How Does Obamacare Hurt Medicare? 
That is a great question ! There is an awful lot of misinformation , political manipulation , and muddying of the facts , so it 's really hard to see exactly what is going on . There are some good and bad things that the ACA does with its association with Medicare , and I 'll let you decide which is which . First off is you do not have any changes to your current plan , nor is it even legal for someone to tell you that you have to drop your current plan and try to enroll youin the marketplace . All current plans are grandfathered . One thing the ACA does is close the `` donut hole '' in coverage in Medicare part D . It will eventually phase out the patient cost until it becomes just the usual co-pay , increasing the likelihood that seniors will be able to afford their medications . It also expands coverage by making checkups and wellness visits -LRB- preventative care -RRB- not subject to deductible or co-pays . It does have cuts of $ 716 billion to the Medicare , mostly in the MedicareAdvantage plans that are run by private insurers . We are told that those cuts are to come from reduction in fraud , provider overpayments , and administration overhead . We are also told that the money from those cuts are being reinvested into the Medicare system , and that those reinvestments are expected to keep Medicare 's trust fund solvent until 2029 , an extra 12 years . It will also make cuts to hospitals that have higher return rates of patients by cutting the Medicare payments to those hospitals that are providing the least quality care . -LRB- Interestingly enough , that was a lead story on our news channel tonight , measuring the number of patients who returned to their hospital after treatment for infections that they got while in the hospital before their release . -RRB- Those are the bare bones of what the effects are supposed to be . How it will actually play out is anyone 's guess . Thanks for asking ! 