Writing for the Huffington Post, Rep John B. Larson outlines the Democratic view of the Republican plan to manage Medicare costs. Needless to say, this assessment is inaccurate and grossly misleading. But more important it is another insult to Americans by creating the impression that tough decisions do not have to be made about Medicare and that it can be pretty much business as usual. The Democrats believe that the changes in PPACA especially the Independent Payment Advisory Panel will do the job. Sadly that simply is not possible.
Here are five important things to know about the GOP plan to end Medicare:
1. The GOP plan for Medicare is to end it:
Americans count on the guaranteed benefits they paid for under Medicare. The GOP plan ends that guaranteed benefit and replaces it with a limited payment that goes directly to health insurance companies. The payment only covers a portion of health care costs, leaving seniors and their families on their own to cover the rest.
2. An average 40-year-old would need to save $350,000 more to pay for health care under the GOP plan:
Think health care costs are already high? Under the GOP plan, private insurance costs to seniors would skyrocket. For example, according the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), a 40-year-old would need to save almost $350,000 more before retiring just to pay for the increased costs under the GOP plan.
3. Out-of-pocket costs would skyrocket:
The GOP plan would more than double out-of-pocket costs for seniors. This means that in 2022 a typical 65 year-old would pay an additional $6,000 a year for health care.
4. It shifts costs to seniors:
Under the GOP plan, the size of each senior’s voucher would increase each year, but not by enough to cover the increase in the cost of health care. This means that over time the vouchers would cover less and less of seniors’ health care costs, leaving seniors on their own to pay for the rest.
5. It increases the age of eligibility:
Hard working Americans who have paid into the Medicare system for decades on the guarantee that they would be able to enroll at 65 will be forced to wait an additional two years until the age of 67 to even get the limited voucher.
Democrats will continue to fight to protect and strengthen Medicare — just as we have done continuously for the 45 years since we created it.
1. Not true, the plan is to change it and to limit the growth of future costs to the government to inflation plus an additional factor thereby placing pressure on costs.
2. Not sure where that comes from, but even with no change to Medicare a future senior needs to save almost $300,000 to cover all his out-of-pocket costs for health care in retirement.
3. Who knows, not one person on this planet knows what health care costs will be in 2022. More important since the Republican plan does not affect anyone age 55 or older upon enactment this statement is quite misleading.
4. This is true in part because government is limiting the growth of its costs and unless health care costs are mitigated additional costs will be borne by beneficiaries.
5. Yup, age is increased to 67, but “hard-working Americans” have not paid for any guarantee, they have paid for the previous generation’s Medicare costs. In addition, why the fuss over raising Medicare’s age when they did the same thing with Social Security?
Here is the real kicker, where is the alternative plan? Where are the alternative quantifiable savings? How will anything other than the Ryan plan generate the massive savings necessary to get Medicare spending under control? Perhaps there are viable alternatives, let’s see them?
Related articles
- An expert makes sense on Medicare reform-here’s my take (quinnscommentary.com)
- The Republican death wish (blogs.berkeley.edu)
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