Omigod
(Dan here…Lifted from Robert’s thoughts)
Robert writes:
Omigod Sept 4 2012 really is opposites day. Ezra Klein made an incorrect claim of fact about health care financing. He wrote:
But I’m not going to make that argument. I’m on-record saying that trust-fund accounting is by and large a ridiculous way to look at the federal government’s finances, but both parties do it, and so Ryan isn’t committing any foul here. And within the trust-fund accounting rules, Obama is using his Medicare cuts to pay for the Affordable Care Act and Ryan is using his Medicare cuts to finance the Medicare program in the future.
My amazed comment follows.
I agree that trust fund accounting is absurd, but your trust fund accounting is totally wrong. The balance of the Medicare plan A trust fund would be identical under the ACA and the Ryan budget. There is just no difference at all. The ACA did not take any money out of the Medicare trust fund to pay for anything. That’s why it extended the forecast time till the fund is empty by 8 years.
The ACA spending increases are, by trust fund accounting (which I agree is nonsense) separate from the Medicare spending cuts (and the Medicare tax increases). The effect on the deficit is the sum. The Medicaid expansion and the subsidies for insurance bought on exchanges are not at all funded by any money which would otherwise be in the Medicare plan A trust fund.
Amazingly uber wonk Ezra Klein is just wrong on a health care financing fact (a meaningless one I agree but you are just wrong).
it would hardly be the first time Ezra Klein was totally, stupidly wrong. he called the payroll tax a jobs killing tax. which is odd since just a few years ago “most economists” were saying “the employers share is really the employees money.” so i guess paying the employees their money is really a jobs killing tax.
but the stupidity here is that the Medicare cuts do NOT pay for the ACA. the ACA pays for the Medicare cuts… that is, the reduced costs to Medicare, which is what the Republicans say they want.
I agree with Klein on the payroll tax and would like to replace it, so far as possible, with other taxes in order
Best a Carbon tax (on this I join Greg Mankiw’s Pigou club)
Second best: increased taxes of capital gains and capital income
By the way the payroll tax kills jobs line was the main theme of the last two campaigns of the Italian center left.
In any case, you disagree with Klein about the effect of a policy not about accounting as mandated by the text of a law (ACA) and a budget resolution (which is clear on that one point). His claim on the payroll tax is arguably wrong, but the claim which I criticize is just plain 100% definitely a (meaningless) error.
Robert
you can only agree with Klein about the payroll tax if you utterly fail to understand Social Security and the critical difference between welfare and worker-paid insurance.
as for meaningless error… i think i’ll keep to the meaningful error. saying that Medicare pays for ACA is stupid. ACA reduced Medicare COSTS not benefits… the difference is curcial, fundamental, and is the difference between “meaningless error” and “damned lie.”
Coberly,
In an environment where healthcare costs are zooming along well ahead of the rate of inflation, how in the world can Medicare costs be reduced without also reducing Medicare benefits, especially when ObamaCare does absolutely nothing to contain, much less rein in, healthcare costs? This is very hard, if not impossible, to do — unless you are naive enough to believe that money grows on tree. This is why ObamaCare will soon prove to be nothing but a Ponzi scheme built on a house of cards.
cynthia:
Once again you have demonstrated a true lack of understanding of the PPACA, the role of Medicare in the PPACA, and how the PPACA will control costs. Medicare costs have been icreasing at a far less rate than its commercial brethern as shown by the S&P Healthcare Indices. Why do you think this is occurring?
Robert
How on Earth can you suggest a revenue change that would absolutely be a transfer of wealth and sbsolutely have no chance of becoming legislation. The only thing that is accomplished by eliminating the “payroll” tax, in reality the Federal Insurance Contribution Act contribution, in favor of a tax that falls more heavily on the wealthy is to divert attention away from any reasonable modification to Social Security’s revenue collections. Assuming that such a modification is even necessary.
Cynthia
i fail to follow your logic.
no doubt medicare costs will increase as medical care costs increase. but my understanding is that the ACA reduces some of the costs to medicare compared to what they would be.
As for reducing costs without reducing benefits… seems pretty easy to me. but why in the hell would you care. the benefits pay for the costs. or as much of the costs as there is revenue to pay benefits.
as for what obamacare does to rein in costs… i am told, but i don’t know, that it does several things.
personally, i don’t like the obamacare approach, but it would help if your friends would stop lying about it.
Robert
postscript:
welfare empowers the state. worker-paid insurance empowers workers… or would if the workers didn’t let themselves be lied to, or suckered by promises that the rich will pay for all their needs if only we elect progressive democrats.
there is a lot we can do for workers in this country. killing social security in order to make it more “progressive” is not one of them.
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Coberly and RUN75441,
When Medicare is run increasingly like its commercial brethren, as ObamaCare encourages it to do, then Medicare costs will soar. Imagine putting Medicare Advantage on steroids, then you’ll know what ObamaCare will do to Medicare. This is what happens when most publicly-run services are privatized. Our privatized prison industry and our privatized military-industrial complex are costly examples of this.
cynthia
i suspect you are right about that. but i think the original question was whether ezra klein was right about ryan being right that ACA was “cutting Medicare.”
cutting Medicare implies cutting benefits. if ACA is cutting COSTS that is a different thing altogether… and the “fact” is that it is the costs that are (arguably) being cut, which makes Ryan a liar and Klein a fool.