Portside

Medicare is wasting hundreds of millions of dollars a year by failing to rein in doctors who routinely give patients pricey name-brand drugs when cheaper generic alternatives are available.

The attempt to take the nation’s politics hostage is still underway. Only the wording of the ransom note has changed.

The chained CPI has risen to walk among us again in the muttering and jawboning around the government shutdown/debt limit standoff and the search for an exit. We're hearing again about a "grand bargain" on the government deficit -- never mind that the deficit is falling, not rising.

"We will vote against any and every cut to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid."

Where are Congressional Democrats?!

First, a terrible jobs report, then a Democratic President offers a budget that proposes cuts to Social Security and Medicare. What they actually heard was Austerity 2013 - U.S. style. President Obama's offering up a cut in Social Security (make no mistake, that's what it is) contravenes promises he has previously made about not undermining the program and a recent flat out pledge by Vice-President Joe Biden that it would not happen.