-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
Summary and audio linked here.
Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
Full interview and summary linked here.
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“Most of our Illinois births are coming from Medicaid members,” she said.
This is a huge red flag. It’s a scary thought that our state government will have to support these children from cradle to college and likely through prison while also supporting millions of state pension retirees. How will the state afford this?
And since when is Medicaid a membership? Medicaid is the dole, the free government cheese. It’s not a club you can join to get free healthcare, it’s not a protected class of people. It’s welfare.
“And since when is Medicaid a membership?”
Since Obamacare, when the “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor” crowd, and most of the mainstream media, began wearing out their arms patting themselves on the back for Obamacare’s “success” by claiming that by expanding Medicaid eligibility they had somehow “enrolled” millions of previously uninsured people in medical “insurance.”
So, if you’re a private sector taxpayer, and the medical insurance you and your employer pay for removes a provider from your network, you either pay out of network fees to keep your doctor, or go with whoever your insurance provider has picked. However, if you’re on public-aid and Medicaid, taxpayers pay whatever your MD cares to charge without regard to whether or not the provider has agreed to accept your public-aid MCO’s rates. What a bill! How “Illinois.” Taxpayers who struggle to pay their own private-sector medical insurance premiums, accepting the restrictions imposed by their insurance companies to control… Read more »