In the middle of a rant advising Obama to escape the thrall of Wall Street, E.J. Dionne lets this slip out:
Some keep pushing the tired notion that the deficits can be cured if we just reduce “entitlements,” which I put in quotation marks because I’m weary of people using this highfalutin word to dodge saying directly that they want deep cuts in Medicare and Social Security.
What’s that? I believe the folks who want deep cuts in Medicare are Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi. Oh, and the spinners who keep telling us that ObamaCare is wonderful and just needs to be sold to the American people. But what happens when Obama, Reid, and Pelosi are asked about more than $500 billion in Medicare cuts?
Maybe they can trot out Dionne’s line: “Actually, health-care reform is designed in part to contain the long-term growth of Medicare costs.” What does “contain the long-term growth of Medicare costs” mean in plain English? It means paying health-care providers much less, requiring them to ration care. And then the bill will empower the Medicare Advisory Board to figure out more ways to chisel on care.
There’s a reason the bill is unpopular, and especially so among seniors. They aren’t fooled by highfalutin words that amount to the government’s squeezing care for seniors for the sake of achieving “historic” legislation.