Bush needs to find money to spend on his illegal war, which, interestingly, he doesn’t even include a full years spending, so you know he’s going to cut programs needed by the people. Of course, programs targeted for major cuts are Medicare and Medicaid.
In his new budget, to be unveiled Monday, President Bush will call for large cuts in the growth of Medicare, far exceeding what he proposed last year, and he will again seek major savings in Medicaid, according to administration officials and budget documents.
Over all, the 2009 budget is likely to be the first $3 trillion spending request by a president.
[...]Budget documents show that Mr. Bush will propose legislative changes in Medicare to save $6 billion in the next year and $91 billion from 2009 to 2013. In his last budget, by contrast, his legislative proposals would have saved $4 billion in the first year and $65.6 billion over five years.
The president’s budget also takes aim at Medicaid, the insurance program for low-income people. He would pare $1.2 billion from it next year and nearly $14 billion over five years.
Those figures do not include tens of billions of dollars that Mr. Bush wants to save through new regulations. Such rules are not subject to approval by Congress, but could be revised by a future administration.
The biggest problem, is that Bush’s own “rules” passed by arm-twisting by his minions on the Hill, have caused a lot of the problems with Medicare. For instance, not allowing (and fighting to continue not to allow) Medicare to negotiate directly with drug companies to bet bigger and better savings.
Furthermore, Bush and the GOP have created a greater need of medicaid as wages dip unemployment rises, for the people through their economic misspending, cuts to states, cuts, cuts, cuts.
To justify prior budget proposals, the White House has often cited the work of an independent federal panel, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission. The panel voted this month to recommend that Medicare payments to hospitals be increased about 3 percent in 2009, to reflect the expected increase in the cost of goods and services hospitals use. Under the president’s budget, Medicare payments would not keep pace with those costs in 2009 or any subsequent year.
If your loved one is in a nursing home, or is considering a nursing home, you might want to chain your loved one to their bed or lock them in a room*** during the day — it will be just as effective if Bush’s cuts to nursing homes goes through. (***the archcrone is in no way advocating that you chain your loved one to a bed or lock them in a room this was to make a point)
“Under the proposal,” Mr. Dombi said, “75 percent to 80 percent of home health agencies would be doomed. They would not be able to meet payroll. They would not be able to operate.”
So, I want to know what the democrats are going to do about this mess. How quickly and how deeply will they cave to the Greedy Ole Party this year?
And when this results in the overwhelming majority of doctors deciding they can no longer afford to accept Medicare, do you know what’s going to happen?
The GOP will say “See?? Socialized medicine and universal health care doesn’t work!”
[...] even when there aren’t any victims, libs create them in their head. Take this post from Archcrone about how Bush is supposedly screwing over the wealthiest demographic of Americans, [...]
This makes me sick! When checking out nursing homes last year, I found the going rate in a certain area to be $180.00 per day! How many people can afford that for very long! I can’t imagine ANYONE except the very wealthy going into a nursing home and NOT going on to Medicaid at some point.
And putting home health care agencies out of business? That’s ludicrous! What an asinine line item to cut out! I know this is SO obvious, but I’ll say it anyways. It is so much cheaper to provide care in the home, and timely home health care can save a lot of money down the road etc……