Get Active Now to End Bad Debt Deal

The social insurance programs that have delivered increased health and financial security to those who need it most are being dealt away in a show of political theater over debt ceilings and corporate greed. On July 30th, Medicare turns 46. That’s almost half a century of reducing poverty, increasing health outcomes, and keeping administrative costs…

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Obama pushing for cuts to Social Security, Medicare

By Glenn Greenwald for Salon – This is at once an extraordinary and completely unsurprising headline: For months, the standard narrative among progressive commentators was that Republicans were outrageously exploiting the debt ceiling deadline to impose drastic entitlement cuts on a resisting and victimized Democratic President (he’s weak in negotiations!), but The Post article makes…

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Health care cuts proposed in deficit negotiations

Congress reconvenes this week to consider options in budget talks From the New York Times – Obama administration officials are offering to cut tens of billions of dollars from Medicare and Medicaid in negotiations to reduce the federal budget deficit, but the depth of the cuts depends on whether Republicans are willing to accept any…

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FDL and PNHP Join Forces to Petition Obama Administration

Give Vermont the Waivers it Needs to Build a Better Health Care System If McDonald’s receives health care waivers from HHS, Vermont should too Petition: http://action.firedoglake.com/VThealthcare Physicians for National Health Program (PNHP) and Firedoglake.com are joining forces to urge the Obama administration to grant Vermont the waivers it needs to implement its new health care…

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GOP Pushes To Let States Reduce Medicaid Rolls

By Mary Agnes Carey and Phil Galewitz for KHN – With their proposal to turn Medicaid into block grants all but dead, Republicans now are pushing legislation to let states tighten eligibility rules for the health program for the poor and disabled. The move, which would affect Medicaid as well as the Children’s Health Insurance…

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Love of Medicare chills tea party fever

By Clarence Page for the Chicago Tribune – Surprise, surprise! Faced with the prospect of Medicare cuts, even tea party folks find griping about “big government” to be a lot more fun than actually shrinking it. Seventy percent of those who identified themselves as supporters of the fiscally conservative movement in a new McClatchy-Marist poll…

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Another poll shows Americans oppose Medicare cuts to deal with debt

By Jon Cohen and Dan Balz for the Washington Post – Despite growing concerns about the country’s long-term fiscal problems and an intensifying debate in Washington about how to deal with them, Americans strongly oppose some of the major remedies under consideration, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. The survey finds that Americans…

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Action Alert: Demand Pres. Obama Save Medicare

Republicans want to privatize Medicare and slash Medicaid to reduce the nation’s deficit. President Obama says he wants to preserve Medicare and Medicaid, but his budget proposal looks to those programs to find savings. We agree that healthcare costs are a serious problem, but cutting Medicare and Medicaid won’t help. Instead, we need to take…

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Why Medicare Isn’t the Problem, It’s the Solution

By Robert Reich for RobertReich.com – I hope when he tells America how he aims to tame future budget deficits the president doesn’t accept conventional Washington wisdom that the biggest problem in the federal budget is Medicare (and its poor cousin Medicaid). Medicare isn’t the problem. It’s the solution. The real problem is the soaring…

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