Fixing The Doc Fix

I've often said that America could afford a lot of things if we didn't have to spend money cleaning up Dubya's messy wars in the Middle East.  But now that the current President is winding these wars down, Republicans are opposed to using those savings to fix our economy, of course.

Over the last few months there’s been serious talk in Congress of buying out the “doc fix” issue once and for all with war savings from troop withdrawals in Iraq and Afghanistan, estimated at over half a trillion dollars.

The idea has been championed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and multiple other key senators including John Kerry (D-MA), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Tom Harkin (D-IA).

But even though this plan could remove for free the $300-billion-and-growing albatross from the nation’s neck, it faces fierce resistance from House Republicans. In fact, some of the vocal opponents are doctors in the caucus, whom Leadership tends to give the first bite at the apple on health issues.

That’s largely because House Republicans view the necessity of finding doc fix pay-fors as leverage to cut government spending.

“I absolutely would not be in favor of offsetting Overseas Contingency Operations money [for a doc fix] when it was going to end anyway,” said Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA), a physician, when I asked him about the idea.

And why?

“That is funny money. That spending was going to go away anyway. That does not reduce the size of government,” Gingrey explained. “So you grow it on the one hand and then you rob Peter to pay Paul but Peter doesn’t have any money. It’s just a Ponzi scheme and the American people are sick of that.”

Got that?  It was vital national security when it was Iraq and Afghanistan.  It's a Ponzi scheme if you use the money to fix Medicare.   Republicans don't want to permanently repair the Medicare "doc fix" reimbursement problem, they want to beat Democrats over the head with it and use it as a hostage card to get more spending cuts and tax cuts for the rich.

Fixing Medicare doesn't actually matter to the GOP.   Losing a potential hostage does, however.  Small wonder that Congress's approval rating in the latest ABC/Washington Post poll is down to 13%, a new 40-year low.

One side wants to fix America.  The other side is willing to destroy as much of it as necessary in order to regain total power.  Go figure.