Obamacare - No Advantages for Seniors

Summing It Up:
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.

No Confidence

I wasn't planning on writing this soon but the banker in me just had to bring up the new banking trend. Some of the biggest US banks began to inform their clients today on a new fee. In the past, if you had millions to deposit you looked for the bank that paid the highest interest rate, right? No more. Instead the new trend is to charge the customer a fee to deposit their money at the bank!

That's right, the rich, businesses or anyone wanting to deposit millions will have to pay for the privilege of banking at one of the bigger banks.





You thought the rediculously small interest paid on savings, money market accounts or CDs was bad - now customers and businesses have to pay the banks to hold their millions! You're better off putting it under your mattress.

I hate to admit this, but as a former banking consultant I can understand why banks are doing this. Basically there is too much cash floating around as investors are getting out of the stock market and real estate. In fact money is so prevalent that the Federal Reserve is charging the few banks that need to borrow money an interest rate of 0%. Yup, it is free to borrow but that isn't the problem, the problem is too much money.

Not to get too technical but banks have to balance out their Assets which are loans and cash on hand vs. their Liabilities of deposits and stocks.







Too much deposits and they can't make enough loans to balance it out. Businesses today are afraid to get new loans as the economy is uncertain and they are afraid of the future impact of Obamacare. There are few mortgages as no one is buying houses and the few customers who try for a loan are turned down as banks are being very strict. So banks can't turn the big deposits into loans today.

In today's economy, banks interest margin (the rates they collect on loans minus the rate they pay out on deposits)has been smaller and smaller. And now they can't even turn around and loan out the big deposits to earn even a small interest fee. Banks are making up that lost income by now charging customers a fee to hold their large deposits.

So I understand why this sort of makes sense from the bank's point of view. But I worry about the bigger picture. I don't like that we have all this excess cash. It is scary to think that people and companies are not investing in our future nor are banks helping out individuals or small businesses with loans.

Some analyst reviewing today's 512 drop in the stock market said it was a vote of no confidence in our future. I agree. For how can you blame anyone for shying away from investing in the stock market after the last few days of free fall and the jump in gold? Not to forget that Washington just agreed to more spending and more debt.

How do we turn our economy around? How do we give our citizens, and big and small businesses confidence in our future?


Unfortunately, does anyone truly believe our economy and unemployment will get any better considering who is in the White House? Or will confidence return only after we get a true leader? Preferably someone with real business acumen, someone who knows how to live on a budget like the rest of us do. Most of all, we need a leader who understands how to give Americans and American businesses the freedom to succeed or even to fail, then learn from it and come back stronger and wiser. Until then, add my voice in with all the others who are starting to shout "No confidence!"

Location:home

Mid-Term Miracles

After tomorrow’s election there will once again be the refrain by liberals and the far left that Americans are stupid. This is what they said after the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections when their candidate lost. I never understood their reasoning. If the losing side wanted to win the next time around then they needed to convince the other side to vote for their man (or woman). So you would think that insulting the winning side by calling them stupid isn’t exactly the smart way of winning friends and influencing your enemies.

When Obama was elected four years later, surprise, surprise, suddenly the American people were very intelligent. They voted in the right man and life was good again. Not only did Americans elect Obama but the liberals hit the Trifecta, dominating the Presidency, the House and the Senate. Plus in the first two years, this new President picked two new politically correct Supreme Court Justices and if there were potential problems with other Presidential appointees then Obama just bypassed Senate’s consent and called them Czars. Oh life was good for liberals.

But a funny thing happened, the American people started to lose IQ points over the past two years, or at least thats what Democrats would have you believe. Even worse, the lower the IQ, the louder these people became. They had the nerve to not quietly sit back but to actually take action and without anyone’s help! They might have been better managed if they had kept to the Republican Party where old-timers knew how to squelch loud bothersome newcomers. But they even surprised the GOP by gathering under their own name – the Tea Party.

The Tea Party might have fizzled out after that first summer of discontent when they protested about Obamacare, disrupting town hall meetings with their sharp questioning. After the Senate and House still passed their health care plan, arrogantly ignoring a large and growing segment of the population, the Tea Party should have died out. They lost. Shut Up. Move on. But people didn’t move on. Instead they became angrier. Even worse for the politicians, they took names and took action.

