Meet Every Democrat’s Running Mate: ObamaCare

Democrats Will Be Held Accountable for Repeatedly Voting to Gut Medicare Under ObamaCare and Force Medicare Into Bankruptcy

• House Democrats have built a long record of votes to gut and bankrupt Medicare.
• The Democrats cut hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare to pay for ObamaCare and empowered a board of unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats empowered to gut Medicare.
• The American people aren’t buying the Democrats’ “Mediscare” lies, and voters will hold Democrats accountable for gutting Medicare.   

House Democrats have built a long record of votes to gut and bankrupt Medicare: 

98% OF HOUSE DEMS VOTED IN JAN 2011 AGAINST REPEALING OBAMACARE’S BRUTAL CUTS TO MEDICARE: (Roll Call 14, Clerk of the U.S. House, 1/19/2011)

96% OF HOUSE DEMS VOTED TO KEEP MEDICARE ON TRACK FOR BANKRUPTCY: (Roll Call 270, Clerk of the U.S. House, 4/14/2011)

97% OF HOUSE DEMOCRATS VOTED AGAIN THIS JULY TO KEEP OBAMACARE’S BRUTAL CUTS TO MEDICARE IN PLACE: (Roll Call 460, Clerk of the U.S. House, 7/11/2012)

90% OF HOUSE DEMS VOTED AGAINST REPEALING IPAB: (Roll Call 126, Clerk of the U.S. House, 3/22/2012)

DEMOCRAT POLL: 52% OF VOTERS SUPPORT RYAN PLAN TO SAVE MEDICARE IN BATTLEGROUND HOUSE DISTRICTS, JUST 37% OPPOSE: “A recent poll from Democratic pollster Democracy Corps showed that, when the Ryan budget is described the way Republicans would like in battleground House districts, 52 percent of voters say they support it, while 37 percent oppose. When the budget is described as attempting to ‘save Medicare,’ Republicans do well.”(Aaron Blake, “Paul Ryan’s Budget: Democrats’ Ace in the Hole?”, The Washington Post, 8/11/2012)

The Democrats cut hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare to pay for ObamaCare and empowered a board of unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats empowered to gut Medicare:

CBO: LATEST ESTIMATE FOR OBAMACARE’S MEDICARE CUTS AT $741 BILLION: (“Estimates for the Insurance Coverage Provisions of the Affordable Care Act Updated for the Recent Supreme Court Decision,” Congressional Budget Office, July 2012)

“BURIED DEEP WITHIN THE CBO REPORTS,” NEW FIGURE FOR MEDICARE CUTS: “One interesting number buried deep within the CBO reports: $741 billion. That’s how much the government would save from cutting subsidies for supplemental Medicare insurance, according to the new estimates. But that’s a jump from the original estimate of $500 billion over 10 years.”

” ‘What that proves, according to Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former CBO chief who now runs the conservative American Action Forum, is that the agency is acknowledging what Republicans have said all along — that the scorekeeping for the law was always unrealistic.'” (Jonathan Allen and Matt Dobias, “Health Care Law Now Cheaper, Won’t Cover As Many People,” Politico, 7/24/2012)

PELOSI ADMITS “WE TOOK HALF A TRILLION DOLLARS OUT OF MEDICARE” WITH GOVERNMENT HEALTHCARE TAKEOVER: “You don’t have to have cuts in those initiatives in order to reduce cost there, and we have proven that we’re willing to make cuts in the cost to initiatives. We took half a trillion dollars out of Medicare in the Affordable Care Act, the health care bill, already, and there’s certainly more opportunities for savings in that respect.” (Remarks from Nancy Pelosi, CNBC’s “Closing Bell”, 10/29/2011)

UNDER OBAMACARE, DEMOCRATS EMPOWERED A BOARD OF BUREAUCRATS TO GUT MEDICARE:

“OBAMA BUDGET WANTS MORE TEETH” FOR MEDICARE-GUTTING BOARD:(Phillip Klein, “Obama Budget Wants More Teeth for Medicare Board,” The Washington Examiner, 2/13/2012)

DEMOCRATS EMPOWERED “15 SAGES” WITH “THE POWER OF THE PURSE” TO GUT MEDICARE: (Editorial Board, “The Presidential Divider,” The Wall Street Journal, 4/14/2011)

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)

DOCTOR AND PATIENT GROUPS: 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)

