Seniors Beware: Medicare is in Danger

A recent article in the AARP Bulletin  asks the question, "Is Your Medicare Safe?"  In her article, Marsha Mercer, points to a section of the law which reads, "nothing in this act shall result in a reduction of guaranteed benefits."  This obviously was put in the act to mollify seniors with their great fear that Medicare may be gutted and taken away from them as a benefit. The mere fact that $716 billion are going to be cut from Medicare over 10 years does not seem to bother Ms. Mercer.

I agree that $716 billion  over 10 years will probably not place a significant dent in the benefits supplied through Medicare, as there is room for many readjustments in efficiency and provider reimbursement to probably satisfy this debt, but Medicare is not safe, and it would be best that future seniors understand how government functions.

When Medicare was passed by the Congress in 1965 there was a energetic debate about this new law. Various representatives claimed that "the government will control American Medicine, and tell people when they can go into the hospital and when they can't. It will tell physicians how much they can be paid for their services." The proponents of this law basically "solved" these objections by placing a first paragraph at the beginning of the new Medicare law that can be found by looking it up on various websites. This first paragraph was so important that  this law would not have passed without it, and the title of that first paragraph exposes both the methods and the direction of government control.

The title of the first paragraph was  "POHIBITION AGAINST ANY FEDERAL INTERFERENCE."  This particular paragraph was placed there to assuage the fears of conservatives that the government would control medical care in our country, but as we all know, the paragraph had nothing to do with future laws that were passed, or promises that were made about federal interference. The federal government currently controls at least 65 to 70% of medical care, and it does control how much physicians are paid, and who can go into a hospital and when they go home. The details of what else  it controls are too numerous to enumerate in this brief article,  but let's just say it controls just about everything.

Having a statement in the Medicare law of "nothing in this act shall result in a reduction of guaranteed benefits" is no different than saying, "Prohibition against Any Federal Interference,"  And this is been said before I are government specifically in 1965 with the passage of the Medicare law. In case you haven't read that paragraph I'm going to include it in this essay: "

PROHIBITION AGAINST ANY FEDERAL INTERFERENCE

Sec. 1801. [42 U.S.C. 1395]  Nothing in this title shall be construed to authorize any Federal officer

or employee to exercise any supervision or control over the practice of medicine or the manner in which medical services are provided, or over the selection, tenure, or compensation of any officer or employee of any institution, agency, or person providing health services; or to exercise any supervision or control over the administration or operation of any such institution, agency, or person."

I hope you noticed that the paragraph begins with the statement "nothing in this title" and that is just what is included in the Affordable Care Act.

The basic idea is that governments say what they like and then do what they have to further down the line. They can always come up with excuses such as, "it's too expensive or it's causing too many unforeseen consequences, yada yada yada." The point is there is always an excuse and many times the people who passed the law are not present in government when they come up with a reason to change it.

Concluding that a brief statement in the Medicare law will protect us from further consequences is not only naïve but dangerous. It's giving elderly a false sense of security which is definitely not present the way the demographics are moving in this country.

The elderly are increasing and the number of workers to support our "benefits" is gradually decreasing. The promises that were made are not necessarily sustainable.

In a different sense it's not really fair for the elderly to base their retirement on the backs of younger people. Younger people have a right to the same opportunities that their parents and grandparents had when they were young. I worry that the tax situation in this country will only get worse for young adults if we continue down this same road to entitlements and Medicare is a big one.

There are serious questions anyway about the AARP's support of the affordable care act. It is my understanding that various executives in the AARP received government jobs after the passage of this law. Did this have anything to do with their support of the ACA? Those who believe that "nothing in this act show result in a reduction in guaranteed benefits" probably believe that there was no relationship between the nice cushy government jobs received by various AARP executives and  their support of the ACA.

I think changes are coming, and AARP would be wise to let seniors understand it.