There's "Mediscare." Mediscare is the name for lies when the Democrats -- and to a lesser extent Republicans -- claim the other side will change "Medicare as we know it" forever. With "Mediscare," the politicians fail to tell people that Medicare has changed almost every year for the last 50 years. Then there's outright "Medilies" where no political agenda is apparent. This recent article by a left-wing journalist -- who apparently thinks that the Federal government should pay for months of a parent's time in a nursing home with no co-pays even though there is no medical necessity -- is full of "Medilies." As is true with this journalist's article, the Medilies actually work against this Democrat's stated agenda.
And now we have just plain "Medicrap." A TV ad in the Kentucky Senate race invokes Medicare where it apparently has no applicability. In this Medicrap ad by candidate Grimes attacking candidate McConnell, the desperate Kentucky Democrat claims that McConnell hates people like her grandfather who had a stroke at some time in the past not specified and needed some care not specified over a 10-year period not specified after the medical incident and also needed medicine that the grandfather and grandmother could not afford.
The "crap" problem with the ad from a Medicare point of view is:
- As for the explicit statement in the ad that medicines were needed, if this situation arose in the last 10 years and the grandfather and grandmother were as bad off financially as the Grimes' ad implies, both would have received free drug insurance and almost free drugs (a nominal co-pay) no matter how much the drugs costs and with no deductible of any kind -- including no donut hole -- thanks to George Bush and Senator McConnell; Grimes' party wants to repeal the Extra Help for Drugs law passed by Bush and McConnell, throwing people like the grandfather and grandmother onto Medicaid.
- As for the need implied in the ad for custodial care, Medicare does not cover and never has covered the custodial care that the grandfather apparently needed after his stroke. Medicare is for medically necessary costs, not the cost of custodial care. Not counting the medicine issue, the ad "clearly" has nothing to do with Medicare. If the grandfather had long term care (LTC) insurance, it might have covered the costs of some of that custodial care. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) of 2010 as amended included some minimal LTC insurance strictly as an accounting gimmick so that President Obama could apply the revenue from people buying the limited government LTC insurance as making PPACA budget neutral. Once the law was passed the Obama administration almost immediately determined that the minimal LTC insurance in its own law was not feasible and dropped the limited LTC insurance program that might have helped Grimes' grandfather if he had his stroke 10 years from now.
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