Destroying Medicare - Rep. Paul Ryan's Free-Market 'Death Panels'

Destroying Medicare - Rep. Paul Ryan's Free-Market 'Death Panels'

The consequences of three decades of anti-government Reaganism and free-market extremism are now coming clearly into view, a cruel and brutish America split sharply between a few lucky haves and many desperate have-nots.

As Rep. Paul Ryan proudly declared in unveiling the Republican budget plan for fiscal 2012, “This is not a budget; this is a cause.”

It is the “cause” advanced in the modern era by President Ronald Reagan and economist Milton Friedman. It calls for further slashing the tax rate for the richest Americans by another ten percentage points, from 35 percent to 25 percent, while enacting a wide range of domestic spending cuts, including phasing out the Medicare health program for the elderly as it has existed since the 1960s.

Under Ryan’s plan, senior citizens in the future would have to select a private health insurance policy with the government paying “premium support” worth about $8,000 to the company, thus shifting a heavier, even crushing, financial burden onto the elderly.

And, since Ryan’s plan also would repeal President Barack Obama’s health reform, which prohibits insurance companies from excluding coverage of “preexisting conditions,” senior citizens suffering from chronic illnesses might find themselves unable to get coverage of those ailments and likely consigned to a premature death.

As medical writer Sheila Guilloton noted about Ryan’s plan, “What is not clear or even addressed is the problem of putting eligibility to purchase health insurance back in the hands of the health insurance industry.”

Even today, people just shy of Medicare’s 65-year-old threshold find themselves either shunned by insurance companies or paying exorbitant amounts. Yet Ryan envisions thrusting Americans over 65 into that same predicament, only worse because they are more likely to have health problems and are less likely to be under a company plan.

“For older people the prospect of getting and paying for private health insurance is daunting,” Guilloton wrote “For instance, in Connecticut a PPO with a $5,000 deductible would cost a 60-64 year old and spouse between $1,400 and $1,900 a month. And that cost presumes that they either are part of a company group plan or have no pre-existing conditions.

“The plan to return control of access to health insurance companies without addressing the issue of eligibility and cost control is simply to return to the very pattern of abuse in place before the attempt at health care reform.”

The elimination of Obama’s health-care reform also would remove requirements that insurance companies devote a high percentage of their premiums to medical services rather than diverting the money to higher executive salaries and greater profits.

In other words, Ryan’s plan would fatten the insurance industry's bottom line by squeezing the elderly on health care. In effect, the plan would create a free-market “death panel” by forcing many senior citizens to skip necessary care.

Ryan also would “save” large sums by turning the Medicaid program for the poor into a state block grant system, which would leave states little choice but to also turn their backs on many sick and disabled.

No Balanced Budget

Yet, even as Ryan touts his goal of cutting government spending by more than $6.2 trillion over the next decade, compared to Obama’s budget, Ryan’s plan would still not result in a balanced federal budget for nearly three decades, let alone pay off the accumulated national debt.

That’s because Ryan would accompany his steep spending cuts with lower tax rates for the wealthiest Americans. And those lower tax rates – based on an ideological devotion to Reagan’s “trickle-down economics” and Friedman’s “free-market” extremism – have been a principal cause of the debt problem.

Remember just a decade ago, after President Bill Clinton and the congressional Democrats raised the tax rates modestly, the U.S. government was running a surplus and was on a path to eliminate the entire federal debt.

Then, President George W. Bush and congressional Republicans began enacting tax cuts again.

Those tax cuts – combined with Bush’s two wars and the financial crisis caused, in large part, by inadequate federal regulation of Wall Street – flooded the U.S. government ledgers with trillions of dollars in red ink.

So, the logical remedy would seem to be to combine some reasonable spending cuts with a surtax on millionaires and billionaires. There also could be huge savings if the United States shifted to a “Medicare-for-all” health system that eliminated the expensive private insurance middlemen.

