Who do we believe - John Lewis or Obama?

During the recent debate between John Lewis and Ryan Zinke sponsored by the Daily Inter Lake, John Lewis was emphatic in his declaration that there had never been a $716 billion cut in Medicare to pay for the Affordable Care Act.

However, during an interview with ABC News reporter Jake Tapper in 2009, President Obama seems to be lacking in affirmation of Lewis’ assertions. Let’s turn to some of that interchange between Tapper and the president:

TAPPER: “One of the concerns about health care and how you pay for it — one third of the funding comes from cuts to Medicare.”

BARACK OBAMA: “Right.”

TAPPER: “Are you willing to pledge that whatever cuts in Medicare are being made to fund health insurance, one third of it, that you will veto anything that tries to undo that?”

OBAMA: “Yes. I actually have said that it is important for us to make sure this thing is deficit neutral, without tricks. I said I wouldn’t sign a bill that didn’t meet that criteria.”

During this exchange, President Obama not only admits that there are, indeed, cuts made in Medicare but also acknowledges that those cuts were important in funding one third of the costs of the Affordable Care Act.

The first question that arises is whether all of these reductions in payments to various programs or services will impair quality of health care for Medicare patients?

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services report may serve to answer this question. Their report says that because of increased regulations and uncertainty regarding reimbursements, doctors are increasingly dropping out of the program. In 2009 3,700 doctors had dropped out. In 2012 that number had grown to 9,539 physicians who no longer accept Medicare patients. I know of a person in Eastern Oregon who was unable to find a doctor in her town who would accept her as a new Medicare patient even though she had just had open-heart surgery in Portland.

A situation closer to home may also shed some light on how seniors may be affected by these cuts personally. My wife received two prescriptions last week. When she went to pick them up, she was informed that her Medicare supplemental insurance had not approved one of them. This was an older generic drug that her insurance had approved in the past. When we called her insurance to determine why it was not approved, we were informed that it was not on the Medicare approved drug list. This may not be an isolated case because the same thing happened to me one week earlier. —Lester D. Still, Kalispell