FACTSHEET: Obamacare: Obama Ends Medicare As We Know It

From the Heritage Foundation
January 25, 2012

We Need Medicare Reform, but Not Obamacare


Obamacare Ends Traditional Medicare, but the Wrong Way: Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed that the health law protects Medicare. The truth: Obamacare makes massive changes to the program. Obamacare contains more than 160 provisions for Medicare that increase government’s control over the delivery of care, hit doctors with unsustainable payment cuts, and leave taxpayers with higher deficits.

Obamacare Continues an Outdated Model for Reform: Obamacare expands central planning and tightens price controls on providers. These recycled mechanisms have yet to show any success in driving down costs without harming patients’ access and quality of care. Even the program’s chief accountant says many Medicare providers cannot survive the cuts.

Obamacare Undermines the Doctor–Patient Relationship: On top of the severe payment cuts facing physicians that will threaten seniors’ access, the law weakens the doctor–patient relationship by linking payment not to patient outcomes but to adherence to government protocol.

MUCH MORE!http://www.heritage.org/research/factsheets/2012/01/obamacare-obama-ends-medicare-as-we-know-it?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Heritage%2BHotsheet