But that would go against Reagan/Friedman dogma about giving virtually all power to corporations and trusting in the “magic of the market.” Therefore, Ryan’s “solution” is to savage domestic government spending, weaken government regulatory powers and pass more tax cuts for the wealthy.

Since he unveiled his budget plan this week, Ryan has been widely hailed by the mainstream U.S. news media as a “courageous” visionary, a thoughtful guy who is brave enough to make the tough choices.

In watching the correspondents on CNN and CNBC – not to mention Fox – it’s almost as if the revenue side of the budget crisis is non-existent. “Political courage” only comes from destroying the remnants of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, if not Theodore Roosevelt’s progressive era.

Why not repeal the entire 20th Century and take the nation back to an era of two Americas, a few living in the lap of luxury and most living hand-to-mouth?

Most media talking heads appear to be either devotees of free-market economist Milton Friedman or careerists who know that no one ever lost a promotion by promoting the anti-government doctrine of Ronald Reagan. (Reagan, of course, got his big start in politics in the 1960s by decrying Medicare as socialist oppression.)

The Cost of Reaganism

The American people are now paying the price for the lack of nearly any critical coverage of the Reagan presidency, as was apparent last February in the hagiography broadcast and written about the 40th president around the centennial of his birth.

The syrupy handling of Reagan and his legacy has had a powerful impact on the judgment of the American people. According to a recent Gallup poll, Americans rated Reagan the greatest president ever, five percentage points ahead of Abraham Lincoln, who came in second.

When the Reagan mythology is combined with the powerful influence of the right-wing media, it shouldn’t be a great surprise that many average Americans don’t blame Reagan and his anti-government policies for why their incomes have stagnated or sunk over the past three decades.

Instead, many Americans, especially white men, have been encouraged to blame “guv-mint” and its supposed favoritism toward minorities and the poor. So, some don “revolutionary war” costumes and join Tea Party groups, which are often quietly funded by politically savvy billionaires.

Unlike the duped average guys, the billionaires – the likes of the oil magnate Koch brothers and media mogul Rupert Murdoch – are keenly attuned to their class interests. They know the only serious check on their extraordinary powers would be a democratized and energized federal government.

So, they invest in the faux populism of the Tea Party and Fox News to rile up the white guys with anti-government rage.

Meanwhile, on the opposite side, American progressives have tended to be ineffective in presenting a consistent or coherent message to the people.

Though many progressives recognize the practical value of reforms like Medicare in making the lives of average Americans longer and more fulfilling, some on the Left preach an unrealistic perfectionism that finds little value in imperfect reforms. They almost invite the worst social pain as the only route to some “revolution.”

The combination of these factors – a well-organized Right against a largely disorganized Left – has brought a bleak future into sharp focus.

It can be seen through the lens of Paul Ryan’s budgetary "cause." It would leave sick elderly to die and the nation’s domestic infrastructure to decay, while insurance companies would reap more profits and the super rich would be taxed even less.

It’s an outcome that would have put a crooked smile on the lips of Ronald Reagan and Milton Friedman.


Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat. His two previous books are Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth'.

There is a lot of irony in the Ryan plan. One is what will be a defacto death panel or death sentence for poor and middle-class senior citizens. The other is that The Democrat's Affordable Care Act ( health care reform) is market based and Republican extremists such as Ryan called that socialism.

Nearly Half Of Mississippi Republicans Think Interracial Marriage Should Be Illegal. Another part of the conservative dream to take the USA back to the glory days of the 1850s.

Government Shutdown - Republicans Plan to Destroy Medicare in Order to Protect the Wealthy

Government Shutdown - Republicans Plan to Destroy Medicare in Order to Protect the Wealthy

I was there in 1995 when the government closed because of a budget stalemate. I had to tell most of the Labor Department’s 15,600 employees to go home and not return the next day. I also had to tell them I didn’t know when they’d next get a paycheck.

There were two shutdowns, actually, rolling across the government in close succession, like thunder storms.

