Saturday, August 25, 2012
Romney Wants to Abolish Medicare
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan realize that the public should remain confused about Medicare because the budget put forth by Ryan in the House of Representatives, approved by Mitt Romney, and voted for by all of the Republicans (but defeated in the Senate by the Democrats) would completely demolish Medicare and substitute a system of private medical accounts to be paid to private insurance companies with limited voucher help from the government.
The television ad campaign by Romney makes many charges against President Obama, and deceitfully attacks Obama's efforts to strengthen Medicare. The truth is that Romney and Ryan would destroy Medicare. Their attacks are deliberately misleading. For example, Romney and Ryan claim that the Obama reform law has “cut” $716 billion from Medicare, with the money used to expand coverage to low-income people who are currently uninsured. The fact is that the budget produced by Paul Ryan and approved by Mitt Romney contains the exact same cuts in Medicare as are found in the so-called “Obamacare” law.
The $716 billion is not a “cut” in benefits but rather a savings in costs that the Congressional Budget Office projects over the next decade from wholly reasonable provisions in President Obama’s reform law.
A substantial part of the cut will be accomplished by reducing the hugely wasteful subsidies being paid to private insurance companies for a program called Medicare Advantage. These plans cost the government far more than regular Medicare. People with Medicare Advantage plans will not lose any benefits from the cut. They can go on paying high premiums for Medicare Advantage or they can get the same benefits by switching to regular Medicare and purchasing Medicare-plus policies to cover the additional things provided for in the Medicare Advantage plans.
There is not going to be a cut in the amounts paid to hospitals and doctors. What the Reform law does is reduce the annual increases in amounts being paid to health care providers — like hospitals, nursing homes and home health agencies — to force the notoriously inefficient system to find ways to improve productivity. These recipients of Medicare payments are not going to opt out of the system just because of this reduction of annual increases.
A further cut will come from fees or taxes imposed on drug makers, device makers, and insurers — fees that they can surely afford since expanded coverage for the uninsured will increase their markets and their revenues.
Under the Obama Reform Law there will not be any reduction in benefits to seniors. On the other hand, if Romney and Ryan are elected, they will try to repeal the Reform law. The result will be much higher costs to seniors. For one thing, the Reform law gradually eliminates the doughnut hole for prescriptions under Medicare Part D. Repeal of the law would retain the doughnut hole, and seniors would have to pay the full cost of their prescriptions after reaching approximately $2500 in drug costs. Moreover, the elimination of Medicare would mean that seniors would have to rely on vouchers to help them pay for private health insurance. The amount provided in Ryan’s budget for vouchers would not cover even half the cost of health insurance for seniors in the coming decade. The repeal of the reform law would also drive up costs for seniors who are receiving preventive services, like colonoscopies, mammograms, and immunizations, with no cost sharing.
There is an abundant amount of information on the internet about how Romney is distorting the facts about Medicare.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Romney's Pick--Paul Ryan
Mitt Romeny has now chosen Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his running-mate. By doing so Romney has thumbed his nose at those people who said that he should choose a moderate to satisfy the great majority of American voters who are moderates. Paul Ryan is no moderate. As Chairman of the House Budget Committee, he is the author of a right-wing Republican budget proposal that should scare every thinking American. He is an Ayn Rand Libertarian (ignoring Rand's atheism) who would lower taxes on the wealthy, abolish programs for the poor, and destroy Medicare and Medicaid.
Mitt Romney has already approved of the Ryan budget proposal. The Republicans in both houses of Congress are now on the record as voting for the Ryan budget proposal which abolishes Medicare as we know it. The Ryan plan attacks the deficit by lowering taxes paid by the wealthy and makes the Bush tax cuts permanent.
Ryan’s plan to demolish Medicare would save the government billions of dollars by shifting the burden of paying for medical care from the government to the senior citizens who would have been covered by the current program.
The way Medicare works today, the government pays for all approved medical care for senior citizens. Let’s say that you need to have heart bypass surgery. The surgeon will bill Medicare for the cost of the surgery, which might be in the tens of thousands. Medicare will approve a percentage of that bill and pay the surgeon. Most surgeons will accept as full payment the amount paid by Medicare, but if there is a deductable or amount in excess of the Medicare amount, many seniors are able to pay it by taking-out Medicare-Plus insurance. That insurance is affordable for most senior citizens.
