If you or someone who lives with you is a Medicare beneficiary, you probably received “A Message from Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health & Human Services” in the mail last week. The glossy, four-page flyer was delivered to 40 million Medicare beneficiaries at a cost of $18 million in printing and postage. But just in case you had any doubts, Ms. Sebelius helpfully explains on page one that “[t]his brochure provides you with accurate information.” CMS, by the way, “will continue to provide you with up-to-date information about these new benefits…” At further taxpayer expense, no doubt.
The brochure is long on focus group-tested words, especially “improvements,” “savings” and “choice,” but Ms. Sebelius doesn’t get around to explaining how a bill that cuts Medicare by half a trillion dollars will make senior healthcare so much better.
Perhaps the most misleading section is the one on “Improvements to Medicare Advantage.” The brochure states if you are in a Medicare Advantage plan, you’ll still get guaranteed Medicare benefits. That’s true, but it’s beside the point; All Medicare beneficiaries, by definition, get guaranteed Medicare benefits. MA patients purchase additional insurance from private Medicare partners for services Medicare doesn’t cover. Federal subsidies to the private MA plans, which cover about 25 percent of Medicare participants, will be cut beginning in 2012. The brochure fails to mention this particular inconvenient truth.
Not surprisingly, Republicans are furious about this taxpayer-funded promotional newsletter. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (KY) and several of his colleagues in the Senate, including Arizona’s Jon Kyl, have submitted a letter to Kathleen Sebelius questioning the accuracy and costs of the brochure, and calling for an answer on or before June 11th.
Listed under “Improvements In Medicare You Will See Soon,” are community health centers and community health care teams. Read “clinics.” If you’re accustomed to seeing your own primary care physician and, if necessary, specialists of your choosing, you’re not going to like waiting in a large, impersonal office and being assigned to the next available doctor.
How seniors perceive ObamaCare and their legislators who voted for or against it may well affect their votes in November, so it’s not surprising that the administration would produce a PR piece extolling the virtues of the new healthcare law. But this pricy propaganda isn’t informational; it’s political. It should be fact-checked and charged to moveon.org.
Amy H Laff is a StateBrief.com partner. A graduate of Univ of Penn and Stanford Law School, Amy practiced law and mediation on the east coast before relocating to the Valley, where she founded and chairs the AZ chapter of the Republican Jewish Coalition. Amy makes frequent media appearances, including AZ Law Channel and Tony Katz Radio Spectacular. Additionally, she works with companies and candidates on branding and communication. 
A prime example of government waste!
Amy has it right—-a pre-election ad!!I would go a step further and compare it to the Hitler youth indoctrinations. But now Obama is trying to indoctrinate seniors—who he really wants to quietly pass away in the night with the cheapest meds and healthcare.
The brochure reveals the intended model of the healthcare reform: all docs will be working for “creditable” care organizations and private practice, as we know it, will end.
This plan ignores completely that in order to make ends meet, most of these organizations require subsidies and pay physicians poorly… even the models for this change, the cleveland clinic and mayo lose money on every medicare patient and make up the difference through donations, their endowment, clinics in the middle east, and foreigners who pay cash.
So instead of private practice where you are self employed and work for the patients interest… whose interest will you be working for at the community health center?? What perverse incentives lurk around the corner.