XPost: or.politics, seattle.politics, ca.politics
XPost: alt.law-enforcement, alt.economics
several keys, one is
"But Biden-HARRIS are old hands at playing "Where's the Ball?" And the embarrassing revelations about the lovely new welcome center for
illegals in San Diego, or the new digs in NYC, etc., and all paid for
with FEMA bucks, were nothing they hadn't done before."
and
"Harris's Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) razzle-dazzle is not only
costing seniors big money in delayed 'after the election' price hike skullduggery but also impeding the development of new drugs.
President Biden and Kamala Harris plan to celebrate the Inflation
Reduction Act’s two-year anniversary this week. What they won’t mention
in their exultation is the damage the law is doing to the development of
new medicines."
and
"It was Peter robbing Grampa Paul blind under the rosy cover of all
these incredible - but mythical - "Medicare savings." And they used
adjectives like 'siphoned.'"
from
https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2024/10/04/it-wasnt-just-fema-funds-biden-harris-got-tricksy-with-n3795397
It Wasn't Just FEMA Funds Biden-HARRIS Got Tricksy With
Beege Welborn 4:00 PM | October 04, 2024
AP Photo/Jon Elswick, File
The wrath of Hurricane Helene and the path of utter, unimaginable
suffering and destruction left in her stormy wake is going to be with us
for years upon years.
What will also, hopefully, never be forgotten is the Biden-HARRIS
regime's complete incompetence in preparing for the storm and handling
even the tiniest aspects of its aftermath. What will also hopefully live
long in infamy re the regime is how their agency tasked with handling
events of such magnitude - the Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA) - performed so badly from the outset and yet cried poor mouth so
shortly afterward. That revelation caused a general sense of
astonishment on top of the outrage building in the face of their seeming indifference.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HAVE NO MONEY "LEFT"?
Where'd it go?
And that answer about some of it - a billion dollars and counting to
resettle hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants allowed willy-nilly
across the border by the administration - enraged AMERICANS across the
country watching the horrific scenes from North Carolina and Tennessee
unfold on their TVs, 'puters, and phones.
But Biden-HARRIS are old hands at playing "Where's the Ball?" And the embarrassing revelations about the lovely new welcome center for
illegals in San Diego, or the new digs in NYC, etc., and all paid for
with FEMA bucks, were nothing they hadn't done before.
It's just that maybe no one was paying attention, and now maybe they should.
I saw this tweet after Helene hit, but by then, I was busy watching the
track and worrying as she swooped up into NC and TN.
As it contained two of my pet peeves - the grifters in the White House
and EVs - I put it up on my Facebook page with a:
I am delighted to help the Biden-HARRIS administration scam all of us
Medicare retired types to help fund their climate cult fever dreams.
Aren't you?
And forgot about it until now.
Sure makes that billion from FEMA look like chickenfeed, doesn't it?
How this is not a bigger scandal just on the face of that tweet alone, I
don't know. But the Wall Street Journal did a deep dive in mid-August
that somehow got lost in all the campaign noise.
Harris's Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) razzle-dazzle is not only costing seniors big money in delayed 'after the election' price hike
skullduggery but also impeding the development of new drugs.
President Biden and Kamala Harris plan to celebrate the Inflation
Reduction Act’s two-year anniversary this week. What they won’t mention
in their exultation is the damage the law is doing to the development of
new medicines.
...The IRA let Medicare “negotiate” prices for 10 to 20 drugs a year and
a total of 60 by 2029. Negotiate is a euphemism for extortion: Drug
makers that don’t participate or reject the government’s price face a
daily excise tax that starts at 186% and climbs to 1,900% of a drug’s
daily revenue.
The law also requires manufacturers to pay the government rebates on
medicines sold to Medicare if they raise prices more than the rate of inflation, and puts them on the hook for more of the entitlement’s Part
D costs. Democrats used the resulting estimated “savings” of some $160 billion to pay for the green new deal.
But subsidized solar panels won’t help if you get sick. The inevitable, albeit invisible, result of Democrats’ raid on pharmaceutical companies
will be fewer new medicines.
Roche CEO Thomas Schinecker said last summer that “we have decided that
we are not going to do certain trials, or that we are not going to do a
merger or acquisition or licensing [deal] because it is becoming
financially not viable.” AstraZeneca also warned that it might delay launching some cancer medicines because of the IRA.
How is this different than what Medicare used to do for drug pricing, etc?
...In the past, Part D relied on normal market forces resulting from
fair market competition between insurers to keep drug prices in check.
