NCPSSM Raises Concerns, Progress on the Doc Fix, Middle Class Defense, Reality-Free Politics

Worry About Medicare and Social Security . . . and Something New From NCPSSM

From NCPSSM:  "Only time will tell whether the 'reforms' President Obama offered up again in last night’s State of the Union are the standard Washington formulation of reforms = benefit cuts for seniors or something more meaningful."

NCPSSM President/CEO Max Richtman says, "We share President Obama’s belief that we must rebuild our economy in a way that rewards Americans’ hard work and re-instills fairness into an economic system that too often rewards the rich and punishes everyone else.  Ironically, these core American values of hard work, fairness and compassion are also the tenets of the programs most often targeted by Washington for cuts -- Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.  If offering more reforms leads to benefit cuts for seniors in these vital programs then seniors program will once again become a bargaining chip traded in exchange for tax breaks millionaires don’t need in the first place."

Once again, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare is standing up for people who will need Social Security and Medicare the most -- the middle class.  Please occasionally check their blog: "Entitled to Know."  Or -- better yet -- visit and bookmark their new site "2012 Campaign Watch."  Of great interest, "What the Candidates Are Saying" reports what the candidates claim and then discloses the facts.  Give it a look!

GOP Might Support Doc Fix

"House Republicans are coming around to the Democrats’ plan for permanently ending the Medicare 'doc fix' problem -- a $300 billion and growing albatross around the nation’s neck that virtually everybody believes needs to be fixed.  The option is now on the table, key Republicans tell TPM, just one month after some of those same lawmakers dismissed it as a senseless Washington gimmick.  Last fall Democrats began pushing the idea to pay for a full repeal of the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula with war savings from troop drawdowns in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Republicans didn’t much care for it, but Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ) hopped on board during the Super Committee negotiations, and has since been working behind the scenes to win GOP support."

MORE:  Pay for SGR Repeal With War Savings, Says Organized Medicine  "The American Medical Association (AMA) and 109 other medical societies are urging Congress to use a peace dividend from military pullbacks in Iraq and Afghanistan to underwrite the massive cost of repealing Medicare's sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula for setting physician reimbursement."

Dems Defend Middle Class

"Senate Democrats are preparing an aggressive legislative agenda to complement the vision President Obama outlined in his State of the Union Address.  The goal is to test the idea that the public supports an agenda of aggressive federal action on behalf of the middle class, and that Republicans are locked in a pattern of reactionary opposition, even to popular policies."  "'We intend to test this theory out by pursuing major chunks of the President’s middle class agenda.  We’re going to push serious proposals to help create middle class jobs.  We’re going to defend Medicare.  And we will pursue tax reform that makes sense for the middle class,' [Sen. Chuck] Schumer [NY] said."

Hard to believe that the Republicans already haven't done enough on their own to get on the wrong side of the middle class.

The Republican Reality-Free Zone

Ann Romney Says It’s Unfortunate That They Had To Release Tax Returns

Watch Mitt Spin: Romney Claims His Real Tax Rate Is ‘Closer To 45 Or 50 Percent’

More Reality-Free Politics

"60 Plus Chairman Jim Martin, leader of the nation’s largest conservative seniors organization with over 7.1 million supporters, released the following statement in response to House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer’s (D-MD) comment that ObamaCare was helping restrain health care costs and 'fix' Medicare:  'Are Democrats hallucinating, or have they just gone blind, as there is nothing in President Obama’s health care law that constrains the cost of health care.  The mounting body of evidence in fact proves just the opposite, that Obama’s health care bill is escalating costs, and undermining Medicare as an affordable program for America’s elderly.'"

Whoa.   Enough anger and misleading remarks that we could ask, "Really, who's hallucinating?"

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