Bankrupt Regarding Medicare

The press continues falsely to defend Obama against the consequences of the cuts in Medicare funding that are the result of Obamacare. Here is an excerpt of an "news" article by Reuters that lists "myths" about Medicare.

MYTH THREE: OBAMACARE SLASHES $700 BLN FROM MEDICARE

Facts: The Romney-Ryan campaign has trotted out this scary-sounding number to deflect attention from Ryan's voucher plan. But it is largely a false claim because it implies that the health reform law slashes benefits....

Obamacare does cut $700 billion in Medicare spending over a 10-year period. But the cuts are adjustments in payments to Medicare providers, which are mostly meaningless to patients. According to the CBO, the ACA's 10-year cuts include $415 billion in fee-for-service payments to healthcare providers, $156 billion in reduced payments to Medicare Advantage plans, $56 billion to hospitals, and $114 billion in other miscellaneous cuts far too numerous to detail here.


This is pretty amazing stuff. The "mostly meaningless" cut to Medicare Advantage providers is expected to force that program out of existence. The "mostly meaningless" cuts to hospitals are estimated by the government itself to result in the bankruptcy of one sixth of all hospitals in the country. The "mostly meaningless" cuts in payments to Medicare providers is expected -- again by the government's own figures -- to result in between 25 to 33% of all doctors in the country who now accept Medicare to change their position and to refuse to take Medicare patients. The guy who wrote this garbage for Reuters probably also views the casualties in Afghanistan and the federal budget deficit as "mostly meaningless"; he has no clue what is important.

Medicare is about to be hit by an influx of millions of baby boomers who will be reaching 65. It is presently underfunded. Obamacare takes over $700 billion out of the Medicare trust fund to pay for something else -- those are dollars that cannot be used for the needs of Medicare. Without those funds, Medicare will soon go broke. And it will be Obama who sped up the day when Medicare goes under. That is the truth!