Good old Captain Kick Ass made an interesting pitch this weekend in his radio address...one that I am willing to bet will not get a lot of national media attention:
"Since 2003, Congress has acted to prevent these pay cuts from going into effect. These votes were largely bipartisan, and they succeeded when Democrats ran Congress and when Republicans ran Congress - which was most of the time.
This year, a majority of Congress is willing to prevent a pay cut of 21% - a pay cut that would undoubtedly force some doctors to stop seeing Medicare patients altogether. But this time, some Senate Republicans may even block a vote on this issue. After years of voting to defer these cuts, the other party is now willing to walk away from the needs of our doctors and our seniors."
Can anyone tell me why this is so interesting? Have you been paying attention?
The interesting twist here is that Cpt. K.A. is trying to frame the argument that keeping the Medicare Dr. Fix is now needed. Huh? Isn't this the same Cpt. K.A. (and Doogie over at CBO) who promised that ObamaCare would pay for itself (and realize net-savings) as it was written? If you remember...ObamaCare was written INCLUDING the 21% cut. The phrase..."you break it, you buy it" comes to mind.
So, as a hypothetical...let's assume I go to buy a car. The salesperson promises me that the Cadillac will save me money over the long-run because it consumes less gas than the Pinto. Then I ask, but don't the "oil changes" cost more and thus eliminate all the savings? To which the answer is...oh no...the "oil changes" will cost less. So I buy it. Then I find out that the oil changes do in fact cost more and do in fact make the total cost of ownership greater than the lowly Pinto still sitting in the corner.
In this hypothetical...who is the sucker and more importantly...Who should Cpt. Kick ass be going after???