It’s not the way to do the public’s business.

Newt Gingrich got blamed largely because his ego was (and is) so big he couldn’t stop blabbing that Clinton should be blamed. (Gingrich’s complaint of a bad seat on Air Force One didn’t help.)

But the larger loss was to the dignity and credibility of the United States government. When average Americans saw the Speaker of the House and the President of the United States behaving like nursery school children unable to get along, it only added to the prevailing cynicism.

Cynicism about government works to the Republicans’ continued advantage.

Case in point. House Budget Chair Paul Ryan unveiled a plan today that should make every American cringe. It would turn Medicare into vouchers whose benefits are funneled into the pockets of private insurers. It would make Medicaid and Food Stamps into block grants that allow states to ignore poor people altogether. It would drastically cut funding for schools, roads, and much else Americans need. And many of the plan’s savings would go to wealthy Americans who’d pay even lower taxes than they do today.

Ryan’s plan has no chance of passage – as long as Democrats are still in control of the Senate (even Democratic deficit hawks like Kent Conrad and Ben Nelson are appalled by it) and the White House.

But this so-called “blueprint” could be a blueprint for America’s future when and if right-wing Republicans take charge.

Which is where the cynicism comes in – and the shutdowns. Republicans may get blamed now. But if the shutdowns contribute to the belief among Americans that government doesn’t work, Republicans win over the long term. As with the rise of the Tea Partiers, the initiative shifts to those who essentially want to close it down for good.

That’s why it’s so important that the President have something more to say to the American people than “I want to cut spending, too, but the Republican cuts go too far.” The “going too far” argument is no match for a worldview that says government is the central problem to begin with.

Obama must show America that the basic choice is between two fundamental views of this nation. Either we’re all in this together, or we’re a bunch of individuals who happen to live within these borders and are mainly on their own.

This has been the basic choice all along — when the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution, in the Civil War, when we went through World War I and World War II and the Great Depression in between, during the Civil Rights movement and beyond.

The President needs to remind us that as members of the same society we have obligations to one another — that the wealthiest among us must pay their fair share of taxes, that any of us who loses our jobs or homes or gets terribly sick can count on the rest of us, and that we have collective obligations to our elderly, our children, and the rest of the planet.

This is why we have government. And anyone who wants to shut it down or cut it down because they say we can’t afford it any longer is plain wrong. We are the richest nation in the world, richer than we’ve ever been. We can afford to remain a society whose members are in it together.

Robert B. Reich has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He also served on President Obama's transition advisory board. His latest book is Supercapitalism.

Why are we even having a budget crunch. Not because the government is broke, but because Republicans and a few conservative Democrats have sworn not to burden the richest two percent of Americans and American corporations with a small tax increase - you know back to the rates we had under Reagan. Just like Conservatives screwed America with lies about Iraq and WMD, they are screwing America over a budget crisis that does not really exist.

Chairman Ryan Gets Roughly Two-Thirds of His Huge Budget Cuts From Programs for Lower-Income Americans. Lower income Americans are the ones that mop your floors, clean your house gutters, wrap your gifts at retail stores, park your car, serve your food, change your oil, empty the bed pan of your sick grandfather and clean your streets.

Republicans Plan to Destroy Medicare, Shut Down Government and Still Not Reduce the Deficit

GOP Moving To Dismantle Medicare

After voting just last week to repeal the landmark health care legislation, House Republicans are on a roll and are now reviving attempts to privatize Medicare. The Associated Press reported today: "House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., is testing support for his idea to replace Medicare with a fixed payment to buy a private medical plan from a menu of coverage options. Party leaders will determine if the so-called voucher plan will be part of the budget Republicans put forward in the spring."

