Sen. Baucus is a good man and has served ably in the Senate — but he must not know the truth about Obamacare’s adverse impacts on Medicare.  

Hello, Montana seniors. I’m Pat Boone. I hope you’ve seen the 60 Plus Association ad that I narrate that touches on just a few of the many problems that Obamacare causes for the future of Medicare.

You may have read the senator’s attempt to dismiss the ad as simply part of what he calls “the silly season” of election politics.

But here are facts you need to know, facts I’d have thought he knew.

Let’s start with the cost of Obamacare. Obamacare dramatically expands Medicaid spending and starts another new, expensive entitlement program of insurance premium subsidies. The cost of this explosion of spending is critical to seniors because reductions in future Medicare spending levels called for in Obamacare are supposed to pay for roughly half the cost of Obamacare’s spending.

When Obamacare was enacted, President Obama told us that the cost would be about $900 billion for 10 years. Last month, Americans were surprised when the Congressional Budget Office said that the cost for the next 10 years is going to be $1.7 trillion — nearly twice as much!

But Sen. Baucus has apparently known all along that the true 10-year cost — when Obamacare is fully implemented in 2014 or 2015 — will be $2.5 trillion! He said so on the Senate floor. But how has that slipped his mind?

My ad says that Medicare cuts to help pay for Obamacare’s huge cost according to Obama himself, will be $500 billion — but that’s a conservative estimate today. When Obamacare gets fully rolling, the Medicare reductions will be far greater than that — approaching if not exceeding $1 trillion. What necessary services will be cut? Ask Sen. Baucus.

A newspaper analyzed my ad and said that the Medicare reductions are only $430 billion. But the paper made one big mistake — it used original estimates from 2010, rather than current figures — something akin to someone telling you today that you can fill your 15-gallon gas tank for $30 because the price of gasoline two years ago was $2.

What’s the effect of these reductions in Medicare reimbursements? Sen. Baucus evidently believes there are none. But he should know better.

Don’t take my word for this — read what the Medicare’s Board of Trustees and Office of Chief Actuary have reported. Their reports say that Obamacare’s reductions in Medicare reimbursements are “unrealistic” — unrealistically low — so that hospitals and health care providers will not be adequately compensated for their costs. This will make it increasingly difficult for seniors to get medical treatment and will lower the quality of their care. Doctors have to eat, too.

Sen. Baucus has said that Medicare per capita spending will increase by 1 percent plus inflation, but he must not know that medical costs are projected to increase by more than that.

The trustees say that these shortfalls and impacts are so severe that Congress will have to override Obamacare’s spending reductions.

But where is the money to do that going to come from? The government is already borrowing more than $1 trillion every year under this president’s policies, and when fully in effect, Obamacare will raises taxes, penalties and fees by more than $1 trillion. Does 2 + 2 still equal 4?

These reports mean that the “savings” from Medicare spending reductions — “savings” that were going to pay for a good portion of Obamacare — won’t be realized. Which means the government will have to put billions more into Obamacare’s new programs as well. And where is that money going to come from? Obama and the government? No — you and me.

Most of Obamacare’s spending, Medicare reductions, and tax increases haven’t started yet– so the public hasn’t seen them yet — and won’t until after the 2012 election.

This entire scheme is a massive shift of resources from seniors’ health care to others. The Medicare of tomorrow won’t look like it does today — Obamacare is already in the process of destroying Medicare as we know it. But the way Obamacare is constructed (and sold by Obama) has successfully disguised this.

Part of that disguise is the two benefits that Obamacare rolled out early for seniors — closing the prescription drug “doughnut hole” and providing “free” preventive care. The spending for these two new benefits will be erased multiple times by the reductions I’ve described above. Seniors are net losers by a huge margin.  

Sen. Baucus has been sold a pig in a poke. He’s trying to protect President Obama and Sen. Tester.

Please ask this good man, Sen. Baucus, to dig more deeply into these things. To read more of the hidden, vague provisions in the 2,700 page Obamacare monstrosity. Don’t let him wave this off as part of the “silly season.” This is deadly serious for seniors and for all Americans.

We respect you, senator, but we seniors have to look out for ourselves.

Pat Boone, who is the No. 10 all-time top recording artist, according to Billboard magazine, is the national spokesman for the 60 Plus Association, a non-partisan but conservative seniors advocacy group.