Sequestration Medicare Cuts

You may have read about cancer patients being turned away because of sequestration cuts to Medicare. When I first heard about this I remember wondering just who made the decision to save money in the life-and-death area of the enterprise. I mean, if you are tasked with cutting your budget 2%, wouldn't a competent administrator look to save in areas where a cut will do the least damage?

I mean, if I run the fire department and I have to trim the budget, does it make sense for me to first eliminate water as an expense? Does it make sense for ICE to start releasing prisoners right off the bat?

So OK, liberals and government workers want to make a minor cut look like the Boston Massacre, and it's stupid, but that's not what this post is about.

This post is about what happens to Medicare next year, when Obamacare starts getting real:

...while the total effect of sequestration for the fiscal year 2013 will be $3 billion, this is the same amount Obamacare is supposed to reduce Medicare spending this year. But, as reported by Heritage, if “Medicare patients can’t access vitally needed care because of $6 billion in total reduced Medicare payments, they’d better prepare for next year. That’s when Obamacare cuts an estimated $41 billion out of Medicare—in addition to the Medicare sequestration cuts of $9 billion that year. . . . By 2020 Obamacare will reduce overall Medicare spending by more than $100 billion a year.”

I just got billed $500 for heart tests for which I used to pay around $100. Premiums are going up. Doctors are going bankrupt, retiring early, and restricting Medicare patients. Obamacare is a cobbled together mess that will make things worse, not better. It's a platypus. Put together by a committee, and an embarrassment to both ducks and beavers. All we can do now is try to limit the damage while we wait for the left to realize their mistake.