Obama: McCain Wants To Cut Medicare

Democrat Suggests Rival Would Cut $882 Million From Program To Finance Health Care Plan

(AP)  Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Friday that Republican rival John McCain wants to cut $882 billion from Medicare over a decade to finance his health care plan and the result would be more costly drugs, diminished services and lower quality care for seniors.

"It's entirely consistent with Sen. McCain's record during his 26 years in Congress where, time and again, he's opposed Medicare," Obama said. "In fact, Sen. McCain has voted against protecting Medicare 40 times."

Campaign officials said the $882 billion estimate was drawn in part from a study by the Center for American Progress, a public policy organization stocked with prominent Democrats.

In response, McCain's campaign issued a statement saying Obama was "simply lying." The statement said the Republican planned to trim spending, but said his plans "do not cut a single benefit."

Ahead in the national polls, Obama made his charge as he campaigned in a traditionally Republican state where he has invested heavily in hopes of collecting 13 electoral votes. He is spending far more on television advertising in Virginia than McCain and has 50 offices statewide. The trip was his seventh here since wrapping up the Democratic nomination in June.

Still, in a state that once boasted the capital of the Confederacy, Obama's campaign indicated it understands the challenge involved in trying to elect the nation's first black president.

Democratic Sen. Jim Webb never mentioned race as he introduced Obama to the predominantly white crowd at the Roanoke Civic Center in the southwestern part of the state. But, he said, "Barack Obama's father was born in Kenya. Barack Obama's mother was born in Kansas by way of Kentucky," he said, adding that Obama would be the "14th president of the United States whose ancestry and whose family line goes back" in the region.

"You can trust him. I trust him," Webb added.

Obama's remarks on Medicare amounted to a new front in the campaign's health care wars, and were aimed at persuading older voters to abandon McCain.

McCain wants to provide tax credits to encourage Americans to purchase private health insurance. To pay for it, he has proposed requiring workers to pay income taxes on the health benefits they now receive tax-free from their employers.

McCain's campaign says additional funding will be required to cover the full cost of the program.

"It turns out, Sen. McCain would pay for part of his plan by making drastic cuts in Medicare — $882 billion worth, $882 billion in Medicare cuts to pay for an ill-conceived health care plan, even as Medicare already faces a looming shortfall," Obama said.

"It would mean a cut of more than 20 percent in Medicare benefits next year. If you count on Medicare, it would mean fewer places to get care, and less freedom to chose your own doctors," he added.

Obama said his own proposals for Medicare include "eliminating wasteful subsidies to big HMOs in Medicare, and making sure seniors can access home-based care, and letting Medicare negotiate with drug companies for better prices."

The reference to subsidies referred to the money the government pays to support private alternatives to traditional government-run Medicare, but attempts by some Democrats to eliminate them ran into bipartisan opposition in Congress over the past two years.

Recent studies show the government pays an estimated $112 for Medicare patients in private coverage for every $100 it spends on the traditional program, and that eliminating the difference could save more than $150 billion over a decade.

Critics say the private alternative is wasteful. Supporters argue it often provides benefits such as vision care that are unavailable in government-run Medicare.

Like Obama, numerous other Democrats favor allowing the agency that runs Medicare negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies, saying that would lead to cheaper prices for prescription medicines.

But the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said last year the change was unlikely to result in lower prices unless the government decided to limit the drug choices available to seniors like the Veterans Administration does.

[starleo146]

Posted by nomav at 02:00 PM : Oct 18, 2008
+ repo

You have brought up an interesting point and I dare say the people who say race doesn''t matter are the very ones voting for Mc Same. I think bigotry is in a closet, and it will come out.No one will admit it, but it is alive, and sick, because people who look at a persons color, and not his character, and intellect, and says I will not vote for him are bigots plain and simple. No one who will give Mc Same 4 yrs of the same 8 yrs that have just passed is either insane or a bigot. Look at Palin his decision to pick a woman who praised a organization that wants to succeed from the United States, she brought the bigotry out full force the rage and language was outrageous and I thought how horrible to look at Bigotry in the face.

[starleo146]

Most of you just spew out the lies Oslima is feeding you...and his accusing John McCain of cutting medicare/medicaid is the most corrupt MOUTHING OFF I''''ve ever heard when Oslima himself states he''''s going to do the same thing!

Posted by FromTexwlove at 01:49 PM : Oct 18, 2008
+ report abuse

Social security and cutting medicare 832billion dollars to pay for his health care plan brilliant isn''t it. It is true. he said it, where are you not listening to him are you?

[starleo146]

Clinton ceratinly liked the Chinese products, that''''s one of the reasons he opened up free trade in the first place.

And since the job migration overseas began drifting in during the Clinton administration during the technology, why are you democraps objecting, you certainly supported Clinton in these efforts. These companies not having to support an expensive labor force get to offer you their products cheaper and you CERAINLY LIKE THAT!

And you certainly LIKE buying cheap chineses products. Look around your home! If you threw all the cheap chinese products out, what would have left?

