Begich’s War on the Elderly and Disabled

By Alex Gimarc
Alaska Standard Contributor

Today we sit within a week or two of senate passage of ObamaCare. It will take 60 votes in the senate to end debate and move for a vote on the legislation. Any single democrat or independent in the majority can vote to continue the debate and kill the legislation. Mark Begich, self described moderate democrat, is that vote. Should he vote to end debate, he has voted for its passage and supports everything in it – which is the problem.

You can do a lot of mischief in 2,000 incomprehensible pages of legalese. And senate democrats will certainly do significant damage to medical care should this legislation pass. The chief targets appear to be the elderly and disabled. Here’s how it works.

One of the provisions of ObamaCare is a cut in Medicare totaling over $400 billion. Medicare or Medicaid covers everyone over 65; essentially the elderly. It is also on the verge of bankruptcy. The congressional response to this impending bankruptcy has been to systematically decrease Medicaid payments to doctors and hospitals for services rendered. We are at the point where a significant number of doctors will not take Medicare patients, as they cannot get reimbursed for either their time or expertise. Does any sane Alaskan out there think that a further cut in Medicaid funding so that congress can cover 12-37 million new patients will do little except force Medicare into bankruptcy that much faster? Our Boy Senator supports this cut in Medicare funding by his support of this legislation.

Another provision of ObamaCare is the elimination of Medicare Advantage. This is a program, available to the elderly that allows them to purchase supplementary coverage that pays for things that Medicare will not cover, essentially giving the elderly better choices in their health care. This sort of freedom does not sit well with the democrat majorities in either the House or the Senate, and Medicare Advantage is gone in both bills. Their excuse is that Medicare Advantage is expensive and this is a cost saving measure. When you take away choice and freedom from the elderly with their medical care, you harm their care.

A third provision is a $40 billion cut in in-home care funding for Medicare recipients. In-home care is what keeps the profoundly disabled and elderly out of the institutions. It is normally far cheaper than fully institutionalizing these people and normally leads to far better care, more freedom of choice than could ever be possible. In home care includes personal care attendants. Here in Alaska, there are about 28,500 seniors and disabled that are touched in some way by these programs. Where do these people go and what do they do when Mark Begich votes to cut their health care?

If cost cutting is the goal of this legislation, you would expect to see some discussion about removing the bureaucracy or streamlining the paperwork requirements. But we don’t. Instead we have hundreds of new federal boards, commissions, hoops and other things to jump through and contend with.

Make no mistake, when Mark Begich votes for this legislation, he votes to harm the care of our neighbors least able to care for themselves. And when you worsen the health care of those least able to care for themselves, you move them quickly into a Hobbsian future where their lives will be nasty, brutish and short. And to what end? What will this help anyone?