There was disturbing meeting in Somerville, Massachusetts this week at Tufts University. A bunch of municipal, state and Federal employees got together to have a so-called "educational" session about Medicare and Social Security. I hope all the government employees mentioned in the story were not getting paid their government salaries while running this Obama re-election event.
- Elder Affairs Director Hartstein has already turned her state department into an Obama re-election organization. Follow the bouncing ball on her ridiculous statistic:
"Three out of 10 seniors depend on Social Security for 90% of their income."
One and a half out of 10 seniors are low income (15%) so that it is useful information. But that includes people who have spent down to go into nursing homes, etc. But the other one and a half out of 10 seniors that Hartstein is trying to use to manipulate public opinion for Obama do not depend on income at all; they depend on their savings in their retirement. They are among the most well off of us seniors.
- Congressman Capuano is just mouthing Democratic Party lies (he's running for office so probably can do electioneering like this without violating the Hatch Act). He already runined Medicare for the next generation when he fought against the Part C reform and the new Part D program in 2003 and when he voted to take more than $700 billion out of Medicare in 2010 (2013-2022; an increasing amount as the time window moves out) to give healthcare insurance to non-seniors.
- The Obama administration spokesperson repeated the tired claims about the donut hole which affects so few of us in Massachusetts because of Prescription Advantage. But he or she never mentions that the drug discounts so far come from the drug companies not the government because of a closed-door deal made with the Obama administration secretly in order to get the drug business of the non-seniors. Non-senior drug coverage will be paid for with Medicare money.
- The left wing professor repeats the lie about the great efficiency of Medicare without mentioning the inconvenient statistic from Dr. Berwick, former Medicare director and a leading lefty himself, that Medicare wastes 20% to 30% of what it spends (or suffers from fraud or abuse). More administration would actually cut that number but that would ruin the Democratic party talking point.
- The left wing community organizer repeated the long disproven Democratic party lie about reform raising seniors' costs $6000 a year and the favorite Democratic Party trick of comparing Medicare premium support to food stamps
Again I hope none of these people drew a dime of taxpayer money while they were running this Obama re-election event
-- Dennis Byron
