Health care reform will rob Medicare

Dear Editor:

The health care reform bills before Congress will rob the dedicated Medicare Trust Fund of hundreds of billions of dollars, a probable death blow to the troubled fund we pay via the Medicare payroll tax on wages.

These proposals could drive Medicare into early and permanent bankruptcy. And some of these proposals clearly would reform Medicare by denying care to our elders and even by urging them to end their lives prematurely.

Every one of the health reform bills proposes deep cuts in Medicare. Every single bill then proposes transferring the proceeds of that reform to non-Medicare eligible Americans and even to illegal immigrants, because Medicare eligibility begins at age 65.

There have been many reports of the need to reform Medicare but now Congress and President Obama want to rob the Medicare Trust Fund.

And they will not use those savings to preserve Medicare, but instead, they will simply steal the money and destroy the trust fund.

Medicare Trust Fund receipts should be in a lockbox.

It is wrong to rob from our elders who worked all their lives, paid Medicare payroll taxes all their lives and who Obama and the Congress now want to throw under the bus.

It's wrong, my friends.

We need health insurance reform and we need to work on fixing Medicare, but these are two separate issues.

Destroying Medicare in the name of health insurance reform would be a travesty.

Sue Robinson Camano Island