Apparently not happy with what thousands of left-wing journalists, think-tank retreads, and academics are trying to do for him in scaring the hell out of seniors about Medicare, President Obama himself became Ceremonial Drum Major for a few blocks along the 2012 Medicare Lie Parade route. The occassion was his so-called August 25, 2012 "weekly address." (Interestingly the White House web site calls it "your (meaning my) weekly address." How Orwellian.)
Obama said:
"This week, we found out that... nearly 5.4 million seniors with Medicare have saved over $4.1 billion on prescription drugs (thanks to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act -- PPACA)."
What collossal lying and deceit.
- Obama only heard about this wondrous fact "this week?" Didn't he see the press releases, saying the same thing, that HHS, CMS, whitehouse.gov and a dozen other government entities -- possibly in violation of the Hatch Act -- have put out since February?
- That's the lie. The deceit is that neither he nor any of the press releases tell you that this involves less than 10% of the 50,000,000 people on Medicare, or that many of them had State Pharmaceutical Assistance Programs or private insurance that made up the difference, or that the money came from the drug companies -- not the government.
The other thing that amazed me: This was the lead? "Donut hole" shit was his best shot? (Later in the speech he repeated almost the same words so -- yeah, I guess "donut hole" shit is their best shot, something 95% of us seniors are not at all affected by.)
Then Obama said:
"And this year alone, 18 million seniors with Medicare have taken advantage of preventive care benefits like mammograms or other cancer screenings that now come at no extra cost."
He says he only learned this amazing information "this week" also. But I'll skip to the substance. What he doesn't mention is that what 17,500,000 of us seniors got were things like flu shots that have ALWAYS "come at no extra cost." Every sentence this conniving guys utters has to be diagrammed the way your fifth grade teacher taught you.
It's only a few things such as mammograms that "come NOW at no extra cost." And that only matters to you IF you are one of the relatively few, typically very rich seniors that do not depend on private insurance to make up for all the gaping holes in traditional Medicare. Mr. President, why didn't PPACA add important preventive screenings to Medicare such as annual physical exams or no-co-pay DREs for prostate cancer or... instead of things like mamograms and PSA tests that your own administration says are useless?
He says
"I was raised with the help of my grandparents. I saw how important things like Medicare and Social Security were in their lives."
So is that why he is raiding the Medicare Part A trust fund, raising Part B premiums and eliminating Part C to fund free insurance for non seniors. I guess that's not actually a lie. Just pretty illogical.
Then to wrap up he used the Obama campaign's favortie lie:
"(Republicans) want to turn Medicare into a voucher program."
No they don't. The food stamp program is a voucher program. No one is proposing to give out Medicare stamps.
Obama also threw in the lie that Politifact already voted 2011 Lie of the Year, the thing about Medicare costing $6000 more under Paul Ryan's plan but not mentioning that the statistic refers to 2030 (and is wrong and applies to an old proposal that no one is touting any longer). So I'll let that pass.
At least now I know that Obama is the liar in chief on this (but I guess I expected it of a guy who lied about his own mother's cancer illness in order to get elected). I was pissed before but I thought maybe -- hey, he's a busy guy.
Now I know the deceit starts right at the top.
-- Dennis Byron