41 DOCTORS’ GROUPS REPRESENTING 400,000 DOCTORS FEAR THAT “15 UNELECTED AND LARGELY UNACCOUNTABLE” BUREAUCRATS WILL MAKE MEDICARE DECISIONS, AND NONE ARE ALLOWED TO BE “PRACTICING PHYSICIANS”: “With the advent of the IPAB, however, the people’s elected representatives will no longer have power over Medicare payment policy.  Instead, these major health policy decisions will rest in the hands of 15 unelected and largely unaccountable individuals.  Even worse, if IPAB fails to report recommendations or never becomes operational, this power will rest solely in the hands of a single individual – the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Additionally, fewer than half of the IPAB members can be health care providers, and none are permitted to be practicing physicians or be otherwise employed.” (Letter from Healthcare Stakeholders, House Energy and Commerce Committee, 3/5/2012)

AMERICAN UROLOGICAL ASSOCIATION: DOCTORS WILL “OPT OUT OF THE MEDICARE PROGRAM OR BE DRIVEN OUT OF PRACTICE ALTOGETHER”: “He warned, ‘These cuts could be driven so low that physicians will be forced to limit the number of Medicare beneficiaries they see, opt out of the Medicare program, or be driven out of practice altogether.'” (Ralph Lindeman, “IPAB Would Reduce Access to Care, Witnesses Tell Ways and Means Panel,” Bloomberg, 3/7/2012)

IPAB LINKED TO TRICARE CUTS:

NATIONAL MILITARY VETERANS ALLIANCE REPRESENTING 35 MILITARY ASSOCIATIONS AND 3.5 MILLION MEMBERS CALLS FOR IPAB REPEAL:(Statement of the National Military Veterans Alliance, Letter to House Committee on Ways & Means, 3/6/2012)

GIVEN LINKAGE BETWEEN MEDICARE AND TRICARE, “WE HAVE REAL CONCERNS ABOUT IPAB INDIRECT IMPACT UPON MILITARY RETIREES”: “As you know, almost one third of our nation’s 24 million veterans are over the age of 65, and the vast majority of them live in households in which at least one person receives Medicare benefits.  Thus the impact of any change in Medicare services is felt both immediately and directly by them. Moreover, because Medicare reimbursement rates and coverage determinations are standard measures for some provisions of TRICARE as well as a number of private insurance programs, we have real concerns about the IPAB indirect impact upon military retirees now and particularly in the future as its scope of authority expands.” (Statement of the National Military and Veterans Alliance, Letter to House Committee on Ways & Means, 3/6/2012)

TRICARE’S REIMBURSEMENT RATES TIED TO MEDICARE: “One particular concern is rising fees. Tricare’s reimbursement rates to private caregivers generally are tied to those of Medicare, and many doctors say Medicare’s reimbursement rates already are too low.” (William H. McMichael, “Tricare and Health Reform: What It Could Mean in the Long Run,” The Air Force Times, 3/21/2012)

The only way to stop the Democrats’ gutting of Medicare is to repeal ObamaCare and replace the Democrats who forced ObamaCare on the American people:

WHEN MEDICARE’S TRUSTEES PREDICTED MEDICARE’S BANKRUPTCY LAST YEAR, NANCY PELOSI CLAIMED THAT MEDICARE’S FINANCES WERE “STRONG”: (“Pelosi Statement on Report of the Social Security and Medicare Board of Trustees,” Office of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, 5/13/2011) 

MEDICARE TRUSTEES SAY MEDICARE WILL GO BANKRUPT IN 2024, SAME AS LAST YEAR’S ESTIMATES: “The Medicare Trustees Report released today shows that the Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund is expected to remain solvent until 2024, the same as last year’s estimate, but action is needed to secure its long-term future.  In 2011, the HI Trust Fund expenditures were lower than expected.” (Press Release, “Medicare Stable, But Requires Strengthening,” Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 4/23/2012)

SENIORS COULD SUFFER 26% BENEFIT CUTS OR 47% TAX INCREASES UNDER DEMS’ MEDICARE PLAN: “Lawmakers could address the long-range financial imbalance in several different ways. In theory, they could immediately increase the standard 2.90-percent payroll tax by the amount of the actuarial deficit to 4.25 percent, or they could reduce expenditures by a corresponding amount. Note, however, that these changes would require an immediate 47-percent increase in the standard tax rate or an immediate 26-percent reduction in expenditures.” (p. 32-33, “2012 Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of Federal Hospital Insurance and Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Funds,” The Boards of Trustees of the Federal Hospital Insurance and Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Funds, 4/23/2012)