Cancer Clinics Turning Away Medicare Patients

You didn't get the message when the White House tours were cancelled, so maybe this will get you to pay up, sucker:

Cancer clinics across the country have begun turning away thousands of Medicare patients, blaming the sequester budget cuts.

Oncologists say the reduced funding, which took effect for Medicare on April 1, makes it impossible to administer expensive chemotherapy drugs while staying afloat financially

Patients at these clinics would need to seek treatment elsewhere, such as at hospitals that might not have the capacity to accommodate them.

 “If we treated the patients receiving the most expensive drugs, we’d be out of business in six months to a year,” said Jeff Vacirca, chief executive of North Shore Hematology Oncology Associates in New York. “The drugs we’re going to lose money on we’re not going to administer right now.”

The sequester cuts of $85 billion this year, amount to around 2.4% of the federal budget. Meanwhile, the General Accounting Office has found over $400 billion wasted every year on duplicative, fragmented and inefficient programs that could be eliminated tomorrow without a second thought. That's almost 11% of the same budget. And that's just for starters, since no business or government can say there aren't at least 10% of inefficiencies to cut everywhere, especially this government. American businesses have done just that and more over the last five years, since they can't print money or take it at the point of a gun when times are tough.

But instead of firing some thumb sitting bureaucrats, or curbing the massive fraud and abuse throughout the system, oncologists and their patients are going to take it in the shorts, even though these doctors are barely breaking even on Medicare as it is. This is extortion, pure and simple. The government beast will be fed or you will suffer, and possibly die. The government can never do with one penny less than the ever increasing amounts it demands. That message will be sent in the most emotional and painful way possible.   

Obama Budget Voted Down; 97-0

The Hill:

The Senate voted unanimously on Wednesday to reject a $3.7 trillion budget plan that President Obama sent to Capitol Hill in February.

Ninety-seven senators voted against a motion to take it up.

Democratic aides said ahead of the vote that the Democratic caucus would not support the plan because it has been supplanted by the deficit-reduction plan Obama outlined at a speech at George Washington University in April.

So, the Senate leadership is kicking its constitutional duties over to the executive branch based on another platitudinous Obama speech that negated his own budget presented two months earlier. Let me repeat that Democrat's have not allowed a budget to pass in over two years and counting. That's change you can believe in!

The Democrat party has backed itself into a corner as it has moved so far left that any plan to the right of the extreme People’s Budget presented in April by the radical Congressional Progressive Caucus will get no real support from the base. That’s the only Democrat plan that’s been presented and even though it was dead on arrival, the People’s Budget (Read Here) was received favorably by a significant number of Democrats and members of the Media.

But that budget - dripping with Marxist anger - was too honest about the left’s intentions and is so politically toxic and economically insane that it makes any PR problems with Ryan’s plan look insignificant by comparison. Democrats know they can’t put together any major plan that will get party support and wont send voters running to the GOP alternative.

Republican’s need to realize they’re in a good position here if they take their last chance to grow a set and take an unequivocal stand. If not now, when? Ryan, and now, Pawlenty, are leading and treating Americans like adults who have to make hard choices. It remains to be seen if the rest of the party will follow.

The Path to Prosperity (Episode 2): Saving Medicare, Visualized

Rarely do you see a politician who is willing to treat the electorate like adults and give them the hard truth despite the political consequences. At least Paul Ryan will be able to say he tried his best if Americans don't listen to him. You can see Episode 1 here.



This stands in stark contrast to Senate majority "leader" Harry Reid, who just said: “There’s no need to have a Democratic budget, in my opinion... It would be foolish for us to do a budget at this stage.” Democrats haven't passed a budget in well over two years, preferring instead to hide from responsibility or demonize opponents purely for political purposes. Meanwhile, we get closer to driving off the financial cliff with every passing day.

Speaking of cliffs, this is how Democrats insult our intelligence and demonstrate just how serious they are about an impending economic disaster:

WSJ: Dissecting the liberal smears of Paul Ryan’s budget

• Deficits and debt. Perhaps the most bizarre complaint is that Mr. Ryan's blueprint would worsen the U.S. fiscal imbalance compared to current law. So the House Budget Chairman has proposed supposedly hideous cuts to popular entitlements at great political risk for . . . the fun of it?...

• Medicare "cuts." The Mediscare machinery is grinding into gear, and the same people who say Mr. Ryan is imposing too much pain on seniors by requiring them to pay a larger portion of their health costs also claim that he's a coward for exempting everyone in or near retirement. In other words, the soup is terrible and the portions are too small...

Full Article

How Not to Balance a Budget

From the Wall Street Journal. No further comment necessary:

"Anyone who thinks the path to "fiscal discipline" is through higher taxes ought to look at the current budget spectacles in New York and California. The two liberal states have among the highest tax burdens in the country, yet both now find themselves with huge budget deficits and are debating still higher taxes to close the gap. . .

...Every time the politicians raise taxes, they merely lift their spending by as much or more, and then plead poverty and demand another tax hike during the next economic slowdown.

The "progressives" who dominate politics in these states target the rich on grounds that they have the ability to pay. They also have the ability to leave. From 1997-2006, New York State lost 409,000 people (not counting foreign immigrants). For every two people who move into the state, three flee. Maybe the problem for New York is merely bad weather, not high taxes.

Except that sunny California is experiencing a similar exodus. Over the past decade 1.32 million more native-born Americans left the Golden State than moved in -- despite beaches, mountains and 70-degree weather. Mostly the people who have fled are the successful, the talented and the rich.

If taxes don't matter, then maybe someone can explain the divergent economic paths of California and New York and America's two other most populous states, Florida and Texas. The latter two states have no personal income tax. Personal income has been growing about 50% faster in Florida and Texas than in California and New York. (See chart.) This year Texas became the No. 1 state for Fortune 500 corporate headquarters. About a dozen of those 58 corporations once called New York or California home, and taxes are one reason they departed.

NY Broke, Again

ALBANY - Gov. Paterson, convinced the state faces its worst fiscal crisis since the mid-1970s, will deliver the grim news in an unprecedented special address to New Yorkers as soon as tomorrow night, The Post has learned.
The governor's address - which his aides hope will be televised by public and cable news stations - will say that plunging state revenues will force painful cuts in state services, necessitate a reduction in the state work force, possibly through layoffs, and require other difficult economic measures, source said.

Where have I heard that before. Look for the final solution to be higher taxes and another cave in to the unions and other parasites that hold the state hostage. This just means that more taxpayers, businesses and jobs will be heading for the exits in even greater numbers. Upstate New York is already the Detroit of the northeast and eventually the state will be empty outside of a hundred mile radius of NYC, which won't be far behind.

Maryland passes new "millionaire" tax

High end real estate brokers in Florida and elsewhere should start targeting the 6,000 taxpayers in Maryland who will now pay higher taxes for the sin of success.

"Howard Rensin, a successful Howard County businessman and developer, thinks many Maryland millionaires will decamp for less taxing locales."There's already been a substantial migration of people of high income out of Maryland," Rensin said. "I think you're going to see an increase in that type of flight."

Well, of course. Remember that the wealthier people are, the easier it is for them to move. All the revenues estimates that governments use in justifying tax increases are predicated on the assumption that the taxpayer will just stand there and take it in the shorts. It never happens and never will.

Meanwhile, New York passed yet another budget with an increase of twice the inflation rate. They almost imposed their own version of the millionaire tax but dropped it at the last minute, instead raising taxes and fees on everything from internet sales to manicures. And now New York cigarette taxes will be the highest in the country. They should call that the "Smugglers Full Employment Act"