Centrists Win Backing on Medicare Cost Cuts

[foginthemorn]

Congress is shirking its duty. This power should not be give to the Executive Branch.




Centrists Win Backing on Medicare Cost Cuts

By Greg Hitt and Naftali Bendavid
The Wall Street Journal
July 22, 2009

Democratic centrists said they won a tentative commitment from the White House to back a proposal to curb the growth of Medicare costs, as party leaders braced for a vote next week on health-care legislation.

One proposal pushed both by President Barack Obama and some centrists is to give the executive branch the authority to implement cuts to Medicare spending that would be recommended by independent experts. Congress could stop the cuts, but only if it acted swiftly. Fiscal conservatives say that under the current system, which gives Congress more power, lawmakers shy away from politically tough votes to restrain Medicare costs.

After a more-than-two-hour meeting at the White House Tuesday, centrists said they secured a verbal commitment to add such a mechanism on Medicare cost-cutting to the House bill.

White House budget chief Peter Orszag was among those at the meeting, and said the mechanism was a big focus of discussion. He said adding it would alleviate the concerns of fiscally conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats. “I think it’s probably the most important piece that could be added to the House legislation,” he said.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124822098850870337.html?mod=googlenews_wsj


http://www.pnhp.org/blog/

[Kdillard]

1. Interesting President Obama was talking about this tonight and it sounded like a

good idea regarding the panel of Healthcare expects who would be recommending more effieicint ways of implementing Medicare benefits or getting rid of waste hopefully i am not confusing it with a different proposal. I guess the only problem would be exactly who would make up the panel.

[DrToast]

2. Congress is being relieved of its duty

Because they suck at it.