Not Funny: Cutting Seniors’ Medicare to Pay for ObamaCare

October 15, 2012

Not Funny: Cutting Seniors’ Medicare to Pay for ObamaCare

Democrats’ Cuts to Medicare Put Bureaucrats in Charge and Reduce Seniors’ Access to Care

Vice President Joe Biden embarrassed himself repeatedly last Thursday, but even worse, he doubled down on the Democrats’ cuts to Medicare to pay for ObamaCare.
These cuts will hurt current seniors by cutting Medicare Advantage benefits, threatening seniors’ access to care.
Perhaps worst of all, Biden and President Obama both continue to defend their board of unelected bureaucrats empowered to cut Medicare even further, which will have even more devastating impacts on seniors.

Vice President Joe Biden embarrassed himself repeatedly last Thursday, but even worse, he doubled down on the Democrats’ cuts to Medicare to pay for ObamaCare:

CNN’S PIERS MORGAN: “JOE, SERIOUSLY, STOP SMIRKING. THIS IS SERIOUS STUFF. BE VICE-PRESIDENTIAL.”(Piers Morgan, Twitter Feed, 10/11/2012)

“BIDEN REGULARLY SMILED AND LAUGHED OUT LOUD WHILE RYAN WAS SPEAKING, AND OFTEN CHUCKLED AT TIMES WHEN IT WASN’T CLEAR WHAT HE WAS SMILING ABOUT”: “During the vice presidential debate here Thursday, Biden regularly smiled and laughed out loud while Ryan was speaking, and often chuckled at times when it wasn’t clear what he was smiling about.” (Chris Moody, “Paul Ryan Didn’t Prepare for Laughing Joe Biden in Debate Prep,” Yahoo! News, 10/12/2012)

AS BIDEN SMIRKS, DEMOCRATS ARE CUTTING MEDICARE BY $716 BILLION TO FUND OBAMACARE: “But let’s talk about Medicare. What we did is, we saved $716 billion and put it back, applied it to Medicare.” (“Vice Presidential Debate Transcript,” ABC News, 10/12/2012)

MEDICARE WASTE, FRAUD AND ABUSE IS STILL INCREASING: “But, in reality, the move to electronic health records may be contributing to billions of dollars in higher costs for Medicare, private insurers and patients by making it easier for hospitals and physicians to bill more for their services, whether or not they provide additional care.” (Reed Abelson, Julie Creswell and Griff Palmer, “Medicare Bill Rise as Records Turn Electronic,” The New York Times, 9/21/2012)

DEMOCRATS STRUGGLE TO DEFEND THEIR CUTS TO MEDICARE:

FLASHBACK TO OBAMA IN 2010: “YOU CAN’T SAY THAT YOU ARE SAVING ON MEDICARE AND THEN SPEND THE MONEY TWICE”: “[W]hat is absolutely true and what I do agree with is that you can’t say that you are saving on Medicare and then spend the money twice.” (“President Barack Obama Talks to Bret Baier About Health Care Reform Bill,” Fox News, 3/17/2010)

OBAMA’S HHS SECRETARY KATHLEEN SEBELIUS ADMITTED TO “DOUBLE-COUNTING” THE CUTS TO MEDICARE, USING THE SAME CUTS TO MEDICARE TO BOTH PAY FOR OBAMACARE AND ALLEGEDLY EXTEND MEDICARE’S LIFE:(Amanda Carey, “HHS Secretary Sebelius Admits to Double-Counting in ObamaCare Budget,” The Daily Caller, 3/4/2011)

MEDICARE ACTUARY: MEDICARE CUTS IN OBAMACARE “CANNOT BE SIMULTANEOUSLY USED TO FINANCE OTHER FEDERAL OUTLAYS AND TO EXTEND THE [MEDICARE] TRUST FUND”: (Solomon M. Mussey, “Estimated Effects of the ‘Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,’ as Amended, on the Year of Exhaustion for the Part A Trust Fund, Part B Premiums, and Part A and Part B Coinsurance Amounts,” Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 4/22/2010)

PELOSI BRAGS: “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)

These cuts will hurt current seniors by cutting Medicare Advantage benefits, threatening seniors’ access to care:

OBAMACARE’S CUTS TO MEDICARE WILL AFFECT CURRENT SENIORS:

NEW STUDY BREAKS DOWN OBAMACARE’S $716 BILLION IN MEDICARE CUTS BY CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT: (“ObamaCare Cuts $700 Billion from Medicare,” American Action Network, 9/10/2012)