The idea to privatize Medicare is a significant part of Ryan's "Roadmap for America." As we previously reported, Ryan claimed in his book, Young Guns (written with Reps. Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy), that his "Roadmap" will "secure the future of Social Security and Medicare." However, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), his plan would actually dismantle Medicare:

The Ryan plan would eliminate traditional Medicare, most of Medicaid, and all of the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), converting these health programs largely to vouchers that low-income households, seniors, and people with disabilities could use to help buy insurance in the private health insurance market.

But as the AP article notes, "The amount of the voucher would be based on total current Medicare spending and indexed to grow year by year thereafter. But that growth would be less than the torrid pace of health care inflation now." So basically, each year the vouchers would be worth less and less coverage and "by 2080, Medicare would be cut 76 percent below its projected size under current policies."

In 2009, then-Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and 136 Republicans voted for a GOP budget substitute, sponsored by Ryan, that AP said "eventually would end Medicare as it is presently known" by privatizing the system. Then earlier last year, Boehner tried to distance his party from the Medicare voucher program. Now it looks like Republicans leaders have come around again to the GOP darling's idea and are embracing the plan at the expense of American seniors.

Ryan has established a long history of lies, hypocrisy and stealth attempts to attack America's seniors, children and disabled - Media's Responsible Budget Grown-Up Paul Ryan Helped Create Massive Deficits

The Flimflam Man

One depressing aspect of American politics is the susceptibility of the political and media establishment to charlatans. You might have thought, given past experience, that D.C. insiders would be on their guard against conservatives with grandiose plans. But no: as long as someone on the right claims to have bold new proposals, he’s hailed as an innovative thinker. And nobody checks his arithmetic.

Which brings me to the innovative thinker du jour: Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

Mr. Ryan has become the Republican Party’s poster child for new ideas thanks to his “Roadmap for America’s Future,” a plan for a major overhaul of federal spending and taxes. News media coverage has been overwhelmingly favorable; on Monday, The Washington Post put a glowing profile of Mr. Ryan on its front page, portraying him as the G.O.P.’s fiscal conscience. He’s often described with phrases like “intellectually audacious.”

But it’s the audacity of dopes. Mr. Ryan isn’t offering fresh food for thought; he’s serving up leftovers from the 1990s, drenched in flimflam sauce.

Mr. Ryan’s plan calls for steep cuts in both spending and taxes. He’d have you believe that the combined effect would be much lower budget deficits, and, according to that Washington Post report, he speaks about deficits “in apocalyptic terms.” And The Post also tells us that his plan would, indeed, sharply reduce the flow of red ink: “The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan would cut the budget deficit in half by 2020.”

But the budget office has done no such thing. At Mr. Ryan’s request, it produced an estimate of the budget effects of his proposed spending cuts — period. It didn’t address the revenue losses from his tax cuts.

The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has, however, stepped into the breach. Its numbers indicate that the Ryan plan would reduce revenue by almost $4 trillion over the next decade. If you add these revenue losses to the numbers The Post cites, you get a much larger deficit in 2020, roughly $1.3 trillion.

So while Congressional Republicans plan to destroy Medicare and Medicaid, and threatening to close down the government if they do not get their way; they are doing this to actually create an even larger deficit.

Gov. Scott Walker (R) Captive of Conservative Extremists Gives $81,500 Government Job To Top Donor’s 26-Year-Old College Drop-out Son

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) Bought and Paid For by Conservative Extremists Pays Back With $81,500 Government Job To Top Donor’s 26-Year-Old College Dropout Son

Since taking office in January, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) has stripped public workers of their collective bargaining rights, proposed wage cuts to local government employees, and insisted that his “state is broke” and that its public workers are overpaid. But Walker applies a different standard to himself.

Today, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reveals that Walker is using state funds to pay more than $81,500 a year to the 26-year-old son of a major campaign donor with no college degree and two drunken-driving convictions.

Despite having almost no management experience, UW Madison college dropout Brian Deschane now oversees state environmental and regulatory issues and manages dozens of Commerce Department employees. After only two months on the job, Deschane has already received a 26 percent pay raise and a promotion.

