or personalization of SS and /or Medicare and Medicaid. It means the same thing, seniors and the disabled are going to get screwed without their consent or am I being euphemistic and should say raped instead?
This deficit hysteria is just crazy. Posted elsewhere I have pointed out that if the top 1% paid just $550,000, which they can afford with no pain inflicted, would come to 1.65 trillion dollars. And these folks, the top 1% ers, would still be millionaires and billionaires, and at the same time there would be no deficit and no need for spending cuts that hurt the most vulnerable.
I am so disappointed that misinformation from formerly credible sources is rampant in the MSM and right wing websites. Canada has a law to tell the truth on news casts and recently their Parliament voted down changing it to a FOX styled news presentation which allows lies to be told. There is also in Canada, though, a push to make Canada less of a secular nation. Guess who is pushing the idea? The evangelical zealots, some in the US and some in Canada.
“The system filters out the thoughtful and replaces it with the faithful.”
“It is error only and not truth that shrinks from inquiry.”
“If a nation expects to be both ignorant and free in a state of civilization it expects what never was and what never will be.”
“Poor dear, there’s nothing between his ears.” Margaret Thatcher said of Reagan .
“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men. they create for themselves, in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it, and moral code that justifies it.”
Political Economist Frederic Bostiat in The Law (1850)
“Thinking is skilled work.It is not true that we are naturally endowed with the ability to think clearly and logically___without learning how, or without practicing. People with untrained minds should no more expect to think clearly and logically than people who have never learned and never practiced can expect to find themselves good carpenters, golfers, or bridge players.”
Alfred Mander in Logic for the Millions.
“Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, because it is the merger of the corporations and the state.” Benito Mussolini
“Above all things, good policy is to be used so that the treasures and monies in a state be not gathered into a few hands. Money is like muck, not good except to be spread around.”
Age of Reason by Francis Bacon
And lastly, if you have read thus far,
“The press lives by disclosures making them the common property of the nation; obtaining the earliest and most correct intelligence of the events of the times is the goal.”
and
“For us, with whom publicity and truth are the air and light of existence, there can be no greater disgrace than to recall from the frank and accurate disclosure of facts as they are. We are bound to tell the truth as we find it, without fear of consequences___to lend no convenient shelter to acts of injustice and oppression, but to consign them at once to the judgment of the world.”
Robert Lowe, London Times
“Faith based rationality is a recipe for sectarian conflict and intolerance.”
Since it seems the Rethugnut Party has abandoned science and its recommendations on things like climate change, they must be relying on faith based and not evidence based information. As when Congressman Schiklits, or whatever his name read the bible at a climate change committee meeting and said that was all he needed to know, which was that the bible said god would not destroy the earth by water again and therefore no need to worry about climate changes or enacting any laws to help to halt its progression, or doing things like transitioning away from burning so much fossil fuel into the air in the form of CO2.
“nuff said as I’m sure some of you might agree.
short and [not] sweet…….for people who are now age 55 or under, the ryan proposal would eliminate traditional fee-for-service medicare and replace the program with vouchers.