Repeal, Is It Real?

Almost seven years ago the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act were signed into law.  It proved to not really protect patients, especially those on Medicare or those who wanted to keep their own doctors, and, as premiums spiraled ever higher and the American tax payer was stuck paying all the subsidies, it proved to not be affordable.  Many of us don’t even remember its official name because it has come to be known almost universally as Obamacare. It looks like, after seven years of protesting, fighting, kicking and screaming, Obamacare is going to be repealed.

RetireSafe’s number one problem with Obamacare was the way it extracted $700 billion to help pay for this ill-conceived attempt at healthcare reform.  The President assured us, seven years ago, that Medicare benefits and access would not be affected by this huge loss of money . . . he was wrong on both counts.  We argued then that it just wasn’t reasonable that you could take $700 billion out of Medicare and not affect both the benefits and access. . . we were right on both counts.  Hospital and doctor payments were cut. Year after year Medicare Advantage payments were cut or fell far short of basic inflation.  Community clinics closed as payments for Part B medicine were cut and payments to the community oncologists were impacted.  Older Americans everywhere saw their Medicare benefits and access cut. As you hopefully remember, RetireSafe fought to prevent cuts to each and every one of them.  Now, Washington has the chance to restore these payments that Obamacare cut.

There has been much talk about repeal and replace, or repeal and delay, or repeal and partial replacement.  RetireSafe’s first focus is to repeal and stop this drain on Medicare. Next, we look to Obamacare’s replacement where it first, must not reinstate any of the provisions that harmed Medicare and, second, repeal the laws that were passed and reverse the regulations that were executed outside of Obamacare that cut Medicare benefits and impacted access.

Let me be clear, any healthcare reform replacement cannot, must not, reduce Medicare benefits or access.  Hospitals, doctors and many healthcare providers had their payments slashed and their services taxed by Obamacare.  It can not happen again.

RetireSafe is bi-partisan, we don’t support any political party or politician.  We will support any politician or party that agrees that Medicare should be made whole.

I spoke as loudly as I could, six years ago, about the problems with pulling $700 billion out of Medicare to pay for Obamacare.  I am speaking just as loudly today about how important it is to restore the payments that were cut by Obamacare and repeal any ancillary legislation and regulations that participated in those cuts. I’ve written op-eds and participated in radio interviews (including the nationally syndicated Jim Bohannan show) to talk about how important it is to restore these payments.  I will continue to shout as loudly as I can.

I want to make sure that all of those on Capitol Hill, that have anything to do with healthcare reform, know that RetireSafe’s eyes are on them.  We will watch closely to ensure that any Obamacare replacement repeals the cuts and restores all the payments to Medicare.  It’s the right thing to do.