Deschane’s father, Jerry Deschane was a major financial backer of the Governor’s campaign:

Jerry Deschane, executive vice president and longtime lobbyist for the Madison-based Wisconsin Builders Association…bet big on Walker during last year’s governor’s race.

The group’s political action committee gave $29,000 to Walker and his running mate, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, last year, making it one of the top five PAC donors to the governor’s successful campaign. Even more impressive, members of the trade group funneled more than $92,000 through its conduit to Walker’s campaign over the past two years.

Total donations: $121,652.

Deschanes’ father admitted that during the gubenatorial campaign he may have put in “good words” for his son with Walker campaign manager (and current chief of staff) Keith Gilkes. A state official has confirmed that Gilkes “recommended Deschane for an interview at the agency.” Michael McCabe, the executive director of the Wisconsin democracy Campaign, said the appointment had “all the markings of political patronage.”

In the coming months, we may be seeing more cases of Brian Deschanes. The anti-union law Walker signed last month also included provisions that would convert more than thirty-seven civil service positions into political appointees chosen by the Governor.

American politics have always had the taint of corruption. Insiders making money and getting prime high paying jobs for no other reason than who they know, not what skills they have. Walker and other Republican governors elected in the mid-term election cycle of 2010 seem intent on bringing back the worse of the Age of the Robber Barons, with incompetent, but politically loyal appointees in as many positions as possible. For a party that is supposedly anti-big government ( that has always been one of the biggest hoaxes ever played on the American people) they are sure happy to fed like pigs at the public trough.

Are President Obama's Energy Policies Causing High Gas Prices

Are President Obama's Energy Policies Causing High Gas Prices

Right-wing media have predictably blamed a recent rise in gas prices on President Obama's energy policies and have called for more offshore drilling, claiming he has allowed America to remain "increasingly dependent" on oil imports from "unstable parts of the world." However, experts agree that it's "not credible" to blame Obama for the gas price spike, offshore drilling would not substantially decrease prices, and U.S. domestic oil production has in fact increased under Obama.
Right-Wing Media Blame Higher Gas Prices On Obama, Falsely Claim Increased Dependence On Foreign Oil, Urge Drilling

Wash. Times: Obama Has Spent "The Past Two Years Bringing Back These Higher [Gas] Prices."

[ ]...Palin: Obama's "War On Domestic Oil And Gas Exploration And Production Has Caused Us Pain At The Pump."

[ ]...Conservative sycophant Hoft: Obama Continues A "War On Domestic Production" With His "Ridiculous Energy Plans." Linking to Palin's Facebook page, conservative blogger Jim Hoft wrote: "While the president trots out another energy proposal, at the same time he continues his war on domestic production. ... What's really sad is how the lapdog media eats up his ridiculous energy plans that will continue to devastate this nation's economy." [Gateway Pundit, 3/30/11]

The problem as usual as high energy prices are a complex problem and discussing them honestly requires some integrity. A virtue lacking in most modern conservatives,

Former Mobile Exec Gheit: Gulf Moratorium Had "Zero" Impact On Gas Prices. FactCheck.org examined several claims regarding the Obama administration's energy policies, including the claim that Obama's policies have increased gas prices, and found:

So, why have gasoline prices gone up and what impact have Obama's policies had on oil production and gasoline prices?

We talked to Fadel Gheit, a former Mobil Oil executive who is now a senior energy analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. Asked about the impact of the deepwater moratorium, Gheit said the moratorium had a "negative impact on production, but not as much as the politicians would like us to believe." The impact of the moratorium on gas prices? "Nothing. Zero," he said.

[...]

It's important to note that even before the oil spill and the moratorium, the EIA [Energy Information Administration] projected in April 2010 that oil production in the Gulf would decline this year. Before the spill, the EIA expected the Gulf to produce 110,000 less barrels per day in 2011. As we said, it is now expected to decline by 240,000 barrels a day this year. The difference is 130,000 barrels per day.

