Seniors get screwed by Obamacare
By John Bender
web posted April 12, 2010
For Americans who are on Medicare, about to be on Medicare or who have a close family member on it should be outraged by the Obamacare law the national socialists crammed down our throats. All Americans are going to suffer under this travesty but seniors are among the first to take hits in service and cost.
If you're not on Medicare, or don't have a mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, aunt or uncle, sister, brother, or cousin, on Medicare, you may not be interested in this column. Those of you who do should be very interested in how seniors are being screwed by this law.
The following cuts hit seniors starting this year and in the next two years. But these are just the start of cuts and higher costs. More draconian cuts to service and quality along with higher costs are scheduled to hit after the election year of 2012.
Most people don't remember the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act of 1988. Leftists in Congress passed a change to Medicare that for most seniors was going to add little or no benefit but increase the cost of Medicare for everyone. When seniors realized what was really in the law they rose up and demanded the law be repealed.
At one point a group of irate seasoned citizens chased Dan Rostenkowski, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, to his car and surrounded it and rocked it until the police had to come rescue him. Not long after that Congress repealed the crummy law.
Today's seniors may want to keep those seniors in mind as they read what the Obamacare law is inflicting on them. Bad laws can be repealed with enough grassroots effort.
Highlights of how Obamacare screws seniors:
2010
Medicare cuts to inpatient psych hospitals (7/1/10)
Medicare Advantage cuts begin
Medicare cuts to home health begin
Wealthier seniors ($85K/$170K) begin paying higher Part D premiums (not indexed for inflation in Parts B/D)
Medicare reimbursement cuts when seniors use diagnostic imaging like MRIs, CT scans, etc.
Medicare cuts begin to ambulance services, ASCs, diagnostic labs, and durable medical equipment
Impose new annual tax on brand name pharmaceutical companies which will raise drug prices
Americans begin paying premiums for federal long-term care insurance (CLASS Act)
2011
Prohibition on Medicare payments to new physician-owned hospitals
Seniors prohibited from purchasing power wheelchairs unless they first rent for 13 months
New Medicare cuts to long-term care hospitals begin (7/1/11)
2012
Additional Medicare cuts to hospitals and cuts to nursing homes and inpatient rehab facilities begin (FY12)
New tax on all private health insurance policies to pay for comp. eff. research (plan years beginning FY12) 
John Bender is a freelance writer living in Dallas.