Dick Morris: Elderly lose under Obamacare

Despite what Barack Obama and the state-run media tell you, there's no way to provide health care coverage for 47 million more Americans without reducing health care for the rest. The biggest losers will be senior citizens.

From a new column by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann:

The health-reform debate on Capitol Hill is skipping over the key issue: "Universal insurance" means less care for people who have coverage now -- especially the elderly.

And the "compromises" now under way only make the problem worse.

Here's a point that's no surprise except to the "reformers": People with insurance use more health care.

President Obama seeks to cover 50 million new people. Where are the extra doctors, nurses and so on going to come from? Neither the administration nor anyone on the Hill has proposed anything to add to the supply of medical services even as they plan vastly to increase the demand.

The politicians are playing a Washington game -- compromising on false or tangential issues while failing to address the central one.

It doesn't matter if you reduce or eliminate the mandate for employers to provide coverage, if you're still insuring more people without adding medical personnel and other resources. Same story for whether you replace the "public option" government-run plan with government-run "co-ops."

More, all the bills come up with cash to cover their huge costs by ordering cuts in Medicare -- cuts that Congress could reverse only by affirmative majority votes. Basically, the government will be paying doctors and providers even less to treat the elderly -- at a time when countless doctors are starting to refuse new Medicare patients.

More demand; no added supply; Medicare cuts: It all adds up to rationing -- lower-quality medical care for most Americans, especially for the elderly.

Read the full column at DickMorris.com