The doublespeak of democrapic hypocrisy, is plainly mind boggling!

Posted by FromTexwlove at 01:43 PM : Oct 18, 2008Let me tell you when this started, Reagonomics, trickle down theory, Then came the ambassador of China daddy Bush and a continuation of the love with China, who set policies, and then came Clinton and he worked hard to bring the debt down got a surplus for the little shrub, and look where we are. 3 republican presidents, and 1 democrat. You do not know what the heck you are talking about, all you do is spew, spew, and you twist, twist, you should vote for Mc Same your minds are equal.894th out of 899 in his naval academy class great, he said out of his own mouth I don''t know much about the economy, and if we continue to talk about it we will lose so buddy he is true to his word he hasn''t told us a durn thing. Just more spew, attack and destroy, typical

[janesche]

No country is, or ever has been, perfect. If America has fallen short of many peoples%u2019 expectations, maybe it should dawn on them that it might be because no other country in the world has set the bar as high as we have.

Yet for most liberals, all the good we do in the world is never enough. Any shortcoming is evidence of wholesale failure, of a need to completely re-order the American landscape. Such unrestrained pessimism is both unrealistic and unseemly. It is the whine of spoiled children who can%u2019t seem to remember that half the world struggles to survive%u2013not prosper.

Even now, in the midst of an economic downturn and another war against unrestrained evil, America prospers. It is a prosperity often built on trial-and-error, triumph and, yes, even failure. But above all, it is a prosperity built on goodness%u2013and optimism.

Are Americans still optimists at heart? It is hard to say. The never-ending hand-wringing emanating from academia, the media, the entertainment industry and the Democratic party has taken its toll. The left has made a massive investment in promoting the idea that our country is in dire need of redemption%u2013which only they have the %u201Cwisdom%u201D to administer.

[janesche]

Hopefully, some of us will be able to make a stand against fear, and history says that some will. There are those who have come along to challenge our perception of reality, and more than likely some still are today, be them governmental, or television, music, or movie related.

Those who have power and use it to supplement their own lives tread heavily on the rights and freedoms of their subordinates. Through the manipulation of ones perceived reality, they are able to make people believe virtually anything that they want them to believe. Sometimes this is done out of necessity, other times it is done to control people. One of the easiest ways to restore order is to remove freedoms from the masses especially in the wake of a disaster of epic proportions.

All that being said, it is clear to me that reality is only that which it is made, either by the person themselves or by their leader. For better or worse, this is a commonality in society, because man desires to remain in a state of complacency and will do surprisingly much to get there. Disaster brings out the worst in our leaders, especially when their intentions are not for the overall good but just for their own desire for complacency.

[janesche]

Newsworthy events involving people usually do not happen by accident. They are planned deliberately to accomplish a purpose, to influence ideas and actions.
Bernays stated that "the public must be regimented." Lippmann saw it as the "making of one general will out of a multitude of general wishes." The American masses were convinced that Coca-Cola was the soft-drink of freedom and McDonalds'' Big Mac was the food of freedom and that smoking tobacco products was conducive to rugged individualism, as exemplified by the Marlboro Man campaign

[janesche]

University-programmed journalists---elitist intellectuals and rebels against traditional fatherly discipline---with all their enabling feminine sensitivities, will then hail terrorists as heroes fighting for their rights against bullies.

Because propaganda alters our perception of reality, good becomes evil and evil becomes good, as in Nazi Germany. The biblical %u201CGive us Barabbas%u201D mentality is here again. It happened to Spain( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish-American_War) , and now witnesses the horror in Russia. Much worse is in store for America.

Knowing that the corrupted are their slaves, the programmers have created two cultures in conflict, one of them opposed to the Founding Fathers%u2019 intent. If they cannot get their way %u201Cdemocratically,%u201D they will incite a civil war. Now do you see why the God-centered family is the target for destruction?

This toxic culture is no accident: it is the result of a sophisticated psycho-political battle for our minds and hearts. Awaken now---turn from your manipulators%u2019 cunning and forgive them. Throw away your drugs and booze; come home to family through the truth that makes and keeps us free.

[janesche]

The term propaganda is derived from the Latin propagare, to propagate, to reproduce, to spread, with the meaning, to transmit, to spread from person to person. Propaganda is short for Congregatio de propaganda fide (Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith), a committee of Roman Catholic cardinals established by Pope Gregory XV in l622 organized as a missionary group which proselytized for conversion to Roman Catholicism.
A modern definition is the systematic, widespread dissemination or promotion of particular ideas, doctrines, or practices, meant to further a particular cause or agenda and weaken that of another; it is a systematic effort to manipulate attitudes, beliefs, or actions by the use of symbols. It is commonly used to describe any deceptive or distorted accounts, usually as a dismissive, disparaging, and pejorative term, which in its broadest sense, can be and is applied to any account one does not agree with. In its purest and essential form, propaganda consists in the manipulation of symbols----words, pictures, signs, and images. At its most pure level, words and language, and indeed, even thought can be dispensed with. Merely a stimulus or image is all that is required to produce the desired response.

