How Obamacare Kills Medicare

For the last week, there has been charge and countercharge about the $716 billion dollars that Obamacare takes out of the Medicare Trust Fund. First came the Republicans reminding America that it was president Obama whose signature legislation takes three quarters of a trillion dollars away from Medicare. Then came the Obamacrats telling America that the Republicans want to force seniors into a voucher plan instead of Medicare. The GOP responded that in its plan every senior in the plan today and every person over 55 see no change at all. Even for those under 55, they will still have the choice to select the current Medicare plan in the future. Then the Obamacrats said that they were not cutting any benefits in Medicare; the reductions come from reducing the amount paid to providers (doctors and hospitals).

We now have the clear answer to this latest salvo from the Democrats. It is this: If Obamacare stands, then in 4 or 5 years, the amount paid for Medicare services to a senior will be less than the amount paid for similar services to someone on Medicaid. This is CRITICAL. For those who are unaware, Medicaid is the program to provide medical care for the poor. Many people in the program still cannot get timely medical care because so many doctors will not treat Medicaid patients; the payments to the doctors are just too low. There are cases all the time of folks on Medicaid who die because they cannot get timely treatment even though the government is paying for their care. Under the Obama plan, seniors will soon get less than these folks on Medicaid. In just a few years, there will be millions of seniors who will be unable to find doctors to treat them or even hospitals that will admit them.

The simple truth is that Obamacare will end Medicare as we know it. The advances in medical care for seniors that came with the enactment of Medicare will soon be a thing of the past. The truth is that seniors will probably have to go back to the prescription that Obama announced during the debate over Obamacare: sometimes, you just have to tell grandma to take the pain pill.