David Brooks Heaps Praise on Mitt Romney for Wanting to Partially Privatize Medicare
Who needs Fox News when we've got PBS out there spewing the same type of nonsense we hear nonstop there, and allowing David Brooks to come on the air opining the failure of the so-called "Super Committee" to reach a deal and praising Mitt Romney for embracing the advice of Pete Domenici and Alice Rivlin, who were urging the committee to partially privatize Medicare. But that's exactly what we got this Monday on The Charlie Rose Show.
Think Progress laid out why this is a terrible idea in their post here -- GOP Super Committee Co-Chair: Lawmakers Failed Because Democrats Refused To Privatize Medicare:
Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) faults the Democrats’ refusal to accept partial Medicare privatization for the super committee’s inability to come up with a bipartisan plan to lower spending in today’s Wall Street Journal. He writes, “Democrats on the committee made it clear that the new spending called for in the president’s health law was off the table” and pretends that the spending in the Affordable Care Act added to the deficit (it actually reduces it). “Republicans offered to negotiate a plan on the other two health-care entitlements—Medicare and Medicaid—based upon the reforms included in the budget the House passed earlier this year,” he continues and lays out the premium support proposal offered by Alice Rivlin and Pete Domenici: [...]
Hensarling doesn’t mention that the Rivlin-Domenici premium-support proposal doesn’t so much lower national health care spending as it shifts it to the beneficiary. The plan reduces the federal contribution to Medicare by capping costs for each beneficiary and offering premium support credits that won’t keep up with actual health care spending. The federal government spends less, but seniors will pay more out of pocket for health care benefits every year. The proposal also breaks up the market clout of traditional Medicare and rather than ratcheting up some of efficiencies and payment reforms in the Affordable Care Act, it sets the nation on an untested path of private competition — leaving seniors vulnerable to the manipulations of for-profit health insurers.
Rough transcript of Brooks' hackery below the fold.