[ ]..

Chris Lafakis: "Absolutely No Merit To This Viewpoint Whatsoever." Chris Lafakis, economist at Moody's Analytics and expert in energy markets, told Media Matters via email:

I received your question about whether or not federal drilling policies are responsible for the current rise in gas prices. There is absolutely no merit to this viewpoint whatsoever. Near-term fluctuations in gasoline prices are determined by two primary factors: crude oil prices and seasonality. Since the deepwater drilling delay applies only to exploration and production, it would take years, maybe a decade to get any amount of crude oil out of the ground and into our gas tanks. In the meantime, global crude oil supply is exactly the same as it would have been if the government were giving away permits like candy.

Currently, crude oil prices have jumped $15 since the civil war broke out in Libya. This rise in crude oil prices underpins all of the recent increase in gasoline prices. [Email to Media Matters, 3/14/11]

Michael Canes: "Not Credible To Blame The Obama Administration's Drilling Policies For Today's High Prices." While noting that he disagrees with the Obama administration's policies on oil and gas drilling, Michael Canes, research fellow at the Logistics Management Institute and former chief economist of the American Petroleum Institute, told Media Matters via email that it is "not credible" to blame Obama's policies for the high gas prices:

It's not credible to blame the Obama Administration's drilling policies for today's high prices because of the relative scales involved. As I indicated the last time, world oil prices are determined in a market of around 85 million barrels per day of production and consumption, while the consequences of domestic drilling, particularly in the Gulf, likely would be more in the range of several hundred thousand to one million barrels per day, and most of that production would not occur for a number of years. [Email to Media Matters, 3/10/11]

Lou Crandall: "Gasoline Prices At The Pump Would Be Higher" Even If U.S. Had Increased Drilling. Lou Crandall, chief economist of Wrightson ICAP LLC, an independent research firm that analyzes high-frequency economic data, told Media Matters via email:

Higher oil prices today are a global phenomenon, and the additional supply from increased drilling by the U.S. would not alter the global balance of supply and demand greatly. Gasoline prices at the pump would be higher either way. The only difference is that a somewhat larger share of the revenue would accrue to domestic interests (governmental and private) rather than to foreign suppliers. [Email to Media Matters, 3/14/11]

Wally Tyner: High Gas Prices Are A Result Of World Demand, Unrest In Libya -- Not Obama's Drilling Policies. When asked if there is "any merit to the claim that Obama's drilling policies caused the high gas prices we're seeing," Wally Tyner, energy economist at Purdue University, said: "No. It would take years for increased drilling to have an impact. And most of the oil that remains off the US shores is in deep water and high cost." Tyner added:

The biggest factor is the rapid growth in world demand, especially India and China. Over the past decade, about a third of the global growth in world demand has come from China alone.

Currently with most of the exports from Libya down, that is causing prices to be higher. However, Saudi Arabia has indicated they will pick up the slack, but that will take a while to work through the system. Saudi oil is sour crude, and Libya produces sweet crude mostly destined for European refineries that cannot generally take sour crude. [Email to Media Matters, 3/14/11]

Tom O'Donnell: "The Amount Of Extra Oil That The U.S. Would Produce" Would Have "Almost Insignificant" Effect On Prices. Tom O'Donnell, professor of Graduate International Affairs at The New School and expert on the globalized energy sector, said blaming the high gas prices on the administration's drilling policy mistakes correlation for causation.

Palin, Fox News and Jim Hoft are all known serial liars. They lie so often and so outrageously because they know they cannot win an honest debate,

One of America's Biggest Republican Crooks Steals From the Poor to Give to Rich

Florida Gov. Rick Scott orders immediate cuts to programs for disabled

Florida Gov. Rick Scott ordered deep cuts Thursday to programs that serve tens of thousands of residents with Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, autism and other developmental disabilities.

