Supreme Court Rules That People, Who Accept Social Security, May NOT Decline Medicare Benefits.

I believe that this is Hall v Sebelius (I'm getting the ruling, but the DC Circuit Court of Appeals  ruled in Hall that petitioners had no right to decline so I would imagine that this is the same case) and, if so, it is a HORRIBLE and DANGEROUS decision.

When Medicare was passed in 1965, it was NOT mandatory. If you accepted Social Security benefits, you were entitled to apply for Medicare benefits, but were not required to accept them, and that has how it has been until President Obama.

Here are some of the cases that will show you why this ruling is VERY dangerous:

Patients whose medical care is provided by public funds have no constitutional right to whatever care [their physicians] using “the highest standards of medical practice”…may “judge necessary”… or to obtain that care “from a physician … of their choice.” – AAPS v. Weinberger, 395 F. Supp. 125 (1975).

Unlike the “right to die” or the “right” to have an abortion, the right to choose one’s medical treatment may not be constitutionally protected. A US Circuit Court has ruled that a Medicare beneficiary may not even spend his own money to buy a service that Medicare regulations say is “unnecessary”, New York State Ophthalmological Society v. Bowen, 861 F.2d 1283 (1988).

Bowen was upheld on appeal and the Court declined cert. So, in the 2nd Circuit and in the wake of Sebelius (it would appear), if you take Social Security benefits, which you may seek due to the fact that you paid into the programme during your working life, then you MUST accept Medicare and you MAY NOT “even spend [your] own money to buy a service that Medicare regulations say is ‘unnecessary.’”

If this works, I would imagine the next move will tie Federal pensions to Medicare benefits since, as Obama says, “we don’t have a spending problem, per se, we have a healthcare spending problem.” What better way to reduce healthcare spending than to put the elderly and infirm on America’s version of the Liverpool Care Pathway and prevent them from being able to go outside of the system?