The Tea Party nonetheless still could have died out if it weren’t for the actions of two people. They are not the founding fathers of the party but they were the nursemaids, nurturing and encouraging Tea Party enthusiasts. They gave it a legitimate platform and a voice. The first person of course is Sarah Palin; the darling of the conservatives and the laughingstock of the liberals. After being continuously embarrassed by the Mainstream Media (MSM) this woman had the audacity to not go away; just the opposite actually. By all rights, after the trouncing she got by the MSM and the truly awful Couric interview, she should have slunk back to Alaska never to be heard from again. Instead Palin left the relatively obscure position of Alaska’s Governor, wrote a book and hit the lecture circuit.

This is the first time I can recall that a politician refused to let the MSM win. Remember Dan Quayle? Probably not if you’re under 50. He was the first Bush’s VP and his falling out with the MSM was over the spelling of potato. He thought there was an e at the end. They hounded the man showering nonstop ridicule on him for weeks and weeks over a simple misspelling. They broke him and he disappeared, never to be heard from again. So give credit where credit is due – Palin refused to back down. Instead she and the Tea Party grew stronger together.

The other Tea Party nursemaid is Glenn Beck. Here was the ideal meeting of a man and a movement, each backing the other to untold fame and infamy. Glenn Beck did for the Tea Party what Pat Robertson did for the Moral Majority and President Nixon for the Silent Majority. And just like Palin, he has been totally villified by the MSM, and labeled extreme, even mad.

What did Beck do to earn the wrath of liberals? He told conservatives that they are not alone. That they shouldn’t feel disheartened by the news they hear each day from the MSM. Instead they needed to understand that if they banded together they would have the power to take over the country. In encouraging this group he also was forthright in describing the other side, the interweaving of liberal groups and people in DC, Hollywood, New York and now Chicago. In many ways, Beck turns today’s politics into a morality play bringing back old fashioned morals, religion and patriotism with clear cut heroes and villains.

On Tuesday November 2nd Americans are going to take a stand and say to the President and his party “No more”. The MSM will once again call these Americans stupid. And they are led in this chorus by none other than our President. In a speech at a small fundraising party last month in West Newton MA, Obama said: "Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time is because we're hardwired not to always think clearly when we're scared, and the country's scared.” He went on to say that he faulted the economic downturn for Americans’ inability to “think clearly” and said the burden is on Democrats “to break through the fear and the frustration people are feeling.”

Obama just doesn’t get it and that scares me. We are frustrated because Obama, Reid and Pelosi don’t listen to the majority of the country and we are afraid of what they will do next. Saying we don’t understand the facts isn’t helping. He is the one who isn’t understanding the situation. He has repeatedly said that perhaps part of the problem is that he could have better communicated what they were doing. OMG. This man does nothing but communicate. We heard you already Mr Obama and November 2nd is our reply.

I want to hope that he will then act like Bill Clinton who, when faced with a similar mid-term situation, became more centrix and worked with Speaker of the House Gingrich to implement bills that helped the country. But I doubt it. A recent speech had Obama calling conservatives “the enemy”. And he ended his speech in MA by predicting even more partisanship and gridlock in Congress. “I don’t anticipate that getting better next year,” he said at the fundraiser. “I anticipate that getting worse.” He said he needs Democrats in the Senate “because every bit of progress that we need to make is going be a matter of grinding it out.” Nice attitude, Mr. President. So much for bipartisanship.

One more thing. In addition to calling Tea Party candidates and their followers “stupid” you can be sure that the MSM and liberals will also label them “extreme” and they will endlessly worry about the future of our country after this historical midterm election. Funny. Although I have frequently been proud of my country, for the first time in a long time, unlike the media, I am not nearly as worried about my country’s future as I was yesterday.

One More Thing...

In my last blog, A Patient’s View of HR3200 I argued against the government sending someone to discuss your medical and end of life options if you are seriously ill or injured. Since then I have had people tell me that it is one thing to discuss end of life options with a 51 year old but a totally different matter when the patient is 91. They reminded me of the burden these elderly people were to the system and that there comes a point when you should say enough tests, operations, medical treatments and to simply let nature take it course. End of Life options are appropriate not only for the sake of the elderly person but also because of the extreme expenses to both the family and the government to keep them alive.