CBO: $156 BILLION IN CUTS TO MEDICARE ADVANTAGE, $20 BILLION HIGHER THAN FIRST ESTIMATE: (Douglas Elmendorf, “Letter to the Honorable John Boehner,” Congressional Budget Office, 7/24/2012)

MEDICARE ACTUARY: CURRENT SENIORS—AT LEAST 7.4 MILLION OF THEM—WILL LOSE MEDICARE ADVANTAGE DUE TO OBAMACARE: “The new provisions will generally reduce MA [Medicare Advantage] rebates to plans and thereby result in less generous benefit packages. We estimate that in 2017, when MA provisions will be fully phased in, enrollment in MA plans will be lower by about 50 percent (from its projected level of 14.8 million under the prior law to 7.4 million under the new law).” (Richard S. Foster, “Estimated Financial Effects of the ‘Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as Amended,” Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 4/22/2010)

ONE-QUARTER OF SENIORS GET MEDICARE BENEFITS THROUGH MEDICARE ADVANTAGE: “Another $136 billion comes from reducing payments to private Medicare Advantage health plans, through which about one-quarter of seniors get Medicare benefits.” (Marilyn Werber Serafini, “Some Hill Races Hinge on Seniors’ Anger Over Medicare,” Kaiser Health News, 10/26/2010)

CUTS TO MEDICARE ADVANTAGE WILL “CAUSE MILLIONS OF SENIOR CITIZENS AND DISABLED AMERICANS TO LOSE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN HEALTH CARE SERVICES”: “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA)[1] will cause millions of senior citizens and disabled Americans to lose billions of dollars in health care services every year by substantially reducing payments to Medicare Advantage (MA) plans.” (Robert A. Book and James C. Capretta, “Reductions in Medicare Advantage Payments: The Impact on Seniors by Region,” The Heritage Foundation, 9/14/2010)

STUDY: CUTS WILL “FORCE SENIORS TO PAY $3,700 MORE FOR THEIR HEALTHCARE BY 2017”: (Robert A. Book and James C. Capretta, “Reductions in Medicare Advantage Payments: The Impact on Seniors by Region,” The Heritage Foundation, 9/14/2010; James Capretta, “President Obama’s $700 Billion Medicare Problem,” National Review, 8/15/2012)

Perhaps worst of all, Biden and President Obama both continue to defend their board of unelected bureaucrats empowered to cut Medicare even further, which will have even more devastating impacts on seniors:

OBAMA: IPAB IS A GROUP OF “HEALTHCARE EXPERTS, DOCTORS, ETC” THAT FIGURES OUT HOW TO REDUCE HEALTHCARE COSTS: “It — when Governor Romney talks about this board, for example, unelected board that we’ve created, what this is, is a group of health care experts, doctors, et cetera, to figure out, how can we reduce the cost of care in the system overall?” (“Presidential Debate Questions and Transcript, Oct. 3, 2012” Politico, 10/3/2012)

OBAMA: BOARD’S JOB IS TO “IDENTIFY BEST PRACTICES” AND “INSTITUTIONALIZE ALL THESE GOOD THINGS:” “Now, so what this board does is basically identifies best practices and says, let’s use the purchasing power of Medicare and Medicaid to help to institutionalize all these good things that we do.” (“Presidential Debate Questions and Transcript, Oct. 3, 2012” Politico, 10/3/2012)

“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)

OBAMA BUDGET: “GIVE IPAB ADDITIONAL TOOLS LIKE THE ABILITY TO CONSIDER VALUE-BASED BENEFIT DESIGN” (READ: BENEFIT CUTS): (“Living Within Our Means and Investing in the Future,” Office of Management and Budget, September 2011)

“VALUE-BASED BENEFIT DESIGN” WOULD ALLOW IPAB TO EFFECTIVELY RATION HEALTHCARE SERVICES, INTERFERING WITH DOCTORS’ OWN PREFERRED TREATMENTS: “Value-based benefit design may enable IPAB to more effectively target cost sharing for those services that are most likely produce positive patient outcomes while reducing payments for services with less effective outcomes, explained Cori Uccello, the senior health fellow for the American Academy of Actuaries.” (Margaret Dick Tocknell, “IPAB to Kick in Early to Ease Impact of Medicare Cuts,” Health Leaders Media, 9/21/2011)

OBAMA FY2013 BUDGET ALSO VOWS TO BOOST IPAB’S POWER: “In addition, it strengthens the Independent Payment Advisory Board to reduce long-term drivers of Medicare cost growth.” (“Department of Health and Human Services,” The White House, February 2012)

Not Funny: Cutting Seniors’ Medicare to Pay for ObamaCare http://ow.ly/esXa2#iwantrepeal