Countywide : Boxer Attacks Cuts to Medicare in O.C. Visit

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) on Thursday railed against proposed Medicare cuts to a Leisure World audience of more than 600, jolting 76-year-old Bernice Yoffe into worrying what the drastic reductions would mean.

“We don’t know what tomorrow’s going to bring,” said Yoffe, adding that she is in good health. “I could break my hip tomorrow, and who’s going to take care of me, and who’s going to pay for it, and what nursing home am I going into that we can afford?”

Boxer’s speech at Leisure World in Laguna Hills was part of a swing through Orange County on Thursday. She also spoke at UC Irvine’s Beckman Laser Institute on defense conversion projects, and about the 75th anniversary of the women’s suffrage movement at a Women in Business International lunch in Newport Beach.

At Leisure World, members of the packed house groaned as she described a GOP plan to cut Medicare growth by $270 billion over the next seven years. Under the proposed cuts, the average senior citizen would pay an extra $1,000 annually for medical costs, she said.

Think about what that would mean for the average woman over 65 who lives on Social Security income, about $8,500 annually, Boxer urged.

“Where is she going to get an extra thousand dollars a year on her income? What will she do? Eat less?” Boxer said. “Scary thought.”

Resident Dorothy Karson, 78, had heard the numbers before. She is healthy and financially well-off, so any Medicare cuts would not affect her personally, she said. But Boxer’s speech still rattled her.

“I’m frightened,” Karson said. “When I hear the facts she gives us, I’m scared for our country and the people in it. We’re wiping out all the humane benefits we’ve been able to fight for all these years.”