Category Archives: Medicare

Blatant Jewish Chutzpa!

Posted by on 01/29/2012 No comments

I am speaking about the Jewish DNC Chairwoman, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz who appeared Sunday on CBS’ Face the Nation. On the question if Republicans will win Florida with Senator Marco Rubio on the ticket, Schultz gave this answer:

“I don’t think they will [win] because whomever the Republicans nominate, but particularly if it is Mitt Romney [Republicans will lose, because] Mitt Romney is so out of step with Floridians. I mean, I stood in line behind seniors in my district that had to leave one or two prescriptions at the counter because of the Donut Hole in the prescriptions drug program. Mitt Romney would repeal the Affordable Care Act that means seniors will have less affordable prescriptions.”

The chutzpa here is a few fold:

1) For decades, Medicare is sold as a program where if you pay in all your life, everything gets covered for you when you retire. The fact however is that between 25% and 75% of the first $6,000 a year in prescription and health cost (depending how much of the above is needed) is paid by… Seniors! It is not paid by the Government! This holds true even after “closing the donut hole” through Obama care; which does not close it at all. It only reduces some of the above cost. Schultz has Chutzpa to over-sell and under-deliver year after year on Medicare.

2) The “pro seniors” Affordable Care Act pushed by Schultz and signed by President Obama a few years ago actually rips out a half a trillion dollars from Medicare over ten years. This amounts to $50 billion a year, which is more than 10% of the $450 billion in Medicare’s budget, but Schultz has the Chutzpa to suggest that repealing it will hurt seniors!

3) Obamacare raises tax by $500 billion over ten years. Much of it is on the health care industry which of course passes along the new cost to their clients such as… Seniors! In other words, whatever few hundred dollars in saving seniors may have a year from Obamacare will get wiped out by the increased cost of medicine due to the taxes in Obamacare.

4) Because Obamacare cuts reimbursements to doctors for servicing Medicare users, thousands of doctors nationwide have already stopped seeing new senior clients. It is simply not worth their time! But Schultz, again, has the arrogance to look into the camera and say that repealing the law which cuts Medicare; raises the price of prescriptions will hurt seniors.

5) The Democrats voted in 2003 against the Prescription Part D program which until today helps seniors to pay for medicine. Of course, Democrats say “we didn’t pay for it” through cuts some other place in the budget,” but nor did we pay for the first budget [FY 2008] that the Democrats wrote after coming to power for the first time in 12 years: The deficit that year was three times larger than the last Republican Congress deficit of $170 Billion. For Democrats to say that they opposed helping seniors pay prescriptions due to budget concerns is a cheap attempt to hide Democrat’ anti-Senior agenda.

Medicare Will Screen for Fraud in Florida, NY and CA

Posted by on 11/16/2011 No comments

From the Sun Sentinal: Medicare officials will target Florida and seven other states next year to try to prevent fraud by previewing claims before they are paid for some medical services and equipment.

Florida was selected for the demonstration project because it has one of the highest rates of improper payments, another sign that it is ground zero for Medicare fraud.

Beginning Jan. 1, Medicare auditors will review claims before they are paid in Florida, California, Michigan, Texas, New York, Louisiana and Illinois. The idea is to block fraudulent claims rather than follow the usual “pay and chase” method of trying to recover payments already made.

A second project will require pre-authorization for buying certain medical equipment in Florida, California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, North Carolina and Texas. This demonstration is designed to ensure that people claiming the money really need the equipment.

Fraud of this kind has been rampant in Florida. In September, for example, federal agents arrested 42 people suspected of submitting $160 million in false claims to Medicare for services never rendered and getting paid more than $90 million.

Pelosi Suggests She Wants to Win Congress to Cut More From Medicare

Posted by on 06/27/2011 No comments

According to Political Wire, Pelosi said in an interview that “Medicare, Medicare and Medicare” are the issues that drive her to gain back control of the House of Representatives. This certainly will worry seniors because the Health Care Reform law that was passed by the Pelosi Democrats when they last had the House majority, cut $500 billion from Medicare. This is a ten percent annual cut over the next ten years.

