Cheri Tales Chapter 14: Cheri’s Medicare Fable

July 30, 2012

Welcome to Chapter 14 of Cheri Tales. As you know, Cheri Tales is a collection of stories and fables about a desperate politician who will say and do anything to get elected. This troubling tale focuses on Cheri Bustos, a Democrat candidate running in IL-17 and her not so true tales about fighting to protect seniors.

Today, Cheri sent out an email blast celebrating the 47th anniversary of Medicare. In this email Cheri says she is fighting to protect Medicare for our seniors. If Cheri Bustos was fighting to protect Medicare, why does she support Nancy Pelosi’s healthcare takeover which will slash $500 billion dollars from the program?

Cheri Bustos’ ideas on healthcare are dangerous for Illinois seniors:

$500 BILLION IN MEDICARE CUTS: “It would cut an additional $60 billion from Medicare, bringing total cuts to the program to more than $500 billion over the next 10 years.” (Shailagh Murray and Lori Montgomery, With Senate ‘fixes’ bill, GOP sees last chance to change health-care reform,” The Washington Post,3/24/2010)WSJ: OBAMA MEDICARE PLAN IS MEDICARE “RATIONING”, WILL “THROW GRANNY OVER THE CLIFF”: “One place to start is by attacking the Democratic plan to cut Medicare via political rationing. Mr. Ryan’s budget had the virtue of embarrassing President Obama’s spend-more initial budget, and the White House responded by proposing to increase the power of the new Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) to decide what, and how much, Medicare will pay for. The ObamaCare bill goes to great lengths to shelter this 15-member, unelected board from Congressional review, with the goal of letting these bureaucrats throw granny over the cliff if Medicare isn’t reformed. Yet few Americans know anything about IPAB or its rationing intentions.” (Editorial, “The GOP’s New York Spanking,” The Wall Street Journal, 5/26/2011)

IPAB’S CUTS “WOULD LEAD TO A REDUCTION IN ACCESS TO CARE”: “The Independent Payment Advisory Board, created under the health care law to help control Medicare costs, lacks flexibility to do much more than cut provider payments that would lead to a reduction in access to care, witnesses told a House Ways and Means panel March 6.” (Ralph Lindeman, “IPAB Would Reduce Access to Care, Witnesses Tell Ways and Means Panel,” Bloomberg, 3/7/2012)

NRCC Statement: “Cheri Bustos supports Nancy Pelosi’s healthcare law which would cut $500 billion from Medicare. It’s a fact that is not going unnoticed by seniors and a fact that shows how dangerous sending Cheri Bustos to Washington is.” – NRCC Spokeswoman Katie Prill