Where will health care cuts be made?: Louisiana-Bobby Jindal

http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2012/07/where_will_health_care_cuts_be.html

Originally, Louisiana Sen. Landrieu cut a deal in the new Healthcare bill in 2012 –so Louisiana would not be penalized for federal money pouring into the state after Hurricane Katrina. The fix was to help Louisiana avoid cuts in the Federal Medicaid portion—the state paying a higher rate. Since it looked like economically, Louisiana was doing well, but it was artificially high because of Federal aid, which would make the state pay more for their portion of Medicaid.
Democrat-Blue Dog-Sen. Landrieu was doing her job looking out for her state. For her troubles, she was called names such as a whore—I think that was started by
Rush Limbaugh on his radio show. Then the name-calling continued with the many, many Louisiana Southern GOP radio show listeners. I saw it as Ignorant Hate for anyone or anything Democrat. And of course, Southern GOP hate for Obama’s Healthcare Bill.

Louisiana took a big hit after Hurricane Katrina–the poor the most. Sen. Landrieu was making sure any state in the United States suffering after a disaster would not be penalized from the Medicaid Rates.

These Medicaid and healthcare cuts in Louisiana–I wonder if it has anything to do with Gov. Jindal wanting to Privatization everything. He just put in school vouchers to Religious Schools.

Something big is up here and I am looking into it. I think I will start with Gov. Jindal’s belief system–it is very extreme. I know he is on the short list –on Romeny’s VP list. Since I have a disabled brother that I see to in his care in a Nursing Home –I keep an eye open in Louisiana’s Medicaid and Mental Healthcare. Big cuts are happening fast—too fast for anyone to figure what is going on. Maybe that is the idea too.

The GOP governors in these states do not want to take any of the Federal Medicaid money in the New Healthcare Law. They want to stick it to Obama–but the poor and the uninsured will be the ones that suffer. Because of their Anti-Obama Politics.

In the ACA–The federal government will pick up 100% of the cost for the first three years and 90 percent for the next 5. Right now, the federal government pays 57% of Medicaid’s costs in Louisiana.

Is There a Fiscal Crisis in the United States?

But much more of the increase in the deficit was because of tax cuts under George W. Bush, Medicare Part D (which expanded coverage for prescription medicines) and – most of all – the financial crisis that brought down the economy and sharply reduced tax revenue starting in September 2008.

Our modern debt surge is much more about declining federal government revenue than it is about runaway spending. If you believe strongly that our fiscal issues are primarily about “runaway spending,” please read our book.

The smart approach is to begin the long and not-so-nice work of controlling deficits while allowing the economy to grow.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/is-there-a-fiscal-crisis-in-the-united-states/

FLASHBACK: Fox News On Gas Prices In 2008

Following GOP strategy, Fox News is again blaming the Obama administration for rising gasoline prices — a claim that has been repeatedly debunked by energy analysts. But back in the summer of 2008, when the average U.S. gasoline price hit a record high of $4.11, Fox said that “no President has the power to increase or to lower gas prices.”

In 2008, Fox’s coverage occasionally even mirrored the facts: expanding domestic oil drilling willnotsignificantlylowerprices, and the only way to reduce our vulnerability to gas price spikes is to use less oil. Perhaps there was more room for reality-based coverage at Fox when there wasn’t an incumbent president to defeat?

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201203050007

A Civil Right to Unionize

FROM the 1940s to the 1970s, organized labor helped build a middle-class democracy in the United States. The postwar period was as successful as it was because of unions, which helped enact progressive social legislation from the Civil Rights Act to Medicare. Since then, union representation of American workers has fallen, in tandem with the percentage of income going to the middle class. Broadly shared prosperity has been replaced by winner-take-all plutocracy.

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/01/opinion/a-civil-right-to-unionize.html?scp=1&sq=a+civil+right+to+unionize&st=cse

Outrage Index: Near Majority Blames GOP For Frustration With Washington | TPMDC

Outrage Index: Near Majority Blames GOP For Frustration With Washington | TPMDC.

Who owns America? Hint: It’s not China – Global Public Square – CNN.com Blogs

Here’s a quick and fascinating breakdown by total amount held and percentage of total U.S. debt, according to Business Insider:

 

• Hong Kong: $121.9 billion (0.9 percent)
• Caribbean banking centers: $148.3 (1 percent)
• Taiwan: $153.4 billion (1.1 percent)
• Brazil: $211.4 billion (1.5 percent)
• Oil exporting countries: $229.8 billion (1.6 percent)
• Mutual funds: $300.5 billion (2 percent)
• Commercial banks: $301.8 billion (2.1 percent)
• State, local and federal retirement funds: $320.9 billion (2.2 percent)
• Money market mutual funds: $337.7 billion (2.4 percent)
• United Kingdom: $346.5 billion (2.4 percent)
• Private pension funds: $504.7 billion (3.5 percent)
• State and local governments: $506.1 billion (3.5 percent)
• Japan: $912.4 billion (6.4 percent)
• U.S. households: $959.4 billion (6.6 percent)
• China: $1.16 trillion (8 percent)
• The U.S. Treasury: $1.63 trillion (11.3 percent)
• Social Security trust fund: $2.67 trillion (19 percent)

So America owes foreigners about $4.5 trillion in debt. But America owes America $9.8 trillion.

