1. Obamacare cuts $156 billion from Medicare Advantage (MA) Plans
2. Up to half of the 14 million Seniors with MA's could need new health care plans as MA's are dropped or have fewer benefits at greater costs
3. AARP will reap windfall profits as it sells a competing insurance plan
4. President Obama illegally took $8 billion to avoid MA cuts hitting Senior's in October and hurting his re-election
Read on for the full details...
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Until the past week I have felt like the prophet shouting doom in the wilderness which no one heard. I tried to tell everyone how unfair Obamacare was. That it paid for the uninsured by taking away from Seniors and the disabled. No one listened. Until now. The Romney Ryan ticket is finally getting the hypocrisy of Obamacare out in the open. Here are the facts, yes, actual facts about one facet of Obamacare.
The claim that you can keep your insurance under Obamacare is not true for the 14 million people who have Medicare Advantage (MA) Plans. President Obama intends to partly pay for Obamacare by gutting $156 billion from MA's over the next ten years. He claims the cuts are against the greedy doctors, hospitals and insurance companies, not Seniors. How stupid does he think we are? All cuts will of course be passed down to Seniors. Both left and right agree that these cuts will impact Seniors, they only disagree on how badly it will hurt Seniors.
What are MA's? They are a pay per use health plan through private insurance companies ranging from inexpensive HMO's to more expensive PPO's. Nearly one-fourth of all Seniors have this plan from a variety of private insurance companies competing for them. When I became disabled I quickly learned that the 20% copay under Medicare added up to more than I could afford. So I bought an annual MA plan with Humana, getting their PPO for just for $80 a month. I get to keep all my specialists and pay from $5-$35 on average per visit. Hospital stays and at home care are reasonable and if I were fit I could even use a free gym membership. I love my MA, which says a lot considering how much I need and use it.
Yet once Obamacare cuts start, analysts expects enrollments in MA's to drop by up to half of the 14 million people currently using these plans. Some insurance companies will stop offering MA's while other plans will offer less benefits yet become prohibitively expensive. There goes President Obama's claim that if you like your health care you will get to keep it. Wrong! Not only does Obama know this but he is lying to us about it and I do not use the word lightly.
The cuts were to start in January, but as you sign up for MA's in October then Senior's would see the impact of the cuts right before the election. That could lose the election for Obama. To prevent this, the president raided $8 billion from a fund to be used for something else. The Government of Accounting came out and said this was an illegal usage of this money. But once again the president is getting away with a clearly unconstitutional act for the sole reason of trying to fool Americans in order to get re-elected.
Here's another fact not discussed. Once cuts take affect and Seniors lose their current MA's or find them too costly they will look for new health insurance. Guess who does not sell MA's but does sell competing insurance plans and expects to make a huge windfall profit from Seniors replacing their MA's? AARP! Now do you understand why they support Obamacare? I just heard Obama's campaign manager say that Obamacare must be good if AARP supports it. Bullshit. Of course AARP loves Obamacare! AARP will make millions in profit from new members who move away from the decimated MA's. If AARP truly cared about Seniors they would be against this plan which hurts the 14 million Seniors on Medicare Advantage Plans.
One final fact. You must be 65 to qualify for most other plans, including AARP's. So once Obamacare starts cutting Medicare Advantage Plans, then as a 54 year old disabled person, I am screwed. Yes a few insurance companies will sell another plan to me but at a cost ranging from $350 to $1200 a month! It is rough enough coping with my disabilities but now I am truly afraid of the future when Obamacare raids my Medicare Advantage Plan. If my MA is dropped then I am back to just the 20% copay with Medicare, which is terrifying.
Without my Medicare Advantage Plan, my choices become bankruptcy, or to postpone or even not have medical care, including operations to save my limbs or even my life. Overly dramatic? Not really.
In 2009, for example, I needed four separate operations adding up to medical expenses of just over $500,000 for the year! Through my MA, I paid $12k, a lot, but reasonable, since if I only had Medicare I would have owed 20% or $100,000! The April surgery saved my right leg, two others were to save my left leg, is keeping them worth bankruptcy? People might be forced to ask questions just like this under Obamacare. So I have every reason to fear the cuts to this wonderful MA health insurance plan. And to wonder in what world is it right that Obamacare is paid for at the expense of disabled Americans, the very people who depend on health care the most?
Now compare Obamacare to the proposed Romney/Ryan plan. First and most importantly, they say it will not impact anyone over 55, unlike Obamacare which is paid for by taking funds from the Senior's Medicare Advantage Plans. Then I just read that the Republican plan using vouchers will actually be very similar to my Medicare Advantage Plan. They feel that offering it to more people will create more competition and therefore lower prices to the consumer. So instead of ruining this wonderful insurance plan, as Obamacare does, Romney will offer MA's to everyone! And you will love it!
But regardless of the Republican plan, I am just very grateful that Romney and Ryan are finally calling the president on his lies about Obamacare. Now we can begin to have a real debate with facts about what Obamacare will do to Seniors. Not what it might do but what it will do. And what Obamacare will do is hurt old and disabled Americans, the very people Medicare was created to help.
