07 Mar 10 Seniors - Support Your Doctors
By: Angelo Biondo
You are a senior citizen who has had the same family physician for years. You receive a letter from his/her office stating that 30 days hence, they will no longer accept Medicare patients and are advising you to find another doctor.
It doesn’t really matter what the doctors specialty is, Family practice, Gynecology, Oncology, Ophthalmology, etc. Any doctor worth his/her salt has plenty of patients under the age of 65 who are not on Medicare.
Should this happen, Seniors who are forced into Medicare when they turn 65 will have to find a doctor willing to accept what fees Medicare will pay or allow. The young won’t have to worry and the rest of us in the 65 or over bracket will probably be forced to go to one of the emergency health-care clinics popping up around the nation. These clinics are manned with possibly one or maybe two doctors, with a staff of ‘nurse practitioners’, ‘para-medics’, nurses, and orderlies. Seniors might get to see a doctor if they are on their last breath. As far as choosing your own doctor – forget it!
Obama says under his plan you will be able to keep your own insurance and doctors. However, if you are a senior citizen 65 or over, Medicare is your primary insurance if you wish to keep your current insurance. That is of course you are among the elite group who is exempt from the mandates the rest of us are compelled to comply with.
That group of course is: (which Congress has exempted the elite from)
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The President of the United States and his family (This also covers all living past Presidents and their familes, and is passed onto a living spouse in the event of his/her death.)
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Members of Congress and their family’s. (Also retains full coverage on leaving office (even if in office for only one day) and at the time of their death their full pay and benefits are passed onto their living spouse for the rest of their life.
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Members of the Supreme Court and their family’s. (Same rules as above)
Is it any wonder why it appears they have no concept of what the meaning of “tightening your belt”, or why people who have been out of work and not able to get a job takes exception to Obama’s extravagant Wedensday night date nights with his wife in New York - or ordering Air Force One on a photo shoot of New York City.
In other words, if you are an elected member of the Executive or Legislative branches of government, or an appointed for life member of the Judiciary branch (Supreme Court Justices) you are exempted from the coverage the rest of us are forced to sign up for at the age of 65. Instead, you are covered under the ‘Rolls Royce’ policy provided you by the taxpayers of this Great Nation.
If you are a member of this elite group, you need not worry about the failure to receive a C.O.L.A. (cost of living adjustment) increase in your SSI (Social Security) or the increase in Medicare premiums to be deducted from your SSI for the fiscal years 2010 and 2011, (covered in depth below), since you don’t get SSI when you retire. Instead as stated above you will continue to get your $180,000.00+ annual salary and benefits for life which will be passed onto your spouse when you die.
It is for this reason a 28th amendment to the Constitution is needed that would mandate the elite members of the governing bodies be compelled to live and abide by the same health-care and SSI laws they have created and put in place for us lowly taxpayers who foot the bill.
On Tuesday March 3rd 2010, my doctor did inform me that if Congress cuts Medicare fees to physicians by 21.5% as spelled out in the CMS (Center For Medicare and Medicaid Services) report as well as the SGR (Sustainable Growth Rate) table. He stated, should the government enforce this clause, he will be forced to drop all of his Medicare patients. Since I am one of those over 65 Medicare patients who was forced to sign-up for Medicare at age 65, my wife and I will be without the primary care physicians we have gone to for many years and trust implicitly to diagnosis and treat the ailments we are sure to encounter in out old age.
Political gridlock in the Senate triggered a legal requirement Monday March 1st for a 21.5 percent cut in Medicare fees to doctors, who warned they may have to limit care for seniors unless the reductions are reversed or waived as they have been since its inception in 1993. The 10 years + that this clause has been waived by the House is a clear precident that it should not be there and should be removed pemanently.
I’m sure this subject is being broached in Doctors offices throughout the Country an I am not the only person being told by his doctor that he unfortunately will be one of the doctors who would have to drop his Medicare patients. He said all of his colleagues are concerned about this issue and are in conformance and could only hope their Medicare patients understand, should this mandate go into effect.
In Summary, this would force those of us under the umbrella of Medicare to seek medical care from a clinic, and be treated like a number. We will have no choice in the selection of physicians who will be making life and death decisions pertaining to our health, but will be taking orders from the insurance companies who will decide if we live or die. Or to pay all expenses yourself If you can afford it.
