How people vote
By Tom Quiner
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=l4gPvToKTWU]
“People vote their pocket book” goes the mantra.
That’s not quite true. They vote on how they perceive a particular candidate will affect their pocket book.
In this political climate with a swirling smorgasbord of competing truths, half-truths, and lies being vetted by partisan “fact checkers,” reality has been replaced by perception skewed by smoke and mirrors.
As any marketer knows, perception is reality.
Take a friend of mine. She voted for Obama. Why? One reason was the perception that Obama is going to take care of Medicare better than Romney, and with an elderly mother, that is important to her.
I have an elderly mother-in-law who actually lives with me, so it’s not like I don’t care about Medicare either.
Obama, in fact, is gutting Medicare to the tune of $716 Billion according to a letter written by the Congressional Budget Office to House Majority Leader, John Boehner, on July 24th of this year.
My friend’s mom paid into the Medicare trust fund her working life. Obama diverted some her money from its intended purpose, Medicare, funneling it into a massive new entitlement, Obamacare, that was not self-sufficient without these extra funds.
In other words, Obama robbed Peter to pay Paul.
Or to look at it another way, Obama robbed my friend’s 80-something year-old mom to pay her grand kids.
My friend’s mom will not benefit from Obamacare, but she had to pay for it at the same time the program she did pay for was weakened.
Mr. Obama (with the collusion of the Democratic Congress at the time) cut:
√ Medicare advantage
√ Hospital reimbursement fees, making Medicare patients less desirable to them.
√ Medicare’s Disproportionate Share Payments.
√ Home health providers. (My friend’s mom still lives at home. She could be directly affected.)
A critical factor in my friend’s vote was based on false information. If her candidate wins, her mom will be worse off.
Incredible that people think Obamacare is better for elderly. What about the “bonus points” hospitals get to cut costs for treating elderly? What about the cuts to Medicare Advantage plans and why were these cuts delayed a year through a so called “demonstration project”? Why does anyone think that putting more bureaucracy; e.g. the Independent Payment Advisory Board, between patients and their doctor is a good thing?
Bureacratic isolation from health care provision is already well entrenched. In November 2010 I survived a heart attack through amazingly swift emergency procedures (balloon angioplasty and stent placement). Medicare limited the total payment received by the hospital and doctors involved to 23.9% of the total cost. The two cardioligists and support staff involved were totally immersed in saving my life, but Medicare only cared about controlling the costs; they were not emotionally or professionally involved in whether I lived or died.
Plan for increased limitation of your health care. There will be increased efforts to cut health care costs and that will be most efficiently achieved through control of elderly care.