Obamacare and the “crisis” of an aging population
OBAMA – THE
SOCIOPATH BANKSTERS FUNDED AND ILLEGALS REELECTED.
OBAMA
IS A SOCIOPATH. HE CAN LIE OUT OF HIS BIG MOUTH ABOUT ANYTHING AND THEN GO
SERVE HIS CRIMINAL BANKSTER DONORS AND LA RAZA!
But
the latest New York Times/CBS News poll shows something that is a
troublesome sign for the White House. Only 30 percent of Americans believe that
the president “cares a lot” about “the needs and problems of people” like
themselves.
On fifth anniversary of Wall Street crash, Obama tries the Big Lie
technique
17 September 2013
On Monday, US President Barack Obama marked the fifth anniversary of the
Wall Street crash of September 15, 2008 with a White House speech that only
underscored the unbridgeable chasm that separates the entire political
establishment from the broad mass of working people.
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/09/crony-capitalism-obama-celebrates-5.html
Forbes magazine reported that the wealth of
the 400 richest Americans had climbed to $2 trillion, a jump from $1.7 trillion
in 2012.
Obamacare and the “crisis” of an aging population
1 November 2013
The inauguration of the private health care exchanges as part of the Affordable Care Act this past month has set off a political crisis for the Obama administration. Underlying the immediate issue of the failure of the new web site is the character of Obamacare itself—an attack on health care cloaked in the guise of “reform,” whose basic aim is to slash health care spending and shift a greater cost burden onto the backs of individuals.
From the beginning, cutting health care spending has been the central motivation of discussions over the Obama administration’s main domestic initiative. This was to be done by requiring individuals to purchase private insurance or face a penalty, thereby allowing corporations and governments to eliminate their own health care programs and leave individuals at the mercy of private insurers’ profit interests. Just as the health care overhaul goes into effect, bipartisan discussions are underway to slash hundreds of billions more from Medicare and Social Security.
Underlying the entire discussion in the political establishment is a basic concern of the American ruling class, a concern that is generally left unstated—namely, that people in the end are simply living too long. The advances of modern medicine have extended lives, often significantly beyond the age of retirement.
For the political strategists of the corporate and financial elite, these years of retirement and medical care are not seen as a good, but as a source of costs that must be slashed, so that they can take that money. This is to be accomplished either by raising the retirement age, by lowering life expectancy so that people die earlier, or both.
Two recent policy papers from the Center for Strategic & International Studies, a Washington-based think tank with close ties to the US military-intelligence agencies and both big business parties, give a sense of the discussions taking place behind the scenes.
One paper, “
The Global Aging Preparedness Index” (GAP Index), examines the impact of the “stunning demographic transformation” caused by rising lifespans in the US and internationally. The second paper, “
The Budget Crisis and the Civil-Military Challenge to National Security Spending,” is written by Anthony H. Cordesman, a longtime CSIS strategist who acts as a consultant for the US State and Defense departments.
The first study states that the US would rate much higher on the “GAP Index” if not for the “extraordinarily rapid rate of growth in health-care spending”, particularly for the aging population. The authors divide the older population into two categories: “young elderly,” ages 60-69, and “old elderly,” 70 and beyond. They maintain that because people are living longer, the “young elderly” are not truly “old age” and should not be allowed to retire “early” and bilk the system.
The solution? Raise the retirement age for Social Security—and, by implication, eligibility for Medicare—and force these supposedly “young elderly” to continue working. The Obama administration has indicated its support for such measures, which are part of the ongoing discussion between the two parties in Washington.
To bolster their argument, the CSIS authors helpfully suggest that working into old age “is not only good for the health of the budget and the economy, but according to most gerontologists it is also good for the health of the elderly themselves.” The modern-day phenomenon of elderly workers competing for minimum-wage jobs because their pensions have been slashed or eliminated turns out to be…a boon to good health.
In his paper, written from the standpoint of the military-intelligence apparatus, Cordesman states: “The US does not face any foreign threat as serious as its failure to come to grips with…the rise in the cost of federal entitlement spending.” He argues that the growth of the federal deficit and debt are driven “almost exclusively by the rise in federal spending on major health care programs, Social Security, and cost of net interest on the debt.”
