Liars and Obama

The liberal world is saying that Romney lied in the first debate, and I have no argument with that, he certainly did. Many are saying that he did nothing but lie and are claiming that President Obama was the very model of honesty and integrity, and I have a wee small problem with that. There is, for instance the $716 billion that “Obamacare” is eliminating from the Medicare program, which Obama claims is “cuts in payments to providers and not to services.”

Romney said this in the debate regarding that issue,

On Medicare, for current retirees, he's cutting $716 billion from the program. Now, he says by not overpaying hospitals and providers. Actually just going to them and saying, "We're going to reduce the rates you get paid across the board, everybody's going to get a lower rate." That's not just going after places where there's abuse. That's saying we're cutting the rates. Some 15 percent of hospitals and nursing homes say they won't take anymore Medicare patients under that scenario. We also have 50 percent of doctors who say they won't take more Medicare patients.

Do 15% of hospitals and 50% of doctors say they will opt out of Medicare under that scenario? I don’t know, but it would not surprise me in the least, and Obama’s claim that cutting payments to providers will not reduce services is absurd on the face of it. Has any for-profit business ever accepted a reduction in payment without reducing the product or service for which it is being paid? The idea is absolute nonsense.

Tell a construction supplier that you will only pay $600 for that truckload of gravel and not the $800 that he quoted. You will get a "truckload" of gravel, okay, but it won't be the eight cubic yards that you were expecting.

Obama supporters refute my argument by caliming that “negotiation” is done “all the time,” using the example that “many pharaceutical products are delivered for less money when negotiation which delivers mass customer base to the drug companies” or that Wal-Mart "negotiates" with its suppliers for reductions in costs.

Use your brain for something other than a button to keep your spine from unravelling, people, that is a reduction in unit price for the promise of a much larger volume of product, which results in a larger overall payment. Obama is talking about a smaller overall payment, and is not negotiating for anything. He is merely dictating lower overall payment for essentially the same amount of business on an individual supplier basis.

Back to my construction supplier. Tell him that you will pay him $600 per truckload for 200 truckloads and you will get full truckloads and very good service. But $600 for one truckload; not so much.

Do for-profit businesses accept a reduction in unit price in return for a large increase in volume of sales? Of course they do. But a reduction in overall payment for the same amount of business? Get real. Pull your heads back out into the sunshine.

As to doctors accepting Medicare; I needed to get a new primary care physician last month. I went to the one my neurologist referred me to and was told that she was not accepting any new patients. Only after telling me that did the receptionist ask who referred me and what insurance I had, and tell me that she would see what she could do. With the referral and the fact that I have private insurance, I was accepted as a new patient. Do you think I would have been accepted if I'd said I was on Medicare?