Medi-scare is back. This week President Obama marched out Healthand Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to start a newDemocratic campaign aimed at frightening senior citizens.
Her message: They will be left with unfilled prescriptions,canceled rehab sessions and a thousand other pains because ofspending cuts being sought by the terrible, hard-hearted Republicansin Congress. In a transparently partisan letter to Senate FinanceChairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., Sebelius falsely asserted thatmillions of Medicare payments will be disrupted if House Republicansget their way in defunding Obamacare.
The HHS head pointed out that some payment schedules for Medicarehad been repealed by Obamacare and replaced with new ones. Thatmeans, according to Sebelius, if the Republican spending bill passesand bars tax dollars from being used to implement Obamacare, thenprograms like Medicare Advantage will have to be shut down becausethey will no longer have their legal authority to make paymentsunder the old schedules. Sebelius further warned in the letterto Baucus that, if Obamacare funding is blocked, she will have toperform extensive analyses to determine whether Medicare could makeany payments at all. Then she would need another several months towrite and promulgate complicated new rules before payments could beresumed.
What Sebelius did not mention was that Medicare payments aremandatory and thus unaffected by the GOP appropriations bill thatpassed the House last month. This new Medi-scare campaign comes fromthe same administration that used a program Congress intended as aWall Street bailout Troubled Asset Relief Program to nationalizeGeneral Motors and Chrysler (despite a congressional vote against anauto bailout); that has been held in contempt of court for imposingan illegal moratorium on oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico; thatproposes to regulate the Internet despite having no statutoryauthority to do so; and that fired Americorps Inspector GeneralGerald Walpin in a manner that utterly violated a law that Obamahimself co-sponsored in the Senate. Now all of a sudden, Obamaadministration officials are sticklers for the rules, fearful ofexceeding their authority by even one iota? As Examiner ColumnistJohn Stossel would say, give us a break.
It goes to show that in Washington, anyone will say anything togain political advantage. But it is very much an open questionwhether this ploy will work. In the 2010 election cycle, seniorcitizens went for the GOP by 21 points, after slightly favoringDemocrats in 2008. This violent swing came in no small part thanksto Obamacare and the threat it represents to Medicare.
Medi-scare has served Democrats well in the past, but they arelikely to find themselves swallowing a bitter pill if they play thatcard this time.
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