Call it President Obama’s Committee for the Re-Election of the President — a political slush fund at the Health and Human Services Department. The most oppressive aspects of the ObamaCare law don’t kick in until after the 2012 election, when the president will no longer be answerable to voters. More “flexibility,” he recently explained to the Russians. But certain voters would surely notice one highly painful part of the law before then — namely, the way it guts the popular Medicare Advantage program. As part of its hundreds of billions in Medicare cuts, the Obama one-size-fits-all plan slashes reimbursement rates for Medicare Advantage starting next year — herding many seniors back into the government-run program. Under federal “open-enrollment” guidelines, seniors must pick their Medicare coverage program for next year by the end of this year — which means they should be finding out before Election Day. But the administration’s devised a way to postpone the pain one more year, getting Obama past his last election; it plans to spend $8 billion to temporarily restore Medicare Advantage funds so that seniors in key markets don’t lose their trusted insurance program in the middle of Obama’s re-election bid.  If he’s not stopped, Obama will spend $8 billion in taxpayer funds for a scheme to mask the debilitating effects on seniors of his signature piece of legislation just long enough to get himself re-elected. Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/an_billion_trick_ImTBFfz7MeuZLJY7JzXEIJ#ixzz1ss2PDBSG
Posted by janeytom