JUST SO YOU KNOW

Obama Spends $8.3 Billion to Hide Medicare Cuts

The Obama administration is spending $8.3 billion to hide a key provision of Obamacare — deep cuts in Medicare Advantage — until after the November election.

Medicare Advantage offers seniors the option of choosing private insurance companies as an alternative to the government-run Medicare insurance program. So far 12 million seniors have enrolled in the program.

But President Obama has attacked the program, stating in a 2009 speech that it offers “unwarranted subsidies” that “do everything to pad [insurance companies’] profits and nothing to improve your care.”

So it came as no surprise when Obama’s healthcare reform plan sliced $145 billion from Medicare Advantage over the next 10 years. Medicare’s own actuary reported that Obamacare would force more than 7 million seniors off their private plans and back into traditional Medicare as insurers flee the market, according to Investor’s Business Daily (IBD).

To hide the cuts from seniors who would face losing Medicare Advantage just before the November election, the administration pumped $8.3 billion back into the program through “bonuses” to Medicare Advantage plans.

Those “bonuses” will make up for more than 70 percent of Obamacare’s scheduled Medicare Advantage cuts, and keep the program running through the election.

The plan is so “transparently political” that the Government Accountability Office has urged the Health and Human Services Department to cancel it altogether, IBD reported, adding: “Canceling is just the beginning.

“The bigger question lawmakers must answer is this: Is it legal for a Cabinet agency to spend $8.3 billion in taxpayer money simply to help Obama get re-elected?”

WE THE PEOPLE want to know!