I agree, up to a point. In fact I was a bit angered to learn that a friend’s 87 year old mother-in-law had just had a hip replacement operation. This elderly woman suffered from dementia, diabetes, extreme arthritis and a multitude of other ailments plus her family ignored her the one time she spoke out against the operation since they thought they knew best for her. Or at least most did since some family members argued to stop everything and simply let her die but these voices were drowned out by those wanting her to have the operation. Plus I am sure that the nursing home also encouraged the operation for the practical reason of wanting her to be mobile and able to go to the bathroom on her own and not to require diaper changes. Yet all of the family infighting about treatment could have been avoided if she just had a Living Will. But at this point it was too late as she wasn’t capable of making decisions.

So yes, I agree that this woman probably should not get more medical treatment and should simply be made comfortable as she dies. But this puts you on a very slippery slope. For what is the cut off point? If my 51 is too young but there is a need for end of life options for this 87 year old patient then perhaps at 80 people should be denied treatment. Except I look at my own 81 year old mother. If she were to fall I would be one of the ones arguing for a hip replacement operation. Am I being hypocritical? No. For unlike the first elderly woman, my mother is a sharp, active, intelligent older woman who neither looks nor acts her age. My mother at 81 is as active as many a 65 year old. So you can’t use age as the criteria. What might have worked for my friend’s parent certainly would be wrong for my mother.

In fact, my father was only 65 when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. After only one chemo treatment we realized he was dying and we then wanted to make what little time was left to be as easy as possible for him. In this case we turned to Hospice to help him. If a family member is dying then Hospice is wonderful. So why does the government need to create a whole new panel and one more bureaucratic department? Wouldn’t it make more sense for them to provide government grants to this organization which is already in place and functioning quite well?

The final argument was the costs associated with health care for the elderly. Wow. How cold is that? Liberals actually worry that keeping mom and dad alive and paying for their health care will bankrupt the government. The same problem of lack of funding concerns treating uninsured people. Who is more important – the people or the government? For if the former, we can find the money. Hell, let the banks pay back their bailouts, take the majority of the stimulus money not spent and gee here’s a thought, fire the 30+ highly paid Czars (the Energy and Environment Czar is getting $172,000 for example) and let the Cabinet do its job instead. Money is not an issue. If Obama could find all these trillions for people to buy a car then he can find the money to take care of our parents. Besides, using existing groups such as Hospice would save billions in the projected salaries for new government employees.

Conservatives have made their point about the major problems with HR3200. Now is the time to start offering alternative ideas. Here are a few suggestions; some are already being discussed while others are my own ideas:

• Let the insurance companies create a co-op through which uninsured people can get health insurance. Restrict this to only US Citizens. Illegal immigrants are a tough situation and this country needs to review and revise their entire illegal immigrant policy as soon as possible. Meanwhile the expenses for treating illegal immigrants or citizens who don’t sign up for insurance should be shared by the entire country and not just the border states and those with high illegal immigrant populations.


• Provide grants to encourage and pay for anyone who wants to be a nurse, doctor, technician, nursing home aide or in any other medical professions. We will need all of these once we insure everyone but other than talking about rationing no one has thought of this.


• Use Hospice as the primary end of life care givers. Provide them with grants to expand their current business rather than the government creating a new parallel department. Offer the same grants to any other private company to insure competition.
  
• Make health insurance mandatory when you get or renew your driver’s license. When you renew your driver’s license there should be a Living Will form with the paperwork sent to you. They already ask about organ donations so why not also include Living Wills? Use Hospice or SS to handle all questions about Living Wills.


• Require all Americans including government employees and union members to be a part of whatever new plan is approved.

So come on conservatives. Instead of simply trashing HR3200 you need to start to come up with alternative suggestions. Forget calling people Nazi’s and instead present your Congressman with some great ideas that they can take back to the Senate and House. For we need a Health Care Plan that is truly by the people and not this monstrosity which is a plan by the government for the people.