Obamacare cuts home healthcare for millions of seniors

Dan Weber
The Washington Times
2/28/2014

…As 2014 unfolds, the most vulnerable senior citizens — those who receive home health care services — are about to learn they are out of luck. Obamacare opens a trap door under them, leaving this elderly population in freefall — with many citizens losing access to home health care.

Add another compelling reason to reverse Obamacare. Whether by accident or intention, the “Affordable Care Act” empirically strips America’s oldest and poorest cohort, all part of the World War II generation, of this basic coverage. Here is how.

On Jan. 1, Medicare’s home health care services, formerly serving 3.5 million elderly beneficiaries across the country, were cut under Obamacare. The cut deleted exactly 14 percent, or an estimated $22 billion, from these lowest-income Americans over four years. News of the forthcoming cut only trickled out the Friday before Thanksgiving, yet another stunning attempt by the Obama White House to reduce Medicare benefits without attracting notice.

Guess what? We noticed. This cut does irreparable damage to recipients of Medicare’s home health care services, those who are aged, homebound and sicker than the average Medicare population. Indeed, nearly two-thirds of Medicare home health care users live at or below the federal poverty level, meaning they are the most economically compromised of America’s precious senior citizens…

…What else will this home health care cut achieve? It will hit the small businesses that provide home health care nationwide, and is already doing so. More than 90 percent of those providing home health care are small businesses. According to the U.S. Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 40 percent of these companies will be operating “at a loss” — that is, they will likely fold or end up in bankruptcy — by 2017 as a result of the cut. What does that mean? It means nearly 5,000 more Medicare home health care providers may go out of business, and nearly 500,000 more jobs within this flogged industry may be wiped out to fund Obamacare…

 

Read the entire article at The Washington Times.

 

Related:  Meanwhile:  George Soros and Obama administration fund Chicago group enrolling prisoners in Obamacare

…Chicago-based Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities (TASC) helped establish Obamacare enrollment programs for prisoners at Chicago’s Cook County Jail. Cook County is one of at least six states and counties enrolling prisoners to help shift inmate medical costs to federal taxpayers.

“A lot of states will come to this, because state corrections budgets are huge and county jail budgets are huge,” said TASC spokesperson Maureen McDonnell…

 
The Life of Julia Under Obamacare

Obama’s heroine is going to learn that “free” can be very expensive

…When one first looked at the “Life of Julia,” it didn’t seem to have much relevance beyond the Lena Dunham voting bloc. But, upon further reflection, it was more likely an appeal to any voter who believed in promises of “free benefits” from the government. As ObamaCare moves closer to implementation, though, many voters will learn the hard way that free government benefits come with big costs…

 
Obamacare squeezes small businesses

…The problem stems from Obamacare’s mandate that insurance companies can’t consider an individual’s health when establishing plan prices. While well-intentioned, this has the unintended side effect of spiking premiums across the board, especially for the young and the healthy.

These higher costs will affect small businesses in any number of ways. After all, they have to find the money to pay the new expenses that Obamacare forces on them. The most obvious decision will be to cut back employee hours. Others might ask their employees to pay a greater percentage of their premiums (which means less take home pay). And some will stop providing health care altogether.

This is only news to Obamacare’s most partisan defenders. The country’s small businesses have long known that the president’s promise was too good to be true…

 

 

Update: Coverage Expansion Fail: Less Than One-Third Of Obamacare Exchange Enrollees Were Previously Uninsured

At the end of the day, for all of the rhetoric and promises about what Obamacare would achieve, the health law’s most ardent supporters have stuck to their guns because of one thing: coverage expansion. But new data suggests that Obamacare may fail even to achieve this goal. Instead of expanding coverage to those without it, Obamacare is replacing the pre-existing market for private insurance. Surveys from insurers and other industry players indicate that as few as 11 percent of those on Obamacare’s exchanges were previously uninsured. If these trends continue, the probability increases that Obamacare will eventually get repealed…

Read the whole thing.
 

Update 2: The Obamacare “Walking Dead”

…I really don’t understand how these Obamaites, knowing that this law is a disaster, can continue to push the law the way that they do…

 

 
Of Course: New ObamaCare Delay Coming to Help Midterm Dems

…The Obama administration is set to announce another major delay in implementing the Affordable Care Act, easing election pressure on Democrats.

As early as this week, according to two sources, the White House will announce a new directive allowing insurers to continue offering health plans that do not meet ObamaCare’s minimum coverage requirements.

Prolonging the “keep your plan” fix will avoid another wave of health policy cancellations otherwise expected this fall.

The cancellations would have created a firestorm for Democratic candidates in the last, crucial weeks before Election Day…

 

 

Comments are closed.

Categories