Though a range of state services face cuts from this year's Legislature, the governor invoked his emergency powers to order the state Agency for Persons with Disabilities to immediately roll back payments to group homes and social workers by 15 percent — an amount providers say could put them out of business and threaten their clients' safety.

"lt's not like, 'Gee, does this mean I have to skip a vacation this year?'" said Amy Van Bergen, executive director of the Down Syndrome Association of Central Florida. "Potentially, these cuts have life and death implications for these people."

An estimated 30,000 Floridians with severe developmental disabilities receive services that help them live outside of nursing homes — typically with family or in small group homes. Aides help them eat, bathe, take medication and otherwise care for themselves.

But the governor said the Agency for Persons with Disabilities' ongoing budget deficit — currently at $170 million — had reached a critical point and needed to be addressed immediately.

The cuts go into effect Friday and last at least through the fiscal year, which ends June 30. Lawmakers are currently debating what will happen after that.

Providers had not been informed of the cuts.

"No one has gotten any notice," said Linda Cumbie, an Orlando social worker who coordinates services that clients need to live outside of a nursing home — which would be a more expensive arrangement for the state. "We have to find out through the newspapers."

Cumbie said funds for the disabled already had been pared back to skeletal levels. She personally is holding a carwash and bake sale to help out one young disabled client so he can attend a daily workshop program.

Katie Porta, president of Quest Inc., which operates a series of group homes and programs for those with disabilities, said provider rates in Florida already rank in the bottom 10 percent for all states.

"We are almost to the point of impossibility in providing for our clients' basic health and safety needs," she said. "I just fear for our people."

She wasn't the only one. Alan McIntosh, a 57-year-old Orlando man with cerebral palsy, relies on an aide to do just about anything requiring movement. "I don't know what he [Gov. Scott] is thinking," McIntosh said. "As it is, I'm just trying to survive."

His aide, Debbie Pascascio, works 24 hours a day, four days in a row, to care for McIntosh and two other people with severe disabilities. Though she did not want to reveal her salary, other aides say $800 a week for round-the-clock care is typical, and many workers receive no health insurance, sick leave or retirement benefits.

Medicare embezzler Scott ( if you steal millions go to Florida and Republican voters will reward you with public office) and conservative Republicans in the Florida legislature say these cuts are necessary in tough times. They say this while planning to cut corporate taxes while corporate profits are at an all time high.

Conservative Jihadist Mike Huckabee Wants Every American To Be ‘Forced At Gun Point’ To Learn From Radical Historian

Conservative Jihadist Mike Huckabee Wants Every American To Be ‘Forced At Gun Point’ To Learn From Radical Historian

Iowa played host to two right-wing rodeos last weekend, the Conservative Principles Conference and the Rediscover God in America conference. While many of the GOP 2012 presidential hopefuls graced both stages, only at Rediscover God in America did they offer Americans two revealing facts: “America should be governed by biblical law,” and that discredited historian David Barton is a genius.

A former Texas GOP official, David Barton is a “Christian historical revisionist” who contends that “the United States of America is a Christian nation” and the separation of church and state is a “liberal myth.” He is also one of the most radical Tenthers in the country who believes the federal highway system is unconstitutional. So radical was his view that even the Tenth Amendment Center disavowed his federal highway theory.

Though he “holds no advanced degrees and does not teach at any legitimate institution,” Barton is no small figure in conservative politics. He was invited by Fox News host Glenn Beck and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) to teach as a “scholar” on American history. At the conference, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said that “every time he hears Barton speak, he learns something new.” But Right Wing Watch’s Kyle Mantyla captured the most outrageous endorsement yet. Introduced by Barton, Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AK) insisted that children need to be “under his tutelage” and said that every American should be forced “at gun point” to “listen to every David Barton message”:

HUCKABEE: I don’t know anyone in America who is a more effective communicator [than David Barton.] I just wish that every single young person in America would be able to be under his tutelage and understand something about who we really are as a nation. I almost wish that there would be something like a simultaneous telecast and all Americans would be forced, forced — at gun point no less — to listen to every David Barton message. And I think our country would be better for it. I wish it’d happen.


