Oct. 3, 2010, Tennessee Voices

By Jim Martin

Published on October 2, 2010

This is a his­toric elec­tion. Wash­ing­ton rammed the stim­u­lus pack­age, Oba­maCare, finan­cial reform and a half a trillion-dollar cut to Medicare down our throats, and now, it is time for us to give it back to them.

Through my role as Chair­man of the 60 Plus Asso­ci­a­tion, I have seen first­hand how our mem­bers have been yelling at Con­gress to stop this reck­less deci­sion mak­ing, but lib­eral politi­cians have failed to listen.

Seniors are enraged about ObamaCare’s severe cuts to Medicare.

To com­pen­sate for the legislation’s inabil­ity to reduce the price of care, Wash­ing­ton tried to main­tain some sem­blance of cost-effectiveness by slash­ing $500 bil­lion from Medicare, degrad­ing health-care ser­vices for 8.5 mil­lion seniors.

Democ­rats tried to mar­ket this leg­is­la­tion as a “cost saver,” but seniors have heard those lines recited before. When Medicare Part A passed, gov­ern­ment esti­mated the pro­gram would cost $9 bil­lion annu­ally by 1990. They were wrong. By the end of the 1980s, Medicare Part A spend­ing bal­looned to $67 bil­lion — over seven times the orig­i­nal esti­mate. And this was not an iso­lated incident.

If not cost sav­ings, Wash­ing­ton promised bet­ter qual­ity, but I ask you: Is no ser­vice qual­ity care? Already, some reports esti­mate over 40 per­cent of doc­tors will stop accept­ing Medicare. And in some states, major phar­ma­cies have already refused new Med­ic­aid pre­scrip­tions because of low reim­burse­ment rates. This is not qual­ity. This is not even rationing. This is the com­plete elim­i­na­tion of care.

Clearly, this leg­is­la­tion was not about improv­ing qual­ity or cut­ting health costs. Instead, it was about expand­ing the reach of gov­ern­ment. Many Ten­nessee seniors are say­ing we are con­cerned, we pay atten­tion and we vote. America’s Great­est Gen­er­a­tion is ready to end lib­er­als’ destruc­tive reign in the U.S. Con­gress, and as such, Democ­rats bet­ter be ready for a senior cit­i­zen tsunami to hit this November.

Jim Mar­tin is chair­man of the 60 Plus Asso­ci­a­tion, an 18-year-old non­par­ti­san orga­ni­za­tion work­ing for death tax repeal, sav­ing Social Secu­rity, afford­able pre­scrip­tion drugs, low­er­ing energy costs and other issues as well as a strict adher­ence to the Con­sti­tu­tion.

Read article here: http://blogs.tennessean.com/opinion/2010/10/02/senior-citizens-will-wage-war-against-democratic-spending-in-november/