Op/Ed
4/11/2013
Obama to Seniors: It’s Time For You To Pay
Seniors strongly supported Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in the 2012 election (56 percent) over President Barack Obama. In his most recent budget proposal, Obama attempts to get his revenge.
There are several ways seniors take a hit in Obama’s budget, including tax hikes and cuts in Social Security and Medicare benefits. The result is that if Congress were to pass the president’s budget, seniors would have less money and worse health care, and pay more for the “privilege.”
Medicare Cuts: ObamaCare cuts Medicare spending by $716 billion over 10 years, largely by cutting more than $300 billion that would have gone to Medicare Advantage plans, which provide comprehensive coverage to more than 25 percent of seniors.
Republicans complained bitterly about the cuts at the time, but now we learn that the ObamaCare cuts were just the beginning.
In his budget, the president proposes to force high-income seniors to pay an additional $57 billion in higher premiums and cut $306 billion (both over 10 years) from reimbursements to Medicare providers. If the president is trying to ensure that every senior has a family nurse, instead of a family doctor, that last proposal is the way to do it.
I’ve always believed that the best way to expand government medical care is to change the parameters of Medicare.
However, I don’t want to see government medical care expanded at all.