Looking for complaints, Rick Scott instead finds praise for Obamacare

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

There's a reason Scott trails Crist in the polls for November's election - Scott has no clue what's going on in the state and is totally incapable of connecting with people. Normal people, that is. Tea Party freaks still support him, I suppose, but then those swamp rats won't get him a second term. We need to get that crook out of the governor's mansion in Tallahassee in the worst way.

Nice how the seniors of Boca Raton essentially told him to eff off at his campaign event.

Looking for complaints, Rick Scott instead finds praise for Obamacare


BOCA RATON — – Gov. Rick Scott visited a senior center Tuesday to warn about cuts he said Obamacare is forcing in a popular version of the Medicare health program and to collect their horror stories.

What he found was a satisfied group with few complaints.

The 20 seniors assembled for a roundtable with Scott at the Volen Center were largely content with their Medicare coverage and didn’t have negative stories to recount.

And some praised Obamacare – a program that Scott frequently criticizes.

“I’m completely satisfied,” Harvey Eisen, 92, a West Boca resident, told Scott.

Eisen told the governor he wasn’t sure “if, as you say,” there are Obamacare-inspired cuts to Medicare. But even if there are, that would be OK. “I can’t expect that me as a senior citizen are going to get preferential treatment when other programs are also being cut.”

Ruthlyn Rubin, 66, of Boca Raton, told the governor that people who are too young for Medicare need the health coverage they get from Obamacare. If young people don’t have insurance, she said, everyone else ends up paying for their care when they get sick or injured and end up in the hospital.

Eventually, Rubin said, Obamacare will become more popular. “People were appalled at Social Security. They were appalled at Medicare when it came out. I think these major changes take some people aback. But I think we have to be careful not to just rely on the fact that we’re seniors and have an entitlement to certain things,” she said.

“We’re all just sitting here taking it for granted that because we have Medicare we don’t want to lose one part of it. That’s wrong to me. I think we have to spread it around. This is the United States of America. It’s not the United States of senior citizens,” Rubin said from her spot two seats away from the governor.

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At the Volen Center he explained to a group around a large conference table that “Medicare is being reduced. The Medicare Advantage programs are being cut to pay for Obamacare.”

“As I travel the state and I listen to seniors they tell me stories about how their plans are being changed, how they are losing their doctors, the coverage is changing, and so what I’m here to do is just hear your stories,” he [scott] said.

Their stories didn’t jibe with the governor’s view. When Scott asked one woman if she’d seen any changes in her Medicare Advantage coverage. “Not really,” she responded. A man said he was “very happy” with his coverage. Another woman said she and her husband are “very pleased.” Another man reported “no problems.”

Sonia Azam, 73, of Coconut Creek, told Scott she found orthopedic surgeons weren’t taking Medicare anymore. Scott asked the group if others were finding physicians were opting out of Medicare, and the response was a chorus of “no”s.

The federal government pays more to cover each Medicare Advantage participant than for seniors under traditional Medicare. The government had planned a 1.9 percent cut in the next budget year, but the Washington Post reported this month that the decision was reversed, and payments will now increase an average of 0.4 percent.

Obamacare was generally popular. One woman said she liked it because her son, who was previously uninsurable because of heart problems, now has health coverage. “I don’t have any complaints,” she said.
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