MTP has their one-minute look-back, but for me one minute is about 29 minutes too short.  It would be interesting and instructive, for instance, to see a current show on Afghanistan, say for the first 1/2 hour, then look back in the remaining time at how some of the major principles from the VN era under Johnson, like Humphrey or Rusk or McNamara, handled questions on that war in front of the panel of actual journalists.

Good history lesson for all of us, and teachers could encourage their students to tune in.

A plan to slash more than $500 billion from future Medicare spending -- one of the biggest sources of funding for President Obama's proposed overhaul of the nation's health-care system -- would sharply reduce benefits for some senior citizens and could jeopardize access to care for millions of others, according to a government evaluation released Saturday.

The report, requested by House Republicans, found that Medicare cuts contained in the health package approved by the House on Nov. 7 are likely to prove so costly to hospitals and nursing homes that they could stop taking Medicare altogether.

Congress could intervene to avoid such an outcome, but "so doing would likely result in significantly smaller actual savings" than is currently projected, according to the analysis by the chief actuary for the agency that administers Medicare and Medicaid. That would wipe out a big chunk of the financing for the health-care reform package, which is projected to cost $1.05 trillion over the next decade.

More generally, the report questions whether the country's network of doctors and hospitals would be able to cope with the effects of a reform package expected to add more than 30 million people to the ranks of the insured, many of them through Medicaid, the public health program for the poor.

In the face of greatly increased demand for services, providers are likely to charge higher fees or take patients with better-paying private insurance over Medicaid recipients, "exacerbating existing access problems" in that program, according to the report from Richard S. Foster of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Though the report does not attempt to quantify that impact, Foster writes: "It is reasonable to expect that a significant portion of the increased demand for Medicaid would not be realized."

Link

The president, through his spokesperson, Linda Douglass, is still asserting that "health insurance reform will protect and strengthen Medicare"..."And he has also made clear that no guaranteed Medicare benefits will be cut."

So, seniors will still have the insurance coverage, but they may have to look harder to  find providers that accept it.  Ditto with those poor enough to qualify for Medicare.  Seems like this would be making care less accessible to them, no?

Sheesh, it's bad enough that this "reform" effort is going to mean millions with insurance but without increased access to care, and now, it looks like seniors will be joining them in that unhappy circumstance.

It's starting to look like having health insurance will be the equivalent of getting that letter from Publisher's Clearinghouse notifying you that you may have won!  Instead it will be, "Congratulations!  You're covered!"  The fine print will tell you that you have a 1-in-100,000 chance of finding someone to honor your coverage.

If this is true it's no wonder Republicans, Democrats and the media covered up essentially America's greatest shame. Total shame.