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OBAMA WILL REPEAL MEDICARE
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published on DickMorris.com on July 9, 2009
Obama's health care proposal is, in effect, the repeal of the Medicare program
as we know it. The elderly will go from being the group with the most
access to free medical care to the one with the least access.
Indeed, the principal impact of the Obama health care program will be to reduce
sharply the medical services the elderly can use. No longer will their
every medical need be met, their every medication prescribed, their every need
to improve their quality of life answered.
It is so ironic that the elderly - who were so vigilant when Bush proposed to
change Social Security - are so relaxed about the Obama health care proposals.
Bush's Social Security plan, which did not cut their benefits at all, aroused
the strongest opposition among the elderly. But Obama's plan, which will
totally gut Medicare and replace it with government-managed care and rationing,
has elicited little more than a yawn from most senior citizens.
It's time for the elderly to wake up before it is too late!
In our new book, Catastrophe, we explain - in detail and in depth - the
consequences the elderly of Canada are feeling from just this kind of program.
Limited colonoscopies have led to a 25% higher rate of colon cancer and a ban on
the use of the two best chemotherapies are part of the reason why 42% of
Canadians with colon cancer die while 31% of Americans, who have access to these
two medications, survive the disease.
Overall, the death rate from cancer in Canada is 16% higher than in the United
States and the heart disease mortality rate is 6% above ours'.
Under Obama's program, there will be a government health insurance company that
gets huge subsidies of tax money. It will compete with private insurance
plans. But the subsidies will let it undercut the private plans and drive
them out of business, leaving only the government plan - a single payer - in
effect.
Today, 800,000 doctors struggle to treat adequately the 250 million Americans
who have insurance. Obama will add 50 million more to their caseload with
no expansion in the number of doctors or nurses. Indeed, his plan will
likely reduce their number by lowering reimbursement rates and imposing
bureaucrats above them who will force medical decisions down their throats.
Fewer doctors will have to treat more patients. The inevitable result will
be rationing.
And it is the elderly who rationing will most effect. Who should get a
knee replacement a 40 year old or a 70 year old? Who should get a new hip,
a young person or an old person? Who should have priority in the operating
room a seventy year old diabetic who needs bypass surgery or a younger person?
Obviously, it is the elderly who will get short shrift under his proposal.
But the interest groups that usually speak up for the elderly, particularly
AARP, are in Obama's pocket, hoping to profit from his program by becoming one
of its vendors. Just as they backed Bush's prescription drug plan because
they anticipating profiting from it, so they are now helping Obama gut the
medical care of their constituents.
It is high time that the elderly of America realized what the stakes are in this
vital fight to preserve Medicare as we know it and keep medical care open,
accessible, and free to those over 65. It is truly a battle for their very
lives.
Go to DickMorris.com to read all of Dick's columns!