That is according to the CBO:

Adjusted for timing shifts, Medicare spending rose by $7 billion (or 5 percent).

Of
course this is reason to be outraged at all that government spending
coming out of our pockets, right? Right? Thankfully those fiscally responsible Republicans have come up with the great idea of privatizing Medicare.

Rep. Paul Ryan self-destructively wants to destroy Medicare and Social Security:

He's shilling for Wall Street yet again as he usually
does. He wants to privatize medicare and social security although he
uses words like "vouchers" to mask what he's saying.

While I understand that pointing out a fact like that is called "attacking" their favoritest Republicans evah - and their ideas - by some defenders of the magic free market faerie dust.
And as a moderate liberal I have grown used to the reality of their
victim card being pulled out every time they are so wrong it is almost
embarrassing to enjoin them in debate... But for now, let
us look at how Medicare compares to St. Ronny's vaunted "free market",
the free market that Rep. Ryan wants you to turn to solve all of our
problems:

The AFL-CIO calls out Anthem Blue Cross and Blue
Shield, which has requested a rate hike of up to 30 percent in
Connecticut, for example, while spending more than $9.5 million on
lobbying activities. Similarly, UnitedHealthcare recently proposed
a premium increase for its Medicare supplemental insurance while
spending more than $2.6 million on lobbying activities in the first
half of 2009 alone.

Golly... You mean under the
Republican healthcare plan people could get off of Medicare's
outrageous 5% increases in costs and have the privilege of joining the
Free Market's 30% increases? And double their pleasure by giving
Corporate Welfare "vouchers" to the very people that cause 99% of the problems in American healthcare?

and Social Security too, a fact that may upset some GOP activists
because they have to deal with that reality in the trenches and this is not something most of them want to talk to voters about leading up to the next round of elections. And given the fact that I am just a moderate little "i" indy with no party affiliation - I
just play nicer on the left/Democratic party side of the Blogosphere
because, much like myself and for the most part, they deal from the
reality deck - I thought I would point to a story in The New
Haven Independent covering CT-05's Rep. Chris Murphy discussing the
issue of Healthcare Reform with activists that understand the problems
we are all trying to deal with.

To be blunt, Murphy thinks the Democratic party needs to come out swinging and drive reform through.

Instead
of running from health care reform, Democrats need to swing back, and
not dumb it down in reaction to right-wing talking points.

Myself,
personally? I agree. Healthcare reform has been one of my pet issues
for years. I have written about the fact that it is quickly becoming
the anchor that will sink the entire US economy. And it is precisely
because of the fact that the for-profit driven insurance madness
currently sucks up about 16 to 17% of the USA's GDP, an astronomical
number compared to almost every other nation that we have to compete
with in the global market.

In
2007 I wrote about the fact that "each vehicle assembled in the United
States cost GM $1,525 for health care; those made in Canada cost GM
$197."

But it is not just applicable to the
auto industry. The competitive disadvantage this puts us at in the
global market and in every industry is mind boggling. Meanwhile, while
we suffer the consequences of not only being at a severe competitive
disadvantage, the for-profit insurers deny care to an ever growing number
of people.

Because of our dysfunctional system pitting
profits against the value of a real person's life or a real person's health, the uninsured have
zero access to basic primary and preventative care, the only care they
may have access to is costly hospital emergency room care, and a
growing number of people are seeing their private plans disintegrate in
value or being dropped completely by their employers. And the insured
still have to deal with ever rising co-pays that literally put access
to actually using their insurance out of their financial reach and have
to deal with insurance companies that pay bonuses to a herd of people
hired to do nothing but deny you care you already paid for in your
policy.

There are better answers. 

And these better answers come from the reality side of the aisle I was talking about earlier in the post. While not all in the left nor on the Democratic side agree with this action, it is an action that they all admit would work:

Yes, it fits onto a bumper sticker:

And it's pointedly accurate...the last thing the GOP would ever want to see.

Hat-tip dmhlt 66 of DailyKos, from the diary by ericlewis0.