 

Who owns America? Hint: It’s not China – Global Public Square – CNN.com Blogs.

GOP and Obama’s jobs plan: Do Republicans oppose the president’s economic policies for ideological reasons or political ones? – By Jacob Weisberg – Slate Magazine

You can’t stop President Obama from reaching out to Republicans; it’s what he does. In Thursday night’s speech, he tried two separate maneuvers—reminding them of their support for stimulus measures in the past and accepting the good faith of their opposition. “Now, I realize that some of you have a different theory on how to grow the economy,” he said. “Some of you sincerely believe that the only solution to our economic challenges is to simply cut most government spending and eliminate most government regulations.”

 

GOP and Obama’s jobs plan: Do Republicans oppose the president’s economic policies for ideological reasons or political ones? – By Jacob Weisberg – Slate Magazine.

Corporate Power Decried By Former Lawmaker

Because [corporations] have become so international and global in nature, it’s highly questionable whether governments can actually control corporations to a sufficient degree to prevent them from controlling governments,”

 

Corporate Power Decried By Former Lawmaker.

EconoMonitor » Has S&P Become Our Rupert Murdoch?

Hamsher calls S&P a “kingmaker” and this isn’t an exaggeration given the effect their actions are having. Either way, they will shoot the economy in the head. Either the negotiators come up with package that suits their demands, which will lead to steep enough cuts that the economy will weaken in 2012, making an Obama loss highly probable.

 

EconoMonitor : EconoMonitor » Has S&P Become Our Rupert Murdoch?.

Is Standard and Poor’s Manipulating US Debt Rating to Escape Liability for the Mortgage Crisis? | Firedoglake

Whatever S&P’s agenda, it has nothing to do with avoiding default risks or putting the US on sound fiscal footing. It appears to be intertwined with their attempts to absolve themselves from responsibility for their role in the 2008 financial crisis, and they are willing to manipulate not only the 2012 election but the world economy to escape the SEC’s attempts to regulate them.

It’s time the media and Congress started asking Standard and Poors what their political agenda is and whom it serves.

 

 

Is Standard and Poor’s Manipulating US Debt Rating to Escape Liability for the Mortgage Crisis? | Firedoglake.

Ratigan delivers wake-up call to Congress -msnbc.com Video Player

msnbc.com Video Player.

The Tea Party, the debt ceiling, and white Southern extremism – War Room – Salon.com

The debt ceiling crisis is the latest case in which the radical right in the South has held America hostage until its demands are met. Presidents Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln refused to appease the Southern fanatics. Unfortunately, President Obama and the Democrats in Congress chose not to follow their example and instead gave in. In doing so, they have encouraged the neo-Confederate minority in Congress to find yet another opportunity in the near future to extort concessions from America’s majority by sabotaging America’s government. 

 

The Tea Party, the debt ceiling, and white Southern extremism – War Room – Salon.com.

The Willful Ignorance That Has Dragged the US to the Brink | Common Dreams

The Tea Party version of the American Revolution is not just fundamentalist: it is also Disneyfied, sentimentalized, and whitewashed. It rests on a naïve, solipsistic and exceptionalist faith that for America it will all work out in the end, because America is “the greatest nation in the world”. They take solace in tautology: America is great – this they know – because Fox News tells them so.

 

 

The Willful Ignorance That Has Dragged the US to the Brink | Common Dreams.

Deficits: There never was a surplus | The Economist

The Bush tax cuts did the opposite: $3 trillion worth of tax cuts were predicated on the premise that we were returning the people “their” money. As it turned out, the money wasn’t there to return. Even without the tax cuts, the wars, or anything else, the government would have entered 2011 with $1.3 trillion in debt, not $2.3 trillion in savings. Basically, in the grip of careless enthusiasm about the economic future, we borrowed $3 trillion from bond markets and handed it out to citizens in rough proportion to how rich they already were. In the middle of a recovery. This is not a useful thing for the government to do.

 

 

Deficits: There never was a surplus | The Economist.

The Chart That Should Accompany All Discussions of the Debt Ceiling – James Fallows – Politics – The Atlantic

The Chart That Should Accompany All Discussions of the Debt Ceiling – James Fallows – Politics – The Atlantic.