[janesche]

American newspapers became highly partisan after the Constitution of 1787. Newspapers either adopted the positions of John Adams'' Federalists or Thomas Jefferson''s Republicans. The US government immediately saw the value of newspapers as a tool or instrumentality of the government. At one time, President Andrew Jackson had 60 full-time journalists on the White House payroll, the precursor of the White House press corps.

[janesche]

A perception of danger and threat leads to intolerance and racism, a product of consensual paranoia. Even when the danger or threat is not real but is imaginary and illusory, nevertheless, the perception of danger and threat is all that is needed. This is why propaganda targets the emotions and rarely the intellect. The propagandist merely has to present a sense or perception of danger causing fear. It is irrelevant whether that fear or danger or threat is real

[misha128-2009]

Many of us will settle for McCain and his operatives to continue to discuss Social Security and Medicare driving voters to Obama even faster. It''s a just so exciting to see McCain have to alienate the independents just to attempt to hold on to his defecting base.

[starleo146]

Do you see where we are in this economy? Do you think the spend spend crowd will know how to deal with this? How many republicans gave tax breaks to big business, and if you leave and bring your business and go to another country, what do they get another tax break? Why do you think there are no jobs? Do you think the imports from China are clean? Do you think the Republicans care? Who got us here? NO MC SAME

[janesche]

American newspapers became highly partisan after the Constitution of 1787. Newspapers either adopted the positions of John Adams'' Federalists or Thomas Jefferson''s Republicans. The US government immediately saw the value of newspapers as a tool or instrumentality of the government. At one time, President Andrew Jackson had 60 full-time journalists on the White House payroll, the precursor of the White House press corps.

[janesche]

Propaganda has only one object, to conquer the masses. Every means that furthers that aim is good; every means that hinders it is bad ... You can make a man believe anything if you tell it to him in the right way ... Nothing is easier than leading the people on a leash. I just hold up a dazzling campaign poster and they jump through it...

[janesche]

." The television generation, the cyberspace generation, our generation of mass culture and mass media with innumerable informational channels receives data and stimuli which operate at the subconscious or perception levels, that is, at the involuntary level. Propaganda operates at the conscious level, or voluntary level, but more importantly, at the subconscious and sensory perception level as well, at the involuntary level. Not everyone realizes this. But all propaganda and all propagandists utilize this fact.

[janesche]

Propaganda operates at the subliminal or subconscious level and the sensory perception level. The subconscious and sensory perception and processing are largely involuntary. That is, we cannot control our mental processes at the subconscious level and we cannot control sensory processing. Once we have seen or heard data or information, we cannot unsee or unhear it. Propaganda and persuasion techniques operate at this involuntary level, the subliminal, subconscious, and sensory perception level. Conscious thought is voluntary, but sensory perception processing and the subconscious are not.




All propaganda and all propagandists understand this and make use of it. Hitler stated: "In the end, it was believed." Propaganda operates at this involuntary level. We have no or very little control over this level. We receive and process this data or information involuntarily and aith or against our will. These factors highlight the myth and illusion in so-called democratic societies of free will and independent choice and action.

[starleo146]

I hope the American people see through this fear tactics, every election some swift boat junket from the republicans, and there they go with it, c''mon people you are not going to fall for this again are you? Gheeze gosh almighty, when are we going to learn. . I bet they are sitting back in there office chairs with that big cigar laughing there heads of you gullible, who believe anything folks.

[janesche]

In l927, Harold D. Lasswell, a political science professor at the University of Chicago, in Propaganda Technique in the World War, analyzed the techniques employed by the Allies, the French, British, and Americans, against Germany and her allies during the war. Lasswell described propaganda as follows:
"A new and subtler instrument must weld thousands and even millions of human beings into one amalgamated mass of hate and will and hope ... propaganda. It is the new dynamic of society ... The fact remains that propaganda is one of the most powerful instrumentalities in the modern world. Propaganda is a reflex to the immensity, the rationality and willfulness of the modern world

The art of propaganda lies in understanding the emotional ideas of the masses and finding, through a psychologically correct form, the way to the attention and thence to the heart of the masses...The purpose of propaganda is not to provide interesting distraction for blasi young gentlemen, but to convince, and what I mean is to convince the masses...What our authorities least of all understood was the very first axiom of all propagandistic activity: to wit, the basically subjective and one-sided attitude it must take toward every question it deals with...Its effect for the most part must be aimed at the emotions and only to a very limited degree at the so-called intellect

[cbsmakesnews]

Obama''s past affiliations have made the man who he is today. I am not comfortable with that man.

[G H M]

McBush is the guy
that said Medicare is too expensive
and it unfair to support Social Security
and do not pass a vet. GI bill
and do not give woman equal pay
and do not give health care for children.
and want to continue the war
and caused the stock market failure
and he''s election team is nothing but Bush people and lobbyist!
McCain is not good for the country!
vote for Obama-Biden and all democrats!