April 1st, 2010

Reports the Associated Press via the Patriot-News:

Seniors aren’t breaking out the champagne for President Barack Obama’s health care law, and for good reason.

While Democrats hail the overhaul as their greatest health care achievement since Medicare, seniors fear it’s a raid on that same giant health care program-a bedrock of retirement security-in order to pay for covering younger, uninsured workers and their families.

There’s no doubt that broad cuts in projected Medicare payments to insurance plans, hospitals, nursing homes and other service providers will sting. What hasn’t sunk in yet is that the new law also improves the lot of many Medicare beneficiaries. Obama is hoping that most will eventually conclude the plusses outweigh the minuses.

Keenly aware that this is a congressional election year, Democrats structured the law so virtually all the cuts start next year and take effect only gradually. For this year, the law provides a sweetener. More than 3 million seniors who have been falling into a Medicare prescription coverage gap will get a $250 rebate, a down payment on closing the “doughnut hole.”

Nonetheless, seniors are anxious.

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