America’s senior citizens deserve to enjoy their golden years in security rather than be faced with the uncertainty of having their beloved Medicare benefits yanked away thanks to provisions within the Democratic Party’s darling, Obamacare.
Mathematicians Congressional Democrats are not. Democrats failed to inform seniors nearly half of Obamacare’s cost would be funded initially by taking more than $500 billion from Medicare. When this information was made public, Democrats promised the cost-shifting would not in any way lead to benefit cuts. In addition, they were told Obamacare would reduce the deficit and were told everyone could keep their doctors. If Democrats genuinely believed what they were saying, they obviously failed to factor into their quirky calculations that pesky little fact that Medicare reimbursement cuts to doctors would send them packing in droves, making it a bit tricky to use the same doctor if he or she no longer treats Medicare patients.
Moreover, another side effect from this pernicious legislation is what seems to be the ultimate destruction of the Medicare Advantage (MA) program as seniors know it today. It is to no surprise that this program elected by millions of seniors has been in Obama’s crosshairs for quite some time. After all, MA allows beneficiaries the ability to receive Medicare benefits via private health insurance plans. In Obama’s world, MA is a waste of money but spending countless tax dollars on green energy pipedreams is considered smart investing.
Obviously, Democrats failed to consider the timing of these cuts when Obamacare was enacted. Many seniors are in the process of losing their MA plans or will discover they are about to lose them — just before the 2012 election. Most sadly, according to the Heritage Foundation, low-income seniors and minorities will be the hardest hit by these cuts. Once again, Democrats claim to be the party for minorities and the poor, but contradict their claims with stunts like this.
More than 25 percent of Medicare recipients are MA participants. Of those, a large percentage lives in key swing states like Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio. The Obama administration knew they had to do something to protect the senior citizen vote so they pulled another trick out of their trusty Chicago politics top hat when they conjured up $8.3 billion taxpayer dollars to supplement MA benefits until after the 2012 elections. After the election, all bets are off and seniors will be left to figure it out.
The Weekly Standard suggests this ploy is illegal in that “a president isn’t generally thought to possess the power to reallocate American’s resources to shore up his political vulnerabilities.” The Government Accountability Office (GAO) apparently concurred, recently telling the administration to stop this charade the administration fronts as a “demonstration project.”
This Medicare funds siphoning will continue, according to a January 3, 2011 Wall Street Journal article, “Obamacare’s Medicare Cuts in the New Year.” The article discloses that Obamacare will extract from “Medicare and related federal programs,” $638 billion over the next ten years, and an additional $1.6 trillion in the seven years thereafter, “for a total of $2.2 trillion” in cuts.
Democrats will use their best “Mediscare” tactics to deflect the blame to Republicans for the mess they’ve created. You can read an informative article about this “mess” at the Galen Institute online at: http://www.galen.org/topics/obamacare-a-dozen-more-damaging-disclosures/.
In stark contrast, Republicans have common sense solutions that will leave Medicare benefits intact for today’s seniors and those nearing retirement. The plan also gives younger Americans the opportunity for a far superior program to work toward, while allowing today’s seniors the ability to rest in the promises America made to them long ago.
Susan Stamper Brown is an opinion page columnist, motivational speaker and military advocate who writes about politics, the military, the economy and culture. Email Susan at writestamper@gmail.com or her website at susanstamperbrown.com.
Photo credit: terrellaftermath
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Obamacare sucks!!!!!!!! I am a disabled mother raising on my own a disabled child in a wheelchair. It will affect us big time. Apparently Obama does not care about the disability nor the senior citiznens. Hey democrats that are in there, STOP BLAMING THE REPULICATIONS FOR YOUR DOING!!! You are suppose to compromise on things , everyone is human, it should not matter if youre a republican nor democrat, WORK TOGETHER. Thats something that OBAMA never did ever since he got into office. He’s getting everyone into fighting. He needs to get out of office …. Always blaming someone else other then himself.
