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- iHaveNet.com: Economy
by Paul Greenberg
"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."
-- Friedrich von Hayek, "The Fatal Conceit"
Remember all those jobs "created and saved" the administration was touting? Those numbers have proven about as solid as its claims that the president's stimulus package would keep the country's unemployment rate under 8 percent. Last time we checked, it was in the seedy neighborhood of 9.5 percent.
Does the name Christina Romer strike a discordant bell? She's the chairwoman of the
But the administration has just come out with another shining model of creative accounting. The good news, it says, is that its health-care reform, aka Obamacare, is going to keep
The bad news is that, once again, the good news depends on bad numbers. With these people, any resemblance between partisan projections and future reality may prove only coincidental.
For example, the report assumes that the nation's physicians will absorb a 30 percent cut in their
Not even Secretary Sibelius expects these cuts in doctors' fees will ever go into effect. That 30 percent drop in doctors' fees is about as realistic as similar cuts projected in payments to hospitals, nursing homes, and other such providers of health care.
Who's supposed to deliver all these cuts -- the tooth fairy? What we have here is more Fun With Numbers, the same old shell game, and magical thinking in general, because it's hard to see how anyone could believe these projections will jibe with reality in the coming years.
But the secretary of the Treasury remains as optimistic, or at least as glib, as ever. He hailed the "very positive developments" in this latest report. And the Democratic chairman of the
Uh huh. To repeat the words of
Or do you believe Congress is really going to just sit there while doctors, nurses, hospitals and much of the rest of the medical system are short-changed. You can just hear the howls from
Welcome to Washington, D.C., our own Fantasy Island.
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Magical Thinking in Washington