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Though President Obama pledged health care legislation would bring down the cost of health care "while strengthening the financial health of Medicare," the chief actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid issued an official analysis that found the House bill breaks both pledges.

A fresh analysis of the House health care reform plan has sounded a warning about the impact proposed Medicare cuts would have on seniors and could spell trouble for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's effort to pull a unified Senate bill to the floor by the end of the week.  The House and would-be Senate bills rely on hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to Medicare to keep reform deficit-neutral.  But even though President Obama pledged as recently as last week that the legislation would bring down the cost of health care "while strengthening the financial health of Medicare," the chief actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, an agency in the Department of Health and Human Services, issued an official analysis that found the House bill breaks both pledges.

The report said the reductions in Medicare spending would lower payments to providers such as doctors and hospitals and that they "might end their participation in the program possibly jeopardizing access to care for beneficiaries."  Republicans who have been complaining about the Medicare cuts for months took this as validation of the excessive spending and lack of savings supporters vow will be found in the bills. "This is a bill that cuts Medicare, raises taxes and raises insurance premiums." The study also found that the House bill would not lower healthcare spending overall but national expenditures would actually increase by $289 billion. The Kentucky Republican said the actuary's report only strengthens the case to "delay the process" to allow for further review.

Republicans weren't the only ones accusing Democrats of breaking promises. Abortion rights advocates were out in force Monday accusing Democratic leaders of breaking pledges by accepting restrictions on abortion. One other complication for lawmakers is the so-called "doctor fix" in Medicare that the House still has to take up. It costs $210 billion and by law, seniors have to cover one-quarter of the cost. That means seniors would be paying $50 billion more in premiums over the next 10 years, an unexpected surprise. Finally, some 60 percent of the uninsured would get insurance only because the House expands eligibility for Medicaid, government-paid health care for the poor. Critics say that's not reform, just an expansion of entitlements, which are already straining federal and state budgets.

Source: FOX News

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