Ground Zero For Obamacare?

From America's Right:

Ground Zero for ObamaCare?


October 12, 2010 by John Feeny

Filed under Assigned Reading

Leave a Comment

The American Spectator: The President’s Nun: ObamaCare Scranton Scandal Explodes



Alarmingly, the doctor, with a lifetime of practice in hand, says that “hospitals close in clusters where there is decreased income in terms of relatively low Medicare reimbursement…because they are the most vulnerable.” He adds that what is happening in Scranton, Nanticoke, and Tunkhannock with the Mercy hospitals “is just the beginning. It will happen everywhere because reimbursements will be reduced” under ObamaCare. Particularly, he adds, in areas where you have a high elderly population.



If the doctor is right, and he is not alone in saying this, the proposed sale of the three Mercy hospitals becomes a harbinger of what will happen nationally as a result of ObamaCare slowly tightening its government tentacles over the private health care system. Which means the sale of the three Mercy hospitals has added Scranton to what the Wall Street Journal has already called ObamaCare’s “trail of destruction.”



This is a story that may yet explode, if not nationally, then certainly in its potential impact on several races in Pennsylvania. It seems as if the destructive effects of ObamaCare and the ability of several Catholic hospitals to function financially in this draconian climate are coming to real loggerheads. The CEO of the hospital has apparently been “brought into line”as a result of speaking his mind.



With a mother of nearly 70 years, however, I can’t help but note who the real targets are here: the elderly. More and more I’ve come to see that the assets of those of what we typically consider the “Greatest Generation” — their money, retirement accounts, and lives — are square in the sights of this administration.



I can’t help but think that we haven’t heard the last of this story.