Yet Congress had the audacity to:
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Vote themselves a $4,700 (2010) and $5,300 (2011) raises. Which means they will each receive an additional $10,000.00 over the next two fiscal years of 2010 and 2011. (Which will probably go to past members of Congress as well.)
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Voted to NOT give Social Security recipients the 3% Cost of Living increase for the 2010 and 2011 fiscal years. This will cost seniors $660.00 per year for the next two years (2010 and 2011). This represents a loss to already strapped seniors of $1,320 per single senior for fiscal years 2010 and 2011, and $2,640 per married couple. (And if Obama-Care passes another $50 Billion will be taken from Medicare)
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Voted to use the $24 million dollars saved from NOT paying C.O.L.A. to SSI recipients to purchase new computers for the House and Senate’s Healthcare plan. (Not the National Health-care plan, but to manage their Rolls Royce of taxpayer paid health-care plans.)
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Voted to increase Medicare premiums by $285.60 per year in the next 2 years for SSI recipients. (Yup! coming right out of your SSI check every month - until Congress decides to raise it even more.)
And now the Obama Administration and the Liberal Democrats of Congress are threatening to use the nuclear option to push through Obama Care and force it down our throats. A Bill which a whopping 70% of the voting population is opposed to. How many ways can the responsible American citizen say that he is FOR health care reform, BUT NOT THIS PLAN. We demand Congress DROP THIS PLAN and start over. We do not want a plan that consists of 2700 pages written in secrecy by a partisan hand full of legislators and loaded with ‘pork’ and limitations on coverage for seniors. We do not want a Bill that will take $50 Billion dollars away from the only coverage many seniors have – Medicare.
I believe this ‘YouTube’ video expresses the views of most Americans who truly love their Country.
It is unfortunate that so many Americans have such a short memory and/or lack interest in researching history or obtaining the facts. History that so greatly affects their lives. This was all started with the “Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993” in the Clinton era which according to Wikipedia:
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Created 36 percent and 39.6 income tax rates for individuals.
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Created a 35 percent income tax rate for corporations.
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Raised the taxes on Transportation fuels by 4.3 cents per gallon.
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Extended permanently the phase-out of the personal exemption and limit on itemized deductions. Part IV Section 14131: Expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit and added inflation adjustments (In other words permanently removed most itemized deductions)
The Act was passed by Congress using the so called “nuclear” or “Reconciliation” option by a vote of 50 to 50 with then Vice President Al Gore breaking the tie vote as President of the Senate. Though it did not directly cause today’s problem it led to it by further refinements of this Act with the “Balanced Budget Reform Act of 1997”, and the coup-de-grass the “Balanced Budget Refinement Act of 1999”. It is parts of this bill “H.R. 3075”, that will reduce Medicare fee payments to Doctors by 21.5% percent based on the SGR (Sustainable Growth Rate)
CMS (Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services) which provideds the formula used by the ‘SGR’ (Sustainable Growth Rate) methodology for calculating the changes to the Medicare statute. Using SGR formula the conversion factor for 2010 will be reduced by 21.5% compared to 2009 unless Congress enacts to overriding legislation. The ‘CMS’ also estimates reductions of 5% to 6.5% in the conversion factor for each of the several succeeding years under the current law and administrative policies.
The full CMS report is available in PDF format and can be downloaded and read in its entirety by clicking on the following link: (you will need to download Adobe Reader if you don’t have it.)
This should be of particular interest to all seniors currently on Medicare and soon to be on Medicare. As a matter of fact they should be infuriated (as I am). I request and encourage you to do as I did, and let your representatives know that you are infuriated with the way they have so graciously taken care of themselves and put the “SCREWS” to the senior citizens of America.
If you feel your representatives are working for you, then they would like to hear from you.
If you feel they are not working for you then they NEED to hear from you.
You can contact your representatives by clicking on the following links:
The Whitehouse: http://www.whitehouse.gov/ The President
Congress:
The Speaker of the House: http://www.speaker.gov/ Nancy Pelosi
The Senate: http://www.senate.gov/ Your Senator/s
The House of Representatives: http://www.house.gov/ “Your Congressman/woman”
GOD BLESS AMERICA AND THOSE WHO BELIEVE IN HER!
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