Be fair to adaher: At least when he wants to argue two opposing ideas simultaneously (such as when he was declaring Obama both a spineless flip-flopper and an inflexible obstructionist), he has the brains to keep the ideas in separate threads. The most hopeless of the partisan hacks do that stuff in the same thread without ever grokking that people can scroll back through.
Wait - at what point were they bought by the Sheinhardt Wig Company?
Okay, you’ve got me. I looked at the NY Times, the Washington Post, all three major networks, and various liberal-oriented magazines and didn’t find any story devoted soley to “manipulation” of Medicare Advantage cuts, although it was certainly referenced. Do you think that if such manipulation were indeed illegal, that the media would still not have reported on it? Is it not possible, just possible, that you look for instances of something that the media does not report on, and then use that as some sort of evidence for liberal media bias? Just look at the news stories from the last few days. The media did not make any attempt to hide Obama’s poor debate performance, and in fact covered it in excruciating detail. Romney’s turnaround supported by the polls is all over the networks now. John McCain just finished a segment on the Today Show where he was basically given free-rein to defend Romney’s recent speech on foreign policy. I could go on and on with examples to refute the silly liberal bias argument. I think, however, that it would be futile, because someone can always come along and find something that the media didn’t report on, no matter how trivial.
I don’t know where this notion of “illegal” Medicare Advantage cuts is coming from. But I’ll just opine that Medicare Advantage should be cut, it’s a failed experiment in achieving cost savings by introducing private sector middlemen into the mix, and continues to get subsidized solely for ideological/crony capitalist reasons. It’s the same as when the banks were permitted to make federally guaranteed student loans. The practical result is that taxpayers just hand profits over to the private sector and get no benefit in return.
Anyone who would profess to be a fiscal conservative should have no problem with this.
We wouldn’t, if Democrats would be honest about it. Liberals on discussion boards are perfectly happy to support Medicare Advantage cuts. Democrats on the campaign trail not so much. Instead, it’s just “overpayments”, which nevertheless will cause a lot of plans to fold. And that can’t happen in October.
I’m really not clear what you’re talking about. Perhaps you should discontinue this hijack if you’re not going to make sense.
ACA makes big cuts to Medicare Advantage. As you say, this is a defensible policy on the merits. But Democrats aren’t defending it, they are outright denying it. That’s not how you make public policy.
Sounds like politics to me.
If these cuts to Medicare Advantage are being caused by ACA, then why is it so odd that the cuts won’t occur until after the election since alot of the provisions of ACA don’t kick in until after election* as well?
*Parts of it as late as 2020.
And it’s the kind of thing the media would harp on if Republicans were cutting PBS and merely saying they were cutting “overpayments to public corporations”.
The Medicare Advantage cuts happened early to make the 10 year budget window balance. Spending is only for six years, but tax increases and spending cuts are over 8-10, depending on the particular provision.
But the Republicans would never claim that. They’d tie cuts to PBS to a general program of “balancing the budget,” as if doing so would be a significant contributor to that goal. But if it’s noticed that cutting PBS would have virtually no effect on the deficit, and that Republicans rejected other, more effective cuts, then it’d be perfectly fair to wonder if they’re serious about tackling the deficit or not.
Eliminating subsides to providers of Medicare Advantage plans is a no-brainer if the goal is to tackle the growth in healthcare costs.
adaher mentioned that the Obama administration had no “legal authority” to delay the cuts, implying some sort of illegality on their part. He didn’t answer my question about whether the supposedly liberally-biased media would cover such a story or not, presumably because it would hurt the theory of such overt bias.
The thread is now totally off topic. Well done, adaher!
It bears the most tenuous of connections to the aside in the OP, that the discovery that Obama had leaned on the BLS to cook the employment stats would be hazardous to his reelection prospects. Of course, that connection was made by trotting out trite Liberal Media bs, and complaining that Obama isn’t conducting himself in a way that helps his opponents.
So not “totally” off topic, but a waste of time nonetheless.
Eh, I figure I’m just about as guilty as adaher in this case. I’d sure love an answer to my question though.
Well, to bring things back to the BLS, my point was just that unless the administration actually faces legal jeopardy, the media won’t report, and they won’t report until after legal jeopardy has begun. That was the pattern with Fast and Furious. It was a story in the right-wing media for a year until Congress decided there was something to it and began an investigation. Which forced the media to cover it.
Messing around with BLS data wouldn’t be very interesting to the media unless it was done in a very ham-handed manner. If they merely changed the way some things were calculated it would barely make a ripple.
Welch has just quit writing for Fortune and Reuters after they both discounted his claims.
The media won’t report what? Anything at all uncomplimentary to Obama, or only the illegal things he does? But just forget it. This isn’t the thread for it and the liberally-biased media idea has been around so long, it ain’t going anywhere now. As O’Reilly says, I’ll give you the last word, if you want it, of course.
They’re just lucky he didn’t challenge them to a round of fisticuffs.
