If this isn’t a harbinger of doom for the anointed one’s 2012 re-election then nothing is. In two separate articles (one ‘reporting’, the other ‘editorial, though it’s often hard to tell the difference in this publication) the New York Times criticized (yes, actually CRITICIZED) the Obama Administration. (For those of you in Rio Lindo, this is a shock because the NYT is the premier liberal progressive main-stream media arm of the Obama love-fest and all things of the Democrat Party.)
In Medicare Plan for Payments Irks Hospitals (if the link doesn’t work it’s worth your time to Google and read it) the NYT reports “For the first time in its history, Medicare will soon track spending on millions of individual beneficiaries, reward hospitals that hold down costs and penalize those whose patients prove most expensive.”
(If this isn’t health-care rationing, death panels, and throwing Granny off a cliff or under the bus, I don’t know what is.)
“Under the new health law, Medicare will reduce payments to hospitals if too many patients are readmitted after treatment for heart attacks, heart failure or pneumonia.”
“Teaching hospitals worry that the new policy will penalize them because they treat sicker, more expensive patients.”
“…Kenneth E. Raske, president of the Greater New York Hospital Association, said the formula “tends to discriminate against inner-city hospitals with large numbers of immigrant, poor and uninsured patients.””
Then there is the NYT article on the economy. (It is STILL the economy, stupid.) In The Numbers Are Grim (from the Editorial page, not even an Op-Ed) they opine, regardless:
“More troubling in the latest figures, consumer spending — the largest component of the economy — was especially slow. Stagnant wages and higher prices for gas and food are squeezing family budgets, while falling home equity hurts consumer confidence. That suggests more bad news to come.
When consumers are constrained, so is hiring, because without customers, employers are hard pressed to retain workers or make new hires. A recent Labor Department report showed a greater-than-expected rise in the number of people claiming jobless benefits even as private-sector economic forecasts are being revised downward — both very bad omens for continued job growth.”
[What a surprise. Basic economics at work.] The NYT does fallback to standard blame Republicans, praise Democrats mode:
“Republican lawmakers have responded to renewed signs of weakness with a jobs plan that prescribes more of the same “fixes” that Republicans always recommend no matter the problem: mainly high-end tax cuts, deregulation, more domestic oil drilling and federal spending cuts.
The White House has offered sounder ideas, including job retraining, plans to boost educational achievement and tax increases to help cover needed spending.”
[Brilliant! Weak consumer spending? Take more consumer money and give it to the government!]
They further opine:
“If Washington won’t do what is needed to make things better, there are still things that can be done to try to keep the economy from getting worse.
The administration could work to ease the rules for refinancing mortgages owned by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-run mortgage giants. Easier refinancings would lower monthly payments for potentially hundreds of thousands of borrowers in good standing, and in that way, free up spending money to boost the economy.”
[Uhhh, isn’t that what got us into this mess in the first place! How often should I use the term ‘brilliant’?!]
OK, I concede it is a weak slam by the NYT. They’re asking all the right questions and giving all the wrong answers. I do appreciate them alluding that the Obama administration has gotten us absolutely NOWHERE.
How long should we ‘give Obama a chance’… to ‘get it right’? I say to the end of October 2012 and not one second longer. He and his cronies MUST GO.
Related articles
- NYT editorial: Grim news on the economy (americablog.com)
- The DC Disconnect (skydancingblog.com)
- Obama Administration Proposes Alignment Initiative for Medicaid and Medicare (insurance.zocdoc.com)
- Medicare plan to reward cheaper hospital care (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
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