Apparently, Pelosi wants back her power to cut even more from Medicare…

Paladino’s Medicaid “Cuts”

Posted by on 10/24/2010 4 comments

In an op-ed in Hamodia a few days ago, it was written that people should not vote for Republican Governor Candidate Paladino because he will cut Medicaid. I therefore submitted the following letter to the editors.:

Dear Editor,

Please publish the following letter.

The Medicaid cuts offered by Republicans, such as Carl Paladino, is focused on raining in Waste, Fraud, Abuse, and the over-paid union workers who back Democrats in elections, in exchange for hefty contracts with the state. There is no plan to cut the eligibility of people who are in need of it.

In fact, all of our Democratic Representatives in Congress and the two Democratic Senators here in NY, voted for the Health Care Reform, which cuts tens of BILLIONS of dollars on an annual basis from the Medicare system. No, it doesn’t cut Union pay. No, it doesn’t rain in much of the estimated $42 billion (yes, $42 billion) annual waste in the Medicare system. But instead, the reform cuts Medicare services and re-imbursements. In addition, the bill cuts Federal reimbursements to the state’s Medicaid Program. All this is taking place while the Democrats in Congress passed a few “Jobs” bills this year whose main purpose was to pay off union members on contracts given to them by the States, yet the states can’t keep their side of the deal since the unions bankrupted these states – as they did with GM..

Jewish Voters here in NY have a choice: we can continue down the road with the Democrats who will continue to cater Unions and permit waste fraud and abuse under the excuse of “not cutting these important programs;” all this on the backs of everyday New Yorkers who get taxed on every move in their life, and who can’t find jobs because business are being rushed out of this state. Or… we can take the New Jersey Route, which is to vote for someone that has the back-bone and will to take-on the unions and to make important cuts with little to no negative effects on needy New Yorkers.

Thanks,

Yossi Gestetner

Those “Medicare Trustees”

Posted by on 08/09/2010 3 comments

When people read cool words such as “Congressional Budget Office,” or “Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS),”  they assume that these are agencies in Washington that are run by people who have nothing with partisan politics. Therefore, it was welcome news that “the Trustees of the CMS predict that Medicare got twelve more years of life due to Health Care Reform (HCR).”

Few however know that the following people are The Trustees:

  • Timothy F. Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury
  • Hilda L. Solis, Secretary of Labor
  • Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services
  • Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security
  • Donald M. Berwick – The guy who couldn’t get appointed via the regular senate process to be head of the CMS,
  • And two Public Trustee seats that are vacant.

 

Yes, the CMS Board of Trustees is comprised mostly by Obama mouth-pieces that work directly for Obama and advocated for the HCR. Now you know why the Medicare Actuary (Chief Accountant, if you will) didn’t sign onto that piece of paper…

The Good Medicare News

Posted by on 08/07/2010 1 comment

In his weekly radio address, The President pointed out the good news we learned this week. Namely, that Medicare will be solvent for twelve more years (until 2029) due to the Democrat-Passed Health Care Reform.

Two Things:

Medicare’s solvency was extended mostly because health care reform chapped more than a half trillion dollars of Medicare over the next ten years. This is more than FIFTY billion annually – mostly on the backs of seniors, not on the backs of the well-paid union workers.

Secondly, if Medicare was due to be insolvent by 2017, in less than seven years, how and why exactly can Dems claim that this program – which seniors pay in all their work life, and still need to pay for care once retired – is a piece of “success”?

Yay! $40 Billion Stolen, $2.5 Billion Recovered

Posted by on 05/13/2010 No comments

The Obama administration is pointing-out today that in 2009 its stepped up efforts recovered $2.5 billion of fraud within the Medicare system, up from the $1.9 billion recovered a year earlier.

It is very good news, but the context is that aproxx 12%, more than forty billion dollars, of Medicare money is estimated to been scammed and abused in 2009.

Furthermore, 2009 was nothing news. For decades now, it is estimated that dozens of BILLIONS of dollars are being lost annually in that system. if Government programs were to run more efficient, less money would have been lost, thus less cuts would be needed in Medicare to finance half the $1-trillion, 10 year cost of Health Care Reform.