Aug. 22, 2012, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today responded to Barack Obama’s claim of reforming the Medicare system when he said on the campaign trail in New Hampshire on Aug. 18, “My plan saves money on Medicare by cracking down on fraud and waste in insurance company subsidies”:
“Obama himself is the waste, fraud, and abuse in the Medicare debate. He is wasting the American people’s time with fraudulent political claims, and abusing seniors through a campaign of fear.
“The $500 billion cut out of Medicare in Obamacare was based on the lie that the Administration would find the $50 billion of waste, fraud and abuse in the system — some 100 percent of all the medical fraud in the system — every year for 10 years. CBO actually scored it for them. They’ve come nowhere near that goal, making Obama’s claim of deficit neutrality in his law nothing more than a big lie, and meaning that to pay for Obamacare, the money will have to come from somewhere.
“As it stands, the Medicare trust fund — consisting of hundreds of billions of IOU treasuries — will be exhausted in 2024. After that, only 87 percent of benefits will be paid, declining to 67 percent by 2045. And that’s if the Administration’s rosy economic projections come true over the next 10 years, which includes revenues to the Treasury rising to $4.8 trillion by 2022 from today’s level of $2.4 trillion.
“That figure is based on about 3 percent average annual growth every year for the next ten years; no recessions. We’re only growing by 1.5 percent annualized at the moment. Far short of the estimate, meaning revenue projections will most certainly fall way short of expectations.
“Under Obama’s approach, this in turn means his Independent Payments Advisory Board will most certainly be called on to ration Medicare to seniors in the coming years as the recession proves to be more resilient than we’d like. As opposed to Congress making these decisions, seniors will be at the mercy of a bunch of faceless bureaucrats. That’s one reason why we must repeal Obamacare, but overall, that’s the reason we need real entitlement reform right now from Congress. The cost of the program far exceeds its revenues, and if allowed to continue, will bankrupt the Treasury.
“Obama’s approach has been to pretend to reform Medicare while creating a Soviet-style rationing board to do his dirty work. Medicare as we know it will be dead before the next decade runs out, unless action is taken now. Obama’s prescription is to do nothing now, and pretend the problem away, which guarantees the very result that many seniors fear.”
Interview Availability: Please contact Rebekah Rast at (703) 383-0880 or at rrast@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.
###