At the end of the blogger outreach on Saturday, September 26th, '09, I talked to Senator Dodd on the Kucinich Amendment Protecting States' Rights to move forward on Single Payer. Essentially, Dodd refers to Senator Bernie Sanders' efforts and Sanders legislation to deal with Erisa laws and allow Single Payer in States that want to start an SP system. Dodd makes no commitment to support it, but he will look at it. Sanders had previously introduced a partial fix to the system and it was rejected in the Senate HELP committee BUT if we can get him to reintroduce it, or even a stronger fix? One possibly more sympathetic and newly minted Chairperson may have the will to twist a few arms:

by Robert Reich and posted with his permission.

I'm a strong supporter of universal health insurance, and a fan of the Obama administration. But I'm appalled by the deal the White House has made with the pharmaceutical industry's lobbying arm to buy their support.

Hat-tip to sluggahjells of DailyKos for the heads-up to this wonderful smackdown of GOP hypocrisy regarding healthcare reform.

This is just a classic smackdown -- no if, and or but about it. It's beginning to look like the GOP's plan to turn the Healthcare initiative into Obama's "Waterloo" has actually turned into the GOP's own rendition of Custer's Last Stand at Little Big Horn.

I have been following the healthcare reform debate with increasing fear that this opportunity to produce meaningful change in the way healthcare is paid for in this country will be squandered.  Considering that this is the first real chance of making serious change since Harry Truman was President, it would be reasonable to guess that if we pass this one up, it will be decades before we have another such chance.  

Promoted. Originally posted 2009-06-25 21:03:17 -0400. -- GH

Come over here for a moment. I’m going to lift the curtain on a private world, a world I hope you’ll never have cause to inhabit. Take a glance at this world and the people in it. This is the world of dialysis patients and their families.

What you are about to read is not at all uncommon in the dialysis community. We (dialysis patients) often give each other this sort of advice. I am partly prepared, when my own time comes, to divorce the one I love and go on Medicaid myself if I have to. It may be the only way I can get health care once I max out our employer insurance, the one with the $2 million cap.

The names I use here are real. The people are real. The words are their own, appeared on a dialysis patient email list, and are quoted with permission. Their zip codes, also used with permission, are real. Their stories will make you rage, and break your heart.

Press Release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Ways and Means Contact: Matthew Beck (202) 225-8933
Energy and Commerce Contact: Karen Lightfoot (202) 225-2927
Education and Labor Contact: Rachel Racusen (202) 225-0853

June 9, 2009

House Committees Brief Members on Draft Health Reform Outline

Effort will reduce costs, protect current coverage and preserve choice to ensure affordable, quality care for all

Read more

What appears below is crossposted from Daily Kos, where it stimulated very lively discussion. I appreciate the invitation to post it here as well.

I was inspired yesterday by a diary on Daily Kos written by nyceve, an articulate and powerful advocate for single payer health care, to crystallize my thinking about health system reform in a direction that many other factors in my life have pushed me away from.

You see, I'm a physician, and a very close family member is a physician. I am a delegate to the AMA -- which, as you know, remains steadfastly opposed to a single-payer solution, although it has developed an extensive reform proposal based upon providing insurance to everyone via tax credits -- subsidized health insurance.

But I have come to the conclusion that our insurance based system is simply not reparable.

I've decided it was time to come out.

Via Think Progress:

Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) is "circulating the outlines of sweeping health-care legislation that would require every American to have insurance and would mandate that employers contribute to workers' coverage." The proposal, which includes a separate public option, also "calls for opening Medicaid to those whose incomes are 500 percent of the federal poverty level, or $110,250 a year for a family of four."

On a conference call with Organizing for America volunteers yesterday, President Obama said it's now or never for health care reform. "If we don't get it done this year, we're not going to get it done," Obama said, urging callers to "work in your communities" to build support for reform. "[W]e've got to get it done this year," Obama repeated.

I haven't read the specifics of Kennedy's plan so I haven't formed an opinion on it, YET!