If obamacare survives, he will (if he wins in Nov) advise MA seniors their program is being eliminated….he waits until after the election, of course!!! The $500 billion is to fund the stupid obamacare..in addition, they will begin to cut payments to doctors/hospitals until no doctor will take a medicare patient because they can’t make any money off them. Don’t know what will happen to hospitals…but at any rate, we will all end up on the government single-payer program, which will be managed by a bunch of zombie bureaucrats. Good luck getting any treatment for anything it you are over 65, or maybe even younger. It won’t be cost effective….you’re too old. Who know what will happen to SS disability….I can’t imagine!!! Time for a CHANGE in DC….the cesspool needs to be cleaned out, starting at the top, in November…so vote in all your local state and national elections….vote to remove all liberals, RINOs and long-term incumbents who are past their prime!!!
My President is Cool. He fly’s somewhere every day he is not playing golf.
He needs the time off because he is so busy he does not sleep. He stays
up all night thinking of new ways to help “we the people.” He has done so
much with so little he had to print 3X as many dollars as when he took
office .He had to spend and borrow more than he takes in so he could
accomplish so much with only 5 trillion dollars in 3.5 years. We don’ need
to worry about that because our grandchildren can easily pay it off. Th is is
really a gift to them because these dollars have stimulated or created job
growth now and in the future. He comes from a poor backgrounds and when he was
little he loved to eat the family dog and on bad days he ate grasshopper
Some people say he was not born in this country but he has posted his
birth certificate online. He says its not his fault his copy machine
keeps screwing up and the last form had to be put together from 3 copies
I don’t understand that. His energy policy is really amazing.
We don’t need as much carbon based fuels so he blocked the
Keystone Pipeline to get safe clean energy from our friends in Canada.
That would have given us only 20,000 jobs but on TV he says we don’t
need it because the economy is getting better. Its ok since we have
windmills and algae to fill our outdated vehicles. Since we don’t need as
much oil, Canada has decided to sell it to China where their EPA is much
more strict than ours. That is called going green. Don’t forget to inflate
your tires since that will help with the gasoline, which is too low in
price. It has been proven we are polluting the air so much we are getting
hotter. The gas is poison CO2, That is why we breath it out. Stupid plants breath it in. I
don’t know why they want poison gas. Its becoming such a large amount that
it makes up .03% of the atmosphere. He is thinking about charging people for
the average number of times they breath out per year. I say it would be better to charge cars,
trucks,and power plants since they put out out the most. He will probably
think of that too.He heard the Mexican drug cartel was running short of guns
and ammo so he had the ATF send them some guns free of charge. Mexico has a
stupidgun ban and the crime including murder is much lower down there. They
have had only 50,000 murders in the past few years near the border. They keep
leaving the guns at the scene of killings so we can have them back. Drug prices in the
US should drop soon since its much easier to transport drugs with guns. I
could go on but I know he has our best interest at heart and always speaks
the truth, without any notes. He never blames others for his work.
Thus he is reputed to be the smartest man to ever
inhabit the White House and I believe it. I sure am happy he is protected by
the men of the Secret Service which have the highest standards of conduct
and morals. He took in so much money April 15 he gave a reward to the GSA
agency that watch’s all Gov’t spending to keep it as low as possible. They
consider the money belongs to”we the people” and they must be frugal. The
GSA saved us so much money he gave them extra money for a party in Vegas which
cost only $800,000. I saw on TV where they had a good time and were not
wasting our money. He also gave the defense guy free trips to fly home since
he has saved or created many of our lives. He took a survey and found there
were too many Islands around Alaska than allowed. So he gave our friends the
Russians 7 islands. They were happy since there its lots of oil in the sea
bed around there. I wrote him a letter and ask him to give away Florida,
Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California to Mexico since they have mostly
Mexicans anyway. I was worried he would not get re-elected but I was
relieved when I found out all our votes in November will go to a company in
Spain to be tallied, which is owned by a socialist. That is called outsourcing. Our companies here must
not be able to handle numbers that big..
All true-Google it
Do we live in a brain dead inverse world or what.?
The people must take back our country now. the washington corrupt scum needs to be dealt with harshly, We are losing our freedom because washington scum is voting communist rule in little by little.