The latest ploy to promote Obamacare is to rename it after something popular. Giving it the title of “Medicare Part E” is the newest tactic.
The package might look different, but inside is the same old stuff: Government-run health care that is so expensive that it threatens our economy today and our future tomorrow.
Although popular, Medicare already is sinking under $38-trillion in unfunded future liabilities. Adding trillions in new spending will make Medicare sink even faster.
Adding Obamacare to Medicare threatens the program that seniors rely upon and lessens the chances of ever fixing Medicare’s financial problems.
Because Medicare lowballs its payments to health providers, it causes them to charge more to other patients to make up the difference. Already, according to the Milliman Group, non-Medicare families already pay an extra $1,800 a year in higher health bills. Shifting millions more people into Medicare would worsen this cost-shifting onto everyone else. It especially hurts health care in rural areas, where Medicare reimbursement rates are the lowest.
The effort to recast their government-run “public option” as part of Medicare shows the dilemma of Obama and his allies on Capitol Hill. Whether they call it Medicare Part E, Happy Health Care, or Santa Claus, a catchy name doesn’t change what they’re doing. Their plan would expand central planning and price controls. It would add tens of thousands of pages of regulations, rules, guidelines, and administrative decisions to the sea of red tape that already jacks up the costs of health care and insurance by creating enormous hidden costs on the system.
Giving their messy plan the name of “Medicare Part E” is only the latest tactic. Each day they try to put a fresh face on the plan, but under the mask it’s always the same old big government and big spending approach.
