Medicare hangover on tap

You’ve heard complaints about presidents and Congresses spending like drunken sailors. So where has this money gone? The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities is on the case, and it turns out that there is a chief culprit. Defense spending? No. Welfare? Wrong. Earmark boondoggles? Sorry. Relative to GDP, spending on these items has declined in the past 50 years.

Interest on the debt is devouring a larger portion of the pie, because debt itself keeps growing. But why?

On the spending side, most of the gains can be chalked up to health care. If you’ve wondered why I discuss this issue so often, it’s because health care inflation is relentlessly corrosive. CBPP’s analysis shows that when you remove interest on the debt, Social Security and Medicare from the federal budget equation, spending relative to the economy has declined over the years. It averaged 13 percent of GDP from 1962 to 2011, and is projected to drop to 10.8 percent by 2022.

However, the deficit will expand, because the inflationary effect on Medicare is expected to continue. (Social Security spending is also a factor, but that’s because reserves that should’ve been there were siphoned off for other purposes.) In short, you can’t tame the deficit without controlling health care costs.

Neither party has shown much appetite for Medicare cuts, because they get punished for mentioning it. The Affordable Care Act calls for $500 billion in Medicare savings to help pay for greater access for the uninsured, but Republicans demagogued that with great success during the 2010 midterm elections.

The bottom line is that if someone is complaining about drunken spending without invoking Medicare, they need to put a cork in it.

IT’S NOT A FLUKE. Rush Limbaugh being a jerk? Pretty sure that’s an expectation of his listeners and Clear Channel, which signed him to a $400 million radio deal. But even by his standards, you have to wonder what’s gotten him so Viagravated lately.

At a congressional hearing, Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown University law student, told the story of a friend who spent $3,000 on birth control pills to treat ovarian cysts. The pills stop ovulation, which stops the growth of cysts. Her insurance didn’t cover this.

Ever the gentleman, Limbaugh responded by calling Fluke a “slut,” adding: “A Georgetown coed told Nancy Pelosi’s hearing that the women in her law school program are having so much sex they’re going broke, so you and I should have to pay for their birth control.”

Guess that hearing impairment he gave himself by ingesting illegally obtained Oxycontin hasn’t cleared up. In any event, he probably ought to consult a physician because the side effects of his puerile dysfunction persist for at least three hours a day.

MEDIEVAL MEDDLING. This revival of pelvic politics is nothing short of bizarre. It’s as if some politicians took a weekend gig at a Renaissance Festival and can’t snap out it. An amendment to a highway bill that would’ve introduced “conscience exemptions” to health care coverage requirements? With birth control being the target?

Huzzah!

But it would appear these social conservatives are really serious about pursuing this anachronism. And if nothing else, this effort has put the fun in fungible. Allow me to explain.

When the complaints arose over the Susan G. Komen Foundation donations to Planned Parenthood, critics pointed out the fungible nature of that money, meaning that by financing breast exam programs, Komen was freeing up money for the clinics to perform nefarious acts.

So when you look at it that way, perhaps government should end all financial aid to college students. After all, that just frees up cash for them to buy dinner, a movie and contraceptives. As an aside, wouldn’t that be a popular Groupon package?

Huzzah!

THIS JUST IN. We interrupt the battle for more unwanted pregnancies to bring you this item from Reuters:

“Birth and abortion rates among U.S. teens fell to record lows in 2008 as increased use of contraceptives sent the overall teen pregnancy rate to its lowest level since at least 1972.”

Enough of that. Once more unto the breach, dear friends!