By Thomas Stokes, Middletown

Obamacare was supposed to help seniors. Not really. Over $500 Billion in Medicare cuts are strangling medical services for the elderly. The cuts may force a number of hospitals to close. Adding millions more onto the Medicaid rolls will further increase the costs to the taxpayers.

Obamacare was not supposed to ration healthcare services. Obama nominated Dr. Donald Berwick, an advocate of health-care rationing to run Medicare and Medicaid. Dr. Berwick’s claim that the government must ration health care is a portent of things to come. “I am romantic about the National Health Service; I love it.” said Dr. Berwick in England in 2008 on the 60^th anniversary of the British National Health Service.

Based upon their support for rationing, I guess I’m lucky to have had my open heart surgery done in 2007; some government bureaucrat can now decide whether I could have that operation or not. No government bureaucrat should ever come between a patient and their doctor.

As respects controlling costs; the career politicians assured us that health care costs would go down. Oops, even the Health and Human Services department now projects costs to rise more than originally projected. Didn’t they know that adding 34 million more people to the healthcare system would increase costs for those who subsidize this (us, the taxpayers). Are they really that stupid not to understand that by increasing demand on medical services without a corresponding increase in the supply (doctors and nurses) defacto rationing would occur?

“During 2010-2019, however, these effects (cost control features) would be outweighed by the increased costs associated with the expansions of health insurance coverage,” wrote Richard S. Foster, Medicare’s chief actuary. Insurance companies are now forced to raise rates for current policyholders to cover the additional costs caused by Obamacare.

It’s obvious that the Democrat plan to save Social Security and Medicare is to cut the payouts (not just the Cost of Living Increase) by reducing the number of recipients through attrition (namely, to kill the seniors off by rationing their health care). The only business which will thrive as a result are the funeral homes.

Of course, the only other profession who will continue to prosper are the attorneys. The ambulance chasers were deliberately protected by the Democrat Congress led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid when they refused to include any type of tort reform in Obamacare.

I urge my fellow seniors, homeowners and taxpayers to thank Obama and the Democrat career political establishment on Tuesday, November 2^nd, by voting Republican for every office, even if you have to hold your nose.

The only way we will ever change Washington is if we change the people we send there. Anna Little in Congressional District 6 and Scott Sipprelle in Congressional District 12 would be a great start.