In his latest attempts to pit groups of Americans against each other, President Barack Obama has taken aim at senior citizens with a one-two punch of bribery and bullying. First the bribe of a paltry $250 to supposedly convince Medicare recipients that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare) is a good idea. Then the threat that voting for Republicans will be akin to "tying your benefits to the whims of Wall Street traders."

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In these brazen attempts to play generation against generation and economic class against economic class, Mr. Obama and his accomplices sent 750,000 Medicare recipients $250 government checks this summer with over 3 million more still to be sent. The accompanying letter signed by Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says the money is "to bring you some needed relief on your prescription drug costs" and that the recipient should "stay tuned for more information on how this new law will help make Medicare more financially secure and provide you with higher quality and more affordable health care." (source)

Just like the recent tax dollar funded television commercial featuring TV icon Andy Griffith, vague promises are made that "good things are coming" in the hope of bamboozling seniors into voting against their own reality this November.

In that reality, $250 is a pittance compared to the $3,610 gap between the annual Medicare/insurance payout of $2,830 for medications and the $6,440 level at which Medicare's catastrophic coverage kicks in. This "donut hole" as it's been called should be minimized or even eliminated with real, targeted and sound health care reform for seniors, not the hugely unpopular and obscenely expensive federal power grab known as Obamacare.

Just in case this pathetic attempt at bribing chronically ill elderly citizens doesn't work, President Obama has also delivered the threat that Republican leaders are "pushing to make privatizing Social Security a key part of their legislative agenda if they win a majority in Congress this fall." In his weekly radio and Internet address today, Mr. Obama claimed that such privatization was "an ill-conceived idea that would add trillions of dollars to our budget deficit while tying your benefits to the whims of Wall Street traders and the ups and downs of the stock market." (source)

Again, back here in reality, no such privatization proposal has been endorsed by GOP leaders. It is an idea that several Republicans - most notably Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) - have proposed that would allow younger Americans to invest their Social Security contributions into personal accounts rather than the failing system we have now.

The fact is that Republicans are offering ideas that may save Social Security (which will run out of money in 2037) while President Obama and his fellow Democrats offer no suggestions for how to prevent complete insolvency. So Mr. Obama continues his efforts to bribe and bully seniors into voting for those who will support his failed policies; policies that will adversely affect them and generations to come.