ACA not menace to Medicare

As a senior on Medicare, I have to comment on Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers’ campaign statements regarding the Affordable Care Act and Medicare.

She continually makes the point that the ACA has cut funding to Medicare and “seniors deserve better.” What she conveniently doesn’t tell us is where the cuts are being made. Medicare benefits to seniors have not been cut. In fact, they have been increased; free annual wellness checks, free diagnostic screening tests for diabetes and some cancers. It also begins to close the “donut hole,” a gap in prescription Part D coverage.

The cuts she alludes to are reductions in administrative costs in the form of extra reimbursement payments to physicians, hospitals, etc., that do nothing to improve the health care of seniors. Many of the reimbursements were put in place by President George W. Bush in an attempt to privatize Medicare.

Google “ACA and Medicare” to get the facts. You won’t get them from our representative. Seniors do deserve better, but that won’t come from McMorris Rodgers’ actions in Congress. And, by the way, ask her – after 50-plus votes to kill the (ACA) – where the Republican version of a health care plan is.

Bob Pritchard

Spokane