Your only two choices on Medicare, protect Medicare with Romney/Ryan, or raid Medicare with obama/biden

heh, you talk to an trained agent before writing that? Let me tell you - the explosion in baby boomers going on medicare at a rate of 10,000 per day is soon going to learn the truth about R/R's plans for the future of senior healthcare and they'r e not going to like it. A voucher is not going to overwhelm an insurance industry that has finagled to come out on top regardless who wins the election.

I talk to 50-100 people a day and I'm amazed at the willful ignorance of what's coming... It ain't about politics, because personally, this college educated and company trained professional has his own sh*t wired tight and I don't really care about elections. But people are incredibly ignorant of what's waiting for them in healthcare, if the ACA is repealed.

First off, the premise of any insurance - regardless of type or what you call it, is transferrance of risk. Increase the population of who's taking the risk, the cheaper the insurance costs. The quickest way to defeat that outcome is to resist the socialization of risk and privatize the gain at an unhealthy rate. Like what's endemic in the housing business. Hence, why encouraging people to participate in their own protection make eminent sense. We already have the model of the disadvantages of when you fail to control that. The joke is on the ignorant but they won't be laughing, trust me on this.... I encounter more people than I can help, if I gave up sleeping a week at a time....

I just had an irate customer who's been on medicare for just the past yr. He would not listen to his rights and options 7 months ago. That was before he and his wife got sick and found themselves in the hole for $2,200 that they could have avoided on their limited incomes. Now he's livid that I can't remove his med bill after the fact. That was like taking his brand new Beemer and wrapping it around a tree uninsured and wanting me to fix his car for free. He just hungup pissed. The only thing more sure than death and taxes is the fact that just before you die - you're gonna get sick....

No Medicare was raided, stop lying for obama


Obama Loots $716 Billion from Medicare
A Report issued by the CBO this week finds Obama has taken $716 Billion from Medicare to fund Obamacare

Senior Obama adviser David Axelrod attacked Romney and Ryan this week with the accusation that a repeal of Obamacare would bankrupt Medicare. David Axelrod however is misinformed, as the real threat to Medicare is President Obama, who has taken billions of dollars from Medicare to fund Obamacare.

According to the CBO, the payment cuts in Medicare include:

A $260 billion payment cut for hospital services.
A $39 billion payment cut for skilled nursing services.
A $17 billion payment cut for hospice services.
A $66 billion payment cut for home health services.
A $33 billion payment cut for all other services.
A $156 billion cut in payment rates in Medicare Advantage (MA); $156 billion is before considering interactions with other provisions. The House Ways and Means Committee was able to include interactions with other provisions, estimating the cuts to MA to be even higher, coming in at $308 billion.
$56 billion in cuts for disproportionate share hospital (DSH) payments.* DSH payments go to hospitals that serve a large number of low-income patients.
$114 billion in other provisions pertaining to Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP* (does not include coverage-related provisions).

*Subtract $25 billion total between DSH payments and other provisions for spending that was cut from Medicaid and CHIP.

In total, Obamacare raids Medicare by $716 billion from 2013 to 2022. Despite Medicare facing a 75-year unfunded obligation of $37 trillion, Obamacare uses the savings from the cuts to pay for other provisions in Obamacare, not to help shore up Medicare’s finances.

The impact of these cuts will be detrimental to seniors’ access to care. The Medicare trustees 2012 report concludes that these lower Medicare payment rates will cause an estimated 15 percent of hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, and home health agencies to operate at a loss by 2019, 25 percent to operate at a loss in 2030, and 40 percent by 2050. Operating at a loss means these facilities are likely to cut back their services to Medicare patients or close their doors, making it more difficult for seniors to access these services.

In addition, as MA deteriorates under Obamacare’s cuts, many of those who are enrolled in MA (27 percent of total Medicare beneficiaries) will lose their current health coverage and be forced back into traditional Medicare, where Medicare providers will be subject to further cuts. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services chief actuary predicted in 2010 that enrollment in MA would decrease 50 percent by 2017, when Obamacare’s cuts were estimated at only $145 billion. Now that the cuts have been increased to $156 billion (or possibly $308 billion, as the Ways and Means Committee estimates), MA enrollment will surely decrease even further.

But Obamacare’s raid of Medicare doesn’t stop with cuts; it includes a redirection of tax revenue from the Medicare payroll tax hike in Obamacare. The payroll tax funds Medicare Part A, the trust fund that is projected to become insolvent as soon as 2024. Obamacare increases the tax from 2.9 percent to 3.8 percent, which is projected to cost taxpayers $318 billion from 2013 to 2022. However, for the very first time, Obamacare does not use the tax revenue from the increased Medicare payroll tax to pay for Medicare; the money is used to fund other parts of Obamacare, much like the $716 billion in cuts are.

With a raid on Medicare of this magnitude, President Obama’s assertion that his new law is protecting seniors and Medicare is astonishing. The truth is that Obamacare does the opposite.