Kitchen Sink: December 30, 2011

Obamacare:  For those of you who don't know, Obama and the Democrats did make a difference in health care for seniors.  I was scheduled for a colonoscopy on January 4 (it's been six years and my doctor recommended I get one every three years since they found polyps the last time around).  In reviewing the changes in my Advantage Medicare plan, I find that colonoscopies which were previously authorized once a year are, effective January 1, 2012, now authorized once every ten years (yes, you read that correctly--once every 120 months).  At least now if you get colon cancer within the ten year period you can't blame yourself for not being vigilant--I know how much we all love those colonoscopies.  I had to cancel my procedure as the insurance company won't review benefits for 2012 until 2012.  This one was a Democratic initiative.  Thanks Democrats!

Out Damn Spot (or in this case, Maureen Dowd).  For reasons unfathomable to me Maureen Dowd, who writes for the New York Times, is viewed by many as a leftist columnist.  Not!  And her tendency to lean right, more each year, is never more apparent than when she gives her column to her brother Kevin to spew forth his right-wing opinions, none of which are ever supported by fact.  This year, before presenting Kevin's comments, we had to endure Dowd's excessive praise of the doctors at Sloan-Kettering who treated Kevin for kidney cancer, apparently with success.  Most people with kidney cancer (or any other type of cancer) are not eligible for treatment at Sloan, which does not treat those insured by Medicare or Medicaid.  I know this, as it refused to treat my late husband for pancreatic cancer in 2008. Kevin rode to survival on the coattails of his sister Maureen (the 1%) for his treatment.  But that's okay--it happens often enough in this country and we're used to it.  Those with money get better treatment and survive; those without money or power (or relatives with power) too often die.  What I've not grown used to is the New York Times giving Maureen's coattails to Kevin once a year to spout his badly-written and always mean-spirited lies.  "All the news that's fit to print" went west when the Times unabashedly supported the war against Iraq, also by publishing lies.  It continues in that fine tradition by publishing Kevin Dowd's once-a-year diatribe against the Democrats.

Back to Maureen.  She lost her edge as a political writer quite a while ago, when the "Shrub" left office. And who couldn't be funny writing about George Bush, Jr. We now get the occasional column on the life of Charles Dickens or a review of a Clint Eastwood movie (he also leans right).  It's over Maureen. You're no longer relevant as a political writer, and you're certainly not a writer of the left.  You've been supplanted by Gail Collins, who thankfully is without brothers or at least has the sense to keep them in their place.

A Pyrrhic Victory


Finally an acknowledgment that the supposed political victory of Obama and the Democrats in extending the Social Security cut was not a victory at all and may in the end be a disaster to those of us who vigorously support Social Security.  I suspect that FDR is turning in his grave.  As Drew Westen writes in today's Times:

[R] eplacing lost Social Security funding from the payroll tax cut with general revenues is playing with fire, for two reasons.
First, an extended cut in payroll taxes could readily become a permanent cut and a threat to the solvency of what is supposed to be a trust fund. Second, paying for Social Security with general revenues, while repeatedly referring to Social Security and Medicare as “entitlements”— a term voters associate with people demanding something they don’t deserve — links an insurance plan for which people spend their lives paying premiums (Social Security) with welfare, making it easier to cut Social Security in the future. And a two-month extension means we will be watching this bad movie again very soon.

And to extend this further, if the Democrats do win back the Congress and keep the presidency, they will be blamed for increasing taxes when the cut is reinstated.  The general public, not very knowledgable at the best of times, will view it as a tax increase.  Further, it's not those who are employed who need help, it's those who are without jobs and they don't pay taxes or social security since they don't have an income.  It's distressing to admit but Obama and the Democrats play politics as much as the Republicans; they're just not as good at it most days.  This one they won; let's hope it's not a pyrrhic victory.