As government price fixing upends that system, insurers are either
raising premiums or abandoning the market. Older Americans are already
seeing premiums for standalone Part D plans skyrocket by 20% or more,
and the number of available plans they can choose from has declined to a
record low, putting two million seniors at risk of losing their current
Part D plans.
Just recently, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)
reported the Part D base beneficiary premium costs—which increased by a staggering 179%—and arbitrarily added a new “demo” to limit premium increases in standalone Part D plans, which roughly eleven million
seniors are enrolled in. In the Biden-Harris code, this means that the administration will further subsidize big insurers to the tune of $72
billion over the next three years via the new “demo” project from the Medicare Trust Funds, further eroding the program’s financial security.
That way, seniors will only see a $2 increase per month on average. All
told, that puts the entire IRA raid on Medicare at well over $330 billion.
The Biden-Harris administration is not protecting Medicare; they’re
stealing from it.
Even way back in January, alarm flags were being raised - and missed -
by analysts desperate to point out how and where all the renewable
subsidies for the IRA were originating. It wasn't "new" money.
It was Peter robbing Grampa Paul blind under the rosy cover of all these incredible - but mythical - "Medicare savings." And they used adjectives
like 'siphoned.'
...Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Mark Merritt, president of
Proactive Strategies Group, said that only about 15% of the $280 billion
in savings from the program goes into Medicare. The bulk of the savings, Merritt explained, are going to support the $7,500 electric-vehicle tax
credit.
Morales said the siphoned funds are also supporting the $4,000 used electric-vehicle tax credit, and tax credits for energy efficiency
items, such as doors. The tax credits on these vehicles, Merritt said,
are items that wealthier Americans purchase. In 2019, half of those
enrolled in Medicare earn less than $30,000 per year, whereas the
typical Tesla buyer earns around $150,000 per year.
According to Merritt, the savings that go into Medicare pay for some “relatively inexpensive new benefits,” such as a $2,000 annual cap on pharmacy spending. The overall Medicare program's budget is projected to
rise from $1 trillion in 2023 to $1.8 trillion in 2031.
The seniors struggling to get by right now are going to wonder what
happened when the purposefully delayed Medicare premium increases hit
them after this election and the Tesla owners won't be affected in the
least.
...Instead of truly lowering drug prices, which are skyrocketing,
Reynolds said, the IRA diverts funding into electric vehicles and that
the combination of climate change and health issues follows a similar
pattern to what was seen during the COVID pandemic, where fears of
deadly infections were used by politicians to justify restrictions that
were unnecessary and ultimately harmful.
“That’s exactly what they’re doing with climate change,” he said.
Oh, but gosh! "$35 insulin!" says Kamala with a straight face.
...“The Biden administration is more interested in pet projects, unsustainable green schemes, and ideological revenue redistribution than
in the core functions of government — and seniors hoping for relief on
drug prices get screwed once again,” he said.
Every single senior in the country should know about this abomination
and every single voter, say, in their 50s and up, because everyone gets
stuck with Medicare.
...Now they’re taking money from the Medicare Trust Fund to hide
resulting premium hikes until after November.
"CMS enacted the “demonstration project,” which will increase the
taxpayer burden “from $30 per recipient per month in 2024 to $142.70 in 2025,” according to Fox. Critics told the outlet the move will likely
not “survive legal scrutiny,” but that won’t matter because Harris just needs the premiums to stay low long enough to make it to the Nov. 5
election to avoid voter scrutiny from the over 67 million Americans
enrolled in Medicare programs."
Remember it was Vice President Harris that cast the tie breaking vote to
pass this scheme as part of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2023, which
has done nothing to stop inflation and will eventually make it worse if
not fixed.
Every senior on Medicare or getting ready to enroll needs to know this.
And "stuck" is the word, thanks to Biden-HARRIS - like with a shiv.
Every single senior - every last one - needs to be made aware,
especially the little blue-haired blue-believer voters, of what is
coming their way thanks to Kamala Harris.
A planned $5 billion Biden-Harris administration venture that would
offset Medicare premium increases just before the presidential election
may be a Hatch Act violation and should be investigated, according to a
letter sent to the Department of Justice (DOJ) by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.
The Hatch Act prohibits political activity conducted in an official
capacity.
"My colleagues and I are concerned that the Biden-Harris Administration
is inappropriately using taxpayer funds to mask the defective Medicare
Part D policies enacted as part of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of
2022 (P.L. 117-169)," Paul wrote to Corey Amundson, the Chief of the
Public Integrity Section at the DOJ. "Given the IRA’s central role in
the Biden-Harris Administration’s presidential campaign, these concerns warrant additional investigation."
They are such tricksy, thieving sneks.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)