Santorum Against Medicare, President Gets Good Medicare Marks, Medicare Cuts, No Easy Fix, Still Asking

Santorum Raps Medicare

"Rick Santorum continued to rail against Medicare during a stop in South Carolina this afternoon, pledging to reform the program by turning it over to private health insurers and 'free markets.'  'We have to look at how we’re spending our money,' Santorum explained, before awkwardly comparing the health care program to Mitt Romney’s signature law in Massachusetts.  'In the area of Medicare, it is incredibly inefficient.  The Medicare system is simply like Romneycare in Massachusetts  …  It will eventually mean that a lot of seniors aren’t going to get the care that they need.'"

Many, many erroneous statements about Medicare.  Broad accusations which are not backed up by the facts.  Shameful, but expected from a disgraced, former US Senator.

President Obama and Medicare

"President Obama opens his re-election bid facing significant obstacles among independent voters, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, with the critical piece of the electorate that cemented his victory four years ago open to denying him a second term."  "When asked whom they trust, the poll found that Mr. Obama has an advantage over Congressional Republicans in making the right decisions about creating jobs, health care, Medicare and Social Security.  Yet the gap narrows on the economy -- the chief concern among voters -- with 44 percent of Americans saying they trust Mr. Obama and 40 percent saying they trust Republicans in Congress."

GOP Ready To Cut Medicare

"Hospitals are reigniting a battle with House Republicans that grew bitter last month after the GOP pushed to offset its payroll tax cut package with deep cuts to hospital payments under Medicare.  The undercurrents of this fight are deepening fissures between hospitals and Republicans over the passage and future of the Affordable Care Act.  The American Hospital Association, the industry’s top lobbying group, on Friday issued an action alert -- provided to TPM by a source -- to its roughly 40,000 members, mobilizing them against some $14 billion in cuts pushed by the House GOP to hospital bad debt payments and outpatient services to help fund a longer payroll tax cut, unemployment insurance and a two-year Medicare doc fix."

Difficult To Fix

From Kaiser Health News:  "If you were hoping for a quick resolution of the Medicare physician payment issue, think again.  The 'doc fix' issue is part of a broader and more complicated debate: how to finance an extension of the current payroll tax cut for the rest of the year and federal benefits for the long-term unemployed.  Both parties want to stop a scheduled 27 percent cut in Medicare physician payments but disagree over how to pay for it.  The current extension expires at the end of February."

I'm Still Asking . . .

What is a so-called senior organization doing meddling in Conservative political issues like the Keystone Pipeline and Internet policy, issues that only tangentially, at best, have any effect on older people?  I've asked before but can only find that the 60 Plus Association reportedly has ties to the national Republican Party and appears to be a front group for Big Pharma.  If you know more about them, please leave a comment.

For Your Information

Don't Take the Vote Away From Seniors

The Republican Reality-Free Zone

How Republicans Killed Their Own Pet Oil Pipeline Project -- "'It’s a question of whether we’d rather have the pipeline or the issue,' said one of the GOP aides.  In the end they chose the issue."

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