Under the Republican plan put forth by Representative Ryan, the government will no longer make Medicare payments for people 55 years old and under at the time the legislation is enacted. When those people become eligible for Medicare, there will be no Medicare for them. They will have to purchase private health insurance. The government will assist people earning less that $80 thousand per year by giving them a voucher to help pay for health insurance. For people earning over $80 thousand, the voucher will be half the amount, and even less for people earning over $200 thousand per year. The voucher amount will be pegged to the cost of living.
There is one basic problem with the Ryan plan. The cost of health insurance is rising at a rate far higher than the cost of living. In ten years, when the 55-year-old generation reaches eligibility for Medicare, the cost of health insurance will be more than double the amount provided in the Ryan budget. Sure, this will save the government billions of dollars, but it will deprive millions of seniors of health care during that period of their lives when they are most in need.
According a new survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, health insurance premium are going up much faster than overall inflation and workers’ wages. By the survey’s calculation, increases over the next decade would translate to the average policy for a family costing in the neighborhood of $24,000 a year.
While Medicare may be an expensive program, the solution is not to eliminate it. There are ways to lower the cost of Medicare without the drastic kind of demolition envisioned by the Republican budget. President Obama has offered a proposal which would lower the cost of Medicare by lowering the cost of the terribly wasteful (private insurance) "Medicare Advantage" program. There are many other steps that can be taken without lowering the benefits to seniors.
The Ryan budget also calls for the repeal of President Obama's health care reform law. That would save billions in federal subsidies that will be given to lower-income people to buy insurance. Such repeal would bring-back the doughnut-hole for seniors under the Medicare Part D prescription law, would put over 40 million people back into the list of uninsured, and would, among other things, restore the right of health insurance companies to deny insurance on account of pre-existing conditions.
According to The New York Times: "As House Budget Committee chairman, Mr. Ryan has drawn a blueprint of a government that will be absent when people need it the most. It will not be there when the unemployed need job training, or when a struggling student needs help to get into college. It will not be there when a miner needs more than a hardhat for protection, or when a city is unable to replace a crumbling bridge.
And it will be silent when the elderly cannot keep up with the costs of M.R.I.’s or prescription medicines, or when the poor and uninsured become increasingly sick through lack of preventive care.
More than three-fifths of the cuts proposed by Mr. Ryan, and eagerly accepted by the Tea Party-driven House, come from programs for low-income Americans. That means billions of dollars lost for job training for the displaced, Pell grants for students and food stamps for the hungry. These cuts are so severe that the nation’s Catholic bishops raised their voices in protest at the shredding of the nation’s moral obligations."
Supposedly, the impetus for the Ryan/Republican budget comes from the huge deficit which was initially incurred during the Bush Administration due to tax cuts for the wealthy and two wars. Because of Republicans’ refusal to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire, the deficit has continued to rise during the Obama Administration. Ryan’s solution to the deficit is to—cut taxes! Yes, Ryan and the Republicans want to cut the tax rate on the wealthy and on corporations from 35% to 25%. They also want to make the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy permanent! Needless to say, Ryan intends to reduce the deficit and support this reduction in revenue by cutting programs for the poor, disabled, and aged.
According to Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor under President Clinton: "That budget would cut $3.3 trillion from low income programs over the next decade. The biggest cuts would be in Medicaid, forcing states to drop coverage for an estimated 14 million to 28 million low income people, according to the nonpartisan Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. In all, 62 percent of the budget cuts proposed by Ryan would come from low-income programs."
The Nobel Prize laureate and economist, Paul Krugman, says the Congressional Budget Office: “finds that a large part of the supposed savings from spending cuts would go, not to reduce the deficit, but to pay for tax cuts. In fact, the budget office finds that over the next decade, the (Ryan) plan would lead to bigger deficits and more debt than current law."
We now know that Ryan is also a liar--first class! He has repeatedly said that he did not ask for stimulus funds, but the newspapers were able to turn up several letