Saturday, November 26, 2011

Newt Bad Idea #4,557

Bruce Bartlett has delightfully written a post entitled, "How Newt Gingrich Added $16 Trillion To The Deficit." It is so beautifully written because the entire post is an article Newt wrote to conservatives in 2003 when he was shilling for Medicare Part D. Bartlett only points out that "according to the latest Medicare trustees report (p. 146), the unfunded liability of Medicare Part D is $16.1 trillion." You may recall that it was recently reported that Newt's think tank was paid more than $30 million in political money by health care companies for him to use his mighty transformational influence to push Medicare Part D. Bartlett's opposition to the program was one of the reasons why he was excommunicated from the conservative movement a few years later.

Anyway, I bring you a snippet here. It is both breathtaking and surreal. For liberals, it is comedy gold. For the ABRs, it is annoying. For the Romney folks, it is a test in real time to see if one man's support of a bill that wrecked the federal budget is worse than another man's support for health care reform that cost 1% of his state's budget.

Oh, and of course, Newt's letter to conservatives was printed in the Wall Street Journal. It does not get any better than this, my friends. And I have taken the liberty to put in bold my favorite line. You will also notice that Newt employs the same pseudo intellectual language that he always uses in an effort to make his assertions sound factual. Unfortunately for the the history professor, his rhetoric has been revealed by the cold-hearted reality of history.

Enjoy.


Conservatives Should Vote "Yes" on Medicare
November 20, 2003
Every conservative member of Congress should vote for this Medicare bill. It is the most important reorganization of our nation's healthcare system since the original Medicare Bill of 1965 and the largest and most positive change in direction for the health system in 60 years for people over 65.
In a bold and unexpected move, the new Medicare bill includes a decisive shift to health savings accounts, which will allow every American to accumulate tax-free health dollars. HSAs allow account-owners to build savings and earn tax-free interest on their HSA contributions. HSA account owners can use their savings for tax-free spending on qualified health expenses, including health insurance premiums and deductibles, prescription drugs, and long-term care services including long-term care insurance.
If you are a fiscal conservative who cares about balancing the federal budget, there may be no more important vote in your career than one in support of this bill. Since health expenditures comprise almost 14 percent of the U.S. GDP, a shifting away from the failed bureaucratic third-party payer model and back to a market-mediated binary payer model, where the customer controls his own first health dollars, is the single most significant reform that can be made in saving the country from skyrocketing health costs and steadily increasing calls for taxpayers to finance more and more of the healthcare system through higher taxes.
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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't get it. It's really upsetting to me now how conservatives even look at Gingrich. How does he get a pass on all his dealings in his personal and public life?

It makes me want to beat on the next person that tells me that Gingrich should be the one to take on Obama.

larry said...

This is one of the many reasons I believe that Gingrich will not survive the scrutiny he will be under now.

Many people are hearing these things for the first time and are waking up to reality.

Anonymous said...

I don't believe that Newt will survive the scrutiny either. I think that Mitten's support of ObamaCare Beta is unacceptable, and Newt's pushing Medicare D benefits is even more so. I suppose quite a few conservatives support Newt because they see him eat the liver of the media and don't pay enough attention to his history. That's what vetting is for.

Anonymous said...

I am sure all Newt will have to say is that he is against it now and he will be blessed by the ABR's,Limbaugh,Levin,Palin,Tea Party and the Evangelicals.

Ashley Jones said...

I've thought Rush was a shmuck for some time, but I've really thought a lot of Levin since I read "Liberty and Tyranny." But Levin hammering away at Romney everyday for the same things he generally gives Newt a pass on is unreal. What an imbecile.

Terrye said...

I wrote a post and it is gone..so I will do another, if the first appears and I repeat myself, I apologize.

Medicare Part D does not add 16 trillion to the deficit.

I don't like Gingrich, I am not going to vote for him..but this is a tad over the top.

An unfunded liability is anything that is not funded by an asset or greater or equal value..that would be just about everything the fed does.

But in fact the program has come in 43% under budget and it has helped create competition in the market place because it is not just a government program, it is a public/private plan and it is the same plan that Paul Ryan used as a model for his medicare reform.

Bush wanted health savings accounts and Medicare Advantage, conservatives supported these plans. In order to get them he had to give the Democrats a drug plan and this one was less expensive than their alternative.

McCain did not support the plan, but then unlike most conservatives he did support opening up our markets to cheaper imports. However, most conservatives wanted to continue to protect big Pharma..and in return big Pharma supported Obamacare. In truth anyone who wants to get rid of this plan and who considers themselves free market should also support opening our markets.

It would be political suicide to end this plan without any kind of plan to offset the high costs of meds to seniors.

And what is more, the competition created by this plan has actually helped bring down some drug prices for everyone. For instance, Wal-Mart's $4 dollar meds are result of this plan.


So while I don't like Gingrich and I don't think he is as conservative as he says he is..this particular plan does not add $16 trillion to the deficit. In fact in 2006 after this plan had been implemented our annual budget deficit was $167 billion. Then Pelosi took control Congress and the spending really went up.