One of the arguments for immigration reform (read: blanket amnesty)--the surface argument that masks the real reason, which is to farm Democratic votes--is that there are simply too many jobs that Americans "won't do."
However, a study by the Center for Immigration Studies used 2005-07 data to look at 465 occupations. Only four had a majority of immigrants in them: plasterers and stucco masons, agricultural graders and sorters, personal appliance workers, and tailors and dressmakers.
In every other occupation, such as janitors, maids, and groundskeepers, a large majority were filled by native-born Americans. The report's conclusion: "The often-made argument that immigrants only take jobs Americans don't want is simply wrong."
So, there you go, Dubya--who once said there are simply jobs "Americans won't do"--has been proven wrong again.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
SGR a Bargaining Chip for AMA Support
The charade of balancing the Medicare budget known as SGR, sustainable growth rate, is on the bargaining table to gain support from the American Medical Association for the Senate's health care reform measure.
The offer was made by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D.-Nev., but ignored by AMA President James Rohack, M.D.
SGR is an automatic payment deflator that supposedly adjusts Medicare reimbursement downward each year to eventually reach a balanced budget. Problem is, the AMA has been successful every year since its adoption in getting the Senate to vote away the SGR decreases.
When the House of Representatives health reform measure passed, a provision in the bill killed SGR. However, the Senate Finance Committee measure includes no SGR eliminator.
In a related move, however, Senator Debbie Stabenow, D.-Mich., has introduced a measure totally separate from health care reform to end SGR. The measure has to be separate because it ends all illusion of ever balancing Medicare's budget and thus throws health care reform into the reality of red ink, which is where it's always been except for vast budgetary and legislative tricks that push costs down the road but implement new taxes and other "revenue enhancers" up front.
What this all boils down to is what no Democrat will ever admit: The health care crisis in America, which they blame on private insurers, is at root a Medicare problem that, arising from the root, has now poisoned the trunk, branches and leaves of the entire health care tree.
Health care reform (which just mandates that everyone purchase health insurance to increase the money pool to cover Medicare losses) is thus in reality a Medicare band-aid. It is certainly not going to result anytime soon in anything approaching universal coverage at affordable prices. In fact, as the insurance companies are warning, it's going to result in more expensive health insurance that has to be purchased by more people who can't afford it and may not even want it.
Not to worry, just as they will jettison SGR to placate physicians into supporting health care reform (which isn't really reform, etc.), the Democrats will try to placate the newly mandated health insurance consumers with tax breaks and subsidies.
In other words, infinitely more red ink so the Democrats won't ever have to confront the reality that their beloved Medicare is bankrupt and unsustainable.
Change you can believe in.
But not me.
The offer was made by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D.-Nev., but ignored by AMA President James Rohack, M.D.
SGR is an automatic payment deflator that supposedly adjusts Medicare reimbursement downward each year to eventually reach a balanced budget. Problem is, the AMA has been successful every year since its adoption in getting the Senate to vote away the SGR decreases.
When the House of Representatives health reform measure passed, a provision in the bill killed SGR. However, the Senate Finance Committee measure includes no SGR eliminator.
In a related move, however, Senator Debbie Stabenow, D.-Mich., has introduced a measure totally separate from health care reform to end SGR. The measure has to be separate because it ends all illusion of ever balancing Medicare's budget and thus throws health care reform into the reality of red ink, which is where it's always been except for vast budgetary and legislative tricks that push costs down the road but implement new taxes and other "revenue enhancers" up front.
What this all boils down to is what no Democrat will ever admit: The health care crisis in America, which they blame on private insurers, is at root a Medicare problem that, arising from the root, has now poisoned the trunk, branches and leaves of the entire health care tree.
Health care reform (which just mandates that everyone purchase health insurance to increase the money pool to cover Medicare losses) is thus in reality a Medicare band-aid. It is certainly not going to result anytime soon in anything approaching universal coverage at affordable prices. In fact, as the insurance companies are warning, it's going to result in more expensive health insurance that has to be purchased by more people who can't afford it and may not even want it.
Not to worry, just as they will jettison SGR to placate physicians into supporting health care reform (which isn't really reform, etc.), the Democrats will try to placate the newly mandated health insurance consumers with tax breaks and subsidies.
In other words, infinitely more red ink so the Democrats won't ever have to confront the reality that their beloved Medicare is bankrupt and unsustainable.
Change you can believe in.
But not me.
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