Unfortunately, American children are already reaping the benefit of such “tutelage.” Appointed by several State Boards of Education and governors to “oversee the writing of history and government standards for public school students,” Barton is revising history textbooks in multiple states. In Texas, he’s ensuring books exchange biographies of George Washington, Thurgood Marshall, and Abraham Lincoln for the role of Jesus “in America’s past.”

But those watching the webcast of the event might be shocked to learn of Huckabee’s comments. As the Military Religious Freedom Foundation’s Chris Rodda notes, the webcast of the event edited out the “forced at gunpoint” comments — which, incidentally, received enthusiastic applause.

Huckabee, like many fundamentalist conservative, whether they be Muslim or Christian, wants to take away the fundamental freedom guaranteed in the 1st Amendment to the Constitution - otherwise known as the Bill of Rights.

Breitbart Is Wrong: Texas Planned Parenthood Clinics DO Offer Mammograms

Andrew Breitbart's Big Journalism questioned the accuracy of Media Matters research showing that a Planned Parenthood clinic in Waco, Texas, provides mammograms. In fact, the clinic is partnered with outside organizations to provide mammograms.
Big Journalism: Media Matters' Statement That Waco, TX Planned Parenthood Clinic Provides Mammograms Is "False"

Big Journalism: "Planned Parenthood Clinics In Texas Are Not Licensed To Have Mammogram Machines." From a post on Breitbart's Big Journalism, linking only to conservative, anti-abortion organizations to back up its claims:

Says Media Matters:

mammogram

This is false.

Live Action called two clinics in Waco, in addition to the one in Tucson, Arizona (heard on tape in the video below) and were told that no, the clinics do not provide mammogram screenings. In fact,Planned Parenthood clinics in Texas are not licensed to have mammogram machines:

Of the 14 Planned Parenthood abortion clinics in Texas, not a single one has either license or equipment.

[Big Journalism, 3/30/11]

FACT: Waco's Planned Parenthood Of Central Texas Is Partnered With Outside Organizations To Provide Mammograms

Planned Parenthood Of Central Texas Pays For Patients To Get Mammograms. In a statement to Media Matters, Felicia Chase Goodman, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Central Texas said:

Planned Parenthood of Central Texas is proud to provide comprehensive breast cancer screening for our patients, including mammography when needed. Through grants from the Central Texas affiliate of the Susan G. Komen Foundation and our participation in the Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening (BCCS) program (through the Texas Department of State Health Services), PPCT provides referrals and pays for mammograms and diagnostic follow up treatment for our patients at area radiology and surgical clinics.

Through these grants, in 2010 PPCT patients received 609 screening mammograms and 125 diagnostic mammograms; breast cancer was detected in 20 women. For most of these patients, Planned Parenthood is their only healthcare provider.

Through our participation in the BCCS program, patients who are diagnosed with breast or cervical cancer can be enrolled in the Medicaid for Breast and Cervical Cancer (MBCC) program, which ensures that they receive the necessary treatment to fight cancer.

Waco, TX Planned Parenthood Has Provided Over 2,000 Mammograms Since 2001. From a Waco Planned Parenthood Newsletter:

In 2009 we provided 487 mammograms and 162 diagnostic follow-up procedures for our patients. Since this program began in 2001, we have provided 2,683 mammograms to low-income women. [Waco Planned Parenthood, Spring/Summer 2010]

El Paso Times: "Free Mammograms May Be Available Through Nonprofit Health-Care Organizations Serving The Community, Including ... Planned Parenthood Of El Paso As Well As Others." From an October 10, 2008, column in The El Paso Times:

Andrew Brietbart wants to be a journalist, but seems to have learned journalism from the Soviet Pravda school of journalism. He and his protegee James O'Keefe have a lot in common with history's worse propagandist - most of all a contempt for the truth.