Social Security, Medicare and the Despicable Associated lPress: Scaring Seniors With Lies (When They Should Be Scared for the Correct Reasons)

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writer Stephen Ohlemacher, Associated Press Writer – Sun Aug 23, 9:34 am ET
WASHINGTON – Millions of older people face shrinking Social Security checks next year, the first time in a generation that payments would not rise.
The trustees who oversee Social Security are projecting there won't be a cost of living adjustment (COLA) for the next two years. That hasn't happened since automatic increases were adopted in 1975.
By law, Social Security benefits cannot go down. Nevertheless, monthly payments would drop for millions of people in the Medicare prescription drug program because the premiums, which often are deducted from Social Security payments, are scheduled to go up slightly."


As an exercise, you might try and discover the LIES by the "Anti-American Despicable Associated Press" (always use complete, official name in first reference), as revealed in the above excerpt from the present AP story featured on Yahoo News (making liars out of Yahoo), before I highlight the lies for you. No, you don't need any outside research or knowledge. The lies are revealed by the AP itself--so bad that it exposes itself as a nest of LIARS in a mere three paragraphs. It is a talent peculiarly possessed by such otherwise untalented people.


"....since automatic increases were adopted in 1975" (see end of second paragraph): Is that a LIE? Don't take my word for it. Read the whole excerpt above, and you will discover that the despicable (stupid) AP calls itself a LIAR. "Automatic increases" were NOT instituted in 1975, as the AP points out elsewhere. A cost of living ADJUSTMENT was adopted in 1975. Well, did not Congress expect the cost of living to go UP every year? They may have anticipated that would be the usual case, but the helpful AP (helpful in pointing out its own lies) points out that Congress ANTICIPATED the possibility of the cost of iving going DOWN by a provision that Social Security checks will never go DOWN (no matter how much DEFLATION might occur). Thus, it is certainly a LIE to say that Congress adopted "automatic increases" in 1975. The idea was to keep the payments the SAME, in purchasing power, every year (thereby avoiding Congress having to have those constant arguments over raising the benefits to keep up with inflation, as Congress still does--stupidly--with the minimum wage).


"Well," you say, "Skip is just being picky. For someone who has as many typos as Skip does, without correction--sometimes garbling entire lines when he doesn't even notice his fingers are on the wrong keys--why should Skip pick on the AP over this relatively minor "slip of the mind?" Wrong, bison breath. I was just getting warmed up. The whole AP/Yahoo Article is a LIE. That stupidity about "automatic increases" is just a minor lie supporting the Big Lie ("1984" terminology--appropriate for the Age of Obama).


The despicable AP itself says that Social Security payments will not go DOWN. Yet, the headline and the article assert that Social Security's payments will be "shrinking". "Seniors Face Shrinking Social Security Checks" screams the headline, and asserts the lead paragraph, and it is a LIE.


"Ah," you say (bison breath stupid as you are), "your last paragraph confused 'checks' with 'payments', and you are confusing 'benefits' with 'checks'. The AP explains that CHECKS will go down because 'many' people have their Medicare Drug Benefit premiums deducted from their Social Security benefit checks." Wrong again!!!! It is not ME that is confusing these things, but the LIARS at the despicable AP who are deliberately confusing those things.


The Medicare Drug Benefit Program and Social Security have NOTHING to do with one another (other than that both that program and the proposed new Federal "overhaul" of health care may end up endangering both Medicare and Social Security, and ultimately damaging seniors). What difference does it make if you have CHOSEN to pay for a SEPARATE benefit you are getting out of your Social Security checks? How is that different from people who may be paying as much, or MORE, for drugs outside of the Medicare programme? As to how the proposed new health care program will drive out private insurance, you might consider that my 86 year old woman had perfectly good drug coverage. However, she CHOSE to drop that coverage, and join the new program, because the government SUBSIDIZED the new program (making it seemingly cheaper). I don't know whether my mother is paying the premiums out of her Social Security check or not. So what. Those premiums are a SUBSTITUTE for paying what she was going to have to pay anyway, and have nothing to do with Social Security.


The Medicare Drug Benefit program :(disaster though it is), is supposed to provide a BENEFIT to seniors, making them BETTER OFF. Whether that is true or not (and if it is not, it merely shows you what you can expect with the proposed now health care "overhaul"). Seniors who do not pay that premium do not get that "benefit". It is simply a cost of living, like Medicare premiums themselves--or FOOD--to pay for needed drugs by means of insurance that you choose to pay for out of your Social Security check (which you might well do with other things you need, if the government would let you).


It is a "1984" style Big Lie, by the LIARS of the AP, to try to SCARE seniors by misrepresenting reality. Let me explain further, so that even you--the reader--can understand. Say that Social Security "checks" were going to go UP in January , because the cost of living had gone UP. Does that not mean that the actual purchasing power of those checks would be SHRINKING, because of those increased Medicare premiums ("for millions")? Of course it does. The "increase" was intended to keep seniors in the same place. The Medicare premiums are an entirely separate thing (like comparing apples and oranges), and any increased Medicare premiums (whether paid out of Social Security or not) must ALWAYS be regarded as "shrinking" the resources of seniors. Of course, those premiums PURCHASE a benefit, and the question is whether that benefit is worth it. But that has nothing to do with Social Security. Those premium's have to be paid from somewhere by seniors, or the drugs have to be paid for, and whether they are paid out of Social Security "checks' is IRRELEVANT to any economic reality--"reality", that is, to anyone outside of the LIARS at the AP, and in the rest of the mainstream media. This idea that what you pay for out of your Social Security check is somehow differently from what you pay for out of your "own pocket" is absurd. Paying "from your own pocket" is the SAME as paying out of your Social Security check.


Say the "cost of living" INCREASED .1%. Would the Social Security check still "shrink" for millions? Of course it would, because the increase ni premiums would probably exceed the (mostly fictional, because representing inflation) increase in the checks to cover the cost of living. Again, one has nothing to do with the other, and the (implied) assertion of the despicable AP that they have something to do with one another is the biggest LIE of all!!!!!


What is the purpose of misleading seniors this way, and SCARING them? Is the despicable AP secretly SABOTAGING President Obama? It can hardly do President Obama any good for seniors to be further (if correctly) scared about what the government is doing to them, and perhaps going to do to them. We know that the despicable AP is composed of anti-American leftists. See archives of this blog. Are there moles conservative moles in the AP, or is there another explanation?


I think there is another explanation for this AP article scaring seniors with LIES. I think the AP people are just STUPID leftists. They think government money is "free", and in the back of their minds they probably think that seniors are "entitled" to a cost of living increase, even though the cost of living did not increase. Will Obama and the Democrats propose some "bailout" for seniors here--using as an excuse that their social security checks are "shrinking"? Don't bet against it.


P.S. Remember that the despicable AP is deliberately confusing people by talking about SOCIAL SECURITY checks "shrinking" "for millions" because of MEDICARE (drug benefit) premiums (apples and oranges). I mention this again because I foulnd myself typing "Medicare" when I meant "Social Security", and vice versa. I tried to catch those slips, but I hope you will forgive me if the AP managed to confuse even me, who knew their game. Deductionis from Social Security checks ALWYAS "shrink" those checks, and the idea that a "cost of living" increase--or lack of one--has any significance as to the econoics of such "shrinkage" is a fantasy of the despicable AP.