AlterPolitics

On the campaign trail, CANDIDATE Obama was very specific on how he intended to fix Medicare:

1. To lower Medicare costs, Candidate Obama said he would permit Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices with the price-gauging pharmaceutical industry:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET5Run2G_qc[/youtube]

SEN. OBAMA: But one thing I have to say, we are not going to make some of these changes unless we change how business is done in Washington. The reason that we can’t negotiate prescription drugs under the Medicare prescription drug plan is because the drug companies specifically sought and obtained a provision in that bill that prevented us from doing it.

MS. WASHBURN: Thank you.

SEN. OBAMA: And unless we change that politics, we’re going to continue to see the waste that we’re seeing in the entitlement programs.

2. He would increase revenues by $300 Billion simply by ending Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, and use that to shore up Social Security and Medicare:

We’re not going to solve social security and Medicare unless we understand the rest of our tax policies. … Let’s be clear about my tax plan and Senator McCain’s, because we’re not going to be able to deal with entitlements unless we understand the revenues coming in. […]

Senator McCain wants to give a $300 Billion tax cut to — $200 Billion of it to the largest corporations and $100 Billion of it going to people like CEOs on Wall Street.

If we get our tax polices right so that they’re good for the middle class. If we reverse the policies of the last eight years that got us into this fix in the first place, and that Senator McCain supported, then we are going to be in a position to deal with Social Security and deal with Medicare, because we will have a health care plan that actually works for you, reduces spending and costs over the long term, and Social Security that is stable and solvent for all Americans, and not just some.

 So let’s see how PRESIDENT Obama fared in advancing his progressive platform for saving Medicare:

 1. Promise to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices:

In August of 2009, the Obama Administration admitted to cutting a secret back room deal with Big Pharma which SPARED the wealthy drug industry from having to negotiate drug prices with Medicare. Obama, additionally, broke another promise by dealing away Americans’ ability to import cheaper drugs from Canada.

In return, the drug industry agreed to kick in $80 Billion in savings over ten years (a mere 2.6% of the $3 Trillion Americans are predicted to spend on drugs over that same time period), and the industry additionally agreed to toss Obama $150 million in television ads to sell his “health reform” bill.  

2) Promise to add $300 Billion in revenues by allowing Bush Tax Cuts for the wealthy to expire (which he would use to shore up entitlements): 

Now you might have expected, by the way Candidate Obama tied Bush Tax Cuts (as a source of revenue) directly to offsetting entitlement expenditures during his campaign, that he would have made entitlements the central focal point last December to make the case for allowing Bush tax cuts to expire.

But to the shock and dismay of his own party, Obama flipped on this campaign promise, quickly agreeing to extend Bush Tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. And only THEN, after it passed — thereby ensuring there would be no additional revenues — did he moves on to addressing entitlement expenditures. 

His NEW PLAN For Fixing Medicare:

Here was Obama over the weekend, revealing his new — perhaps undisclosed would be a more accurate depiction? — plan for fixing Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid:

Essentially, what we had offered Speaker Boehner was over a trillion dollars in cuts to discretionary spending, both domestic and defense. We then offered an additional $650 billion in cuts to entitlement programs — Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security.”

Who the hell is this guy?