Medicare is not exempt. ObamaCare moved $500,000,000,000.00 from Medicare to Medicaid, simply by lowering what they pay to providers.
Try and find a Dr. who will take Medicare patients, even if you have a PPO as secondary, and offer to pay cash.
You have no choice as to whether you have Medicare. Of course you could always choose to be independently wealthy, bear in mind that would mean more than a few million.
Congressional debt deal exempts Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security -- for now
You are correct about the lies and smoke and mirrors of the Obama administration. Kathleen Sebelius was caught red handed during Congressional testimony of "double counting" Medicare.
The devil is in the details, and yes, payments could be reduced - but this is nothing like what is happening to veterans. These are real cuts now. TRICARE is going up....now. Possibly by a quadruple amount. Remember, before TRICARE, veterans and their immediate families were promised free health care for life. Now they pay, and it is going to soon be a lot more. Isn't that great?
Medicare was no where near touched or impacted in this debt deal as will be military and veterans.
It is a simple political equation: Democrats demanded entitlements not be touched, and come this November "Super Congress" commission, veterans and the military are going to be slaughtered (my prediction). The article I posted attests to this.
Furthermore, even leaving out benefits to the military and veterans, the "deal" calls for the first 50% of ALL cuts to come DIRECTLY from the DoD - and then after that they can go after whatever crumbs anyone even agrees to. Former Ambassador John Bolton said in a recent interview this was a "disaster" for the Defense Dept, and alluded that instead of weapons and contractors, the DoD may try to take even more away in terms of retirement, health care, and salaries.
Medicare is a "sacred" program to Democrats.
The could give a rat's a$$ about veterans.