Cordesman bemoans that as the population grows older, seniors are sapping vital resources as they seek treatment for dementia, heart disease, and cancer. By implication, something must be done to rein this in, especially if the United States is to address Cordesman’s main priority—maintaining the current exorbitant spending on wars and the US military.
Both documents claim that the great divide in society is between the “young” and the “old,” and that by swallowing up a disproportionate share of the national wealth, the elderly are placing the younger generation in danger.
This is a cynical lie. The central danger to American society is the capitalist system, which entails the unrestrained plundering of the working class by a narrow and parasitic ruling elite whose escalating wealth and campaigns of military aggression are bleeding society white.
The elderly, the vast majority of whom struggle to survive on Social Security and dwindling retirement accounts, are denounced as leeches on society, while the wealth of the super-rich grows to unprecedented levels. Though the combined pay of the top 10 highest paid CEOs in the US was $4.7 billion last year alone, the representatives of the ruling class demand that workers’ retirement age be raised and health care spending slashed.
It is such considerations that underlie Obamacare and the broader framework of the health care “debate,” aimed at setting up an even more heavily class-based system, in which most people receive substandard care while the rich can afford the most modern medicines and procedures.
And it is such considerations that have motivated the campaign from the news media, and particularly the
New York Times, to restrict supposedly “unnecessary” medical treatment for ordinary people.
That the representatives of the corporate and financial elite see the growth in life expectancy and improved health in old age—standard measures of an advancing society—as a positive evil is in itself a damning indictment of their policies and of the capitalist system that they defend.
Kate Randall
the figures are
in on Obama’s looting of America for Wall Street!
STAGGERING
POVERTY IN AMERICA CAUSED BY OBAMA, HIS CRONIES AND WALL STREET DONORS…AND THEN
ILLEGALS GET THE JOBS!
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/09/obamanomics-and-obamas-crony-capitalism.html
According to a new
report by University of California Berkeley Professor Emmanuel Saez, the gulf
between the wealthy and the rest of society has sharply expanded under Obama.
The richest one percent now monopolize more than 22 percent of all household
income in America. The richest ten percent of the population now control more
than half of the nation’s income, 50.4 percent—the highest proportion since the
government began collecting income statistics in 1917.
Since 2009, the richest one percent has captured a staggering 95
percent of all income gains. The class war policies of the government—including
bank bailouts, “quantitative easing” and an attack on wage and benefits for the
working class—have led to a 31.4 percent rise in income for the top one
percent. The wealthy have more than recovered the losses that came from the
Wall Street collapse of 2008.
Meanwhile, the bottom 99 percent has seen a negligible 0.4 percent
rise in income. Tens of millions of workers—who never recovered from the record
household income drop of 2007 to 2009—continue to reel from the effects of mass
job losses, falling wages, home foreclosures, indebtedness and social service
cuts.
OBAMA HAS PROMISED LA RAZA BLANKET AMNESTY OR CONTINUED
NON-ENFORCEMENT.
In fact, real median household income dropped in
every year of Obama's first term. In 2008, when he was elected, it was $53,644.
In 2009, the year he was inaugurated, it dropped to 53,285. In 2010, his second
year in office, it dropped to $51,892. In 2011, his third year in office, it
dropped to $51,100. And, in 2012, his fourth year in office, it dropped to
$51,017. At the same time the number of people living in poverty in the United
States increased. In 2008, according to the Census Bureau, there were
approximately 39,829,000 people living in poverty in this country. In 2012, there
were 46,496,000. That is an increase of approximately 6,667,000—of 16.73
percent—from 2008 to 2012.
SHUTDOWN… BUT NO CESSATION OF WALL
STREET’S LOOTING
JUST AS THE AMNESTY HOAX TO LEGALIZE MEXICO'S
LOOTING IS ALL ABOUT KEEPING WAGES DEPRESSED WITH AND ENDLESS FLOW OF MEXICANS
OVER OUR BORDERS, SO IS THIS SHUTDOWN SIMPLY ONE MORE ASSAULT ON THE AMERICAN
MIDDLE CLASS ALREADY DECIMATED BY WALL STREET'S LOOTING AND ALL JOBS GOING TO
LA RAZA!
“There are growing indications
that, as with previous artificially engineered government crises, a phony war
between the two corporate-controlled parties is being used to escalate the
relentless and very real war against the living standards of the working class.”