Adele Ferguson

WHAT ARE YOU going to do about health insurance when Obamacare kicks in Oct. 1, I asked a friend I regard as one of the smarter cookies around.

“Keep Medicare,” he replied.

I don’t think you can do that, I said. I keep hearing over and over again on television and the radio and reading in the newspapers politicians reminding me of the president’s promise “If you like your present health care plan, under Obamacare you’ll be able to keep it,” and telling me that’s not true.

“Well, that’s what I’m going to do,” he said. He happens to be a Democrat so he obviously has more faith in the president living up to his promises than I do. Then, surprise, surprise, what should show up in my local newspaper Sept. 13, although I’ve seen it nowhere else, but an Associated Press story titled “No Medicare Changes Looming Under Reforms.”

DATELINED MIAMI, it began, “Dear seniors, your Medicare benefits aren’t changing under the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare). That’s the message federal health officers are trying to get out to some older consumers confused by overlapping enrollment periods for Medicare and so-called Obamacare.

“Medicare beneficiaries don’t have to do anything differently and will continue to go to Medicare.gov to sign up for plans. But advocates say many have been confused by a massive media blitz directing consumers to new online insurance exchanges set up as part of the federal health law. Many of the same insurance companies are offering coverage for Medicare and the exchanges.”

AP went on to say Medicare enrollment starts Oct. 15 and closes Dec. 7 while enrollment for the new health exchanges for people 65 and under launches Oct. 1 and runs through March. “We want to reassure Medicare beneficiaries that they are already covered, their benefits aren’t changing and the market place doesn’t require them to do anything different,” said Julie Bataifle, spokeswoman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

BUT JUST last Sunday, Sept. 15, on Fox News what do I hear but a Republican congressman reciting that same old Obama promise and closing with the same old “it’s not true.”

I dragged out my health care file of newspaper clippings. Sure enough, a July 26 Wall Street Journal story by Govs. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Scott Walker of Wisconsin headlined “Unworkable Obamacare.”

It began “Remember when President Obama famously promised that if you like your health care plan you’ll be able to keep your health care plan? It was a brilliantly crafted political sound bite. Turns out, the statement is untrue.”

The government has a law with thousands of pages, the governors said, but it’s unworkable. For one thing, Obama cut $716 billion out of Medicare funding to pay for Obamacare health funding. And the most disturbing new feature is the creation by presidential appointment of a 15-member Independent Payment Advisory Board, what Sarah Palm calls the death panel, that will make life or death medical decisions, without requirement to consult and accountable to no one. It can reduce payments to doctors and hospitals, even stop accepting patients. Seniors and providers will have nowhere to turn for relief, not Congress, not the president, not the courts.

God help us, Medicare, here we come.

(Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, Wa., 98340.)