Medicare Boondoggle Rises Again

Whoa skippy! Headline: Medicare Premiums To Rise By 17.5%
Percentage Increase Biggest in 15 Years

Why is it that when Republicans "reform" something, it always ends up out of the reach of the people who need it most?

Here's the reason for the increase: "By law, McClellan's agency (Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services) is required to keep adequate reserves in the Medicare account. He attributed about a quarter of the increase to maintaining the trust fund."

And this prompted me to peek into some data on Social Security, that lock-boxed trust fund that Bush pledged never to touch. Well, he touched it. It financed his tax cuts. From August 29, 2001:

This year's federal budget surplus has plunged to $153 billion because of the nation's economic doldrums and the Bush administration's tax cut, meaning the federal government will have to cover $9 billion of spending by dipping into Social Security, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected Tuesday.

What galls me most is the argument that, well, 9/11 happened and there was a war. Yes. I was under the impression that Republicans, the responsibility party, would run a government that had some money stuffed under some mattress somewhere in the event, that, oh, I don't know... Someone attacked us and we had to pay $200 billion-plus in war costs.

Look, I've got $1,300 in credit card debt I'm paying down that drives me nuts. I own my car, I live in a place that I can more than afford. I'm a fiscal hawk; I want to track down deficits wherever they may be hiding and strangle them to death with my own two hands. This is why I can say, "Yeah, I don't want to be alone in a room with Bill Clinton, but I do want him running my country." No other president in my lifetime has given our nation the economic benefits that Bill Clinton did.

Posted by shamanic at September 4, 2004 11:37 AM