Bending The Curve: A Tragedy in Three Acts

Act I - Wherein our hero, Obama Budget Director Peter Orszag, citing the liberal but well-respected think tank Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, attempts to assure the audience that savings through Medicare cuts can, in fact, be achieved:

One of the criticisms leveled by skeptics of health insurance reform is that the hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicare savings being proposed won’t actually be implemented since efforts to cut waste never stick....

A new report by two former CBO officials – James Horney and Paul Van de Water – now working at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows that this criticism is, in their words, a "mistaken belief."

Act II - In which the very same Center on Budget and Policy Priorities alerts us to the fact that Medicare Advantage plans

are paid 12 percent more, on average, than it would cost traditional Medicare to cover the same beneficiaries.

Act III - Enter Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) offering an amendment which

affirms that “nothing in this act shall result in the reduction or elimination of any benefits guaranteed by law to participants in Medicare Advantage plans,"

Said amendment is then adopted in the Senate by a vote of 97-1.

Epilogue: The Chorus, in the person of historian Niall Ferguson, instructs us

This is how empires decline. It begins with a debt explosion. It ends with an inexorable reduction in the resources available for the Army, Navy, and Air Force.

I realize that Shakespearean tragedy requires a five act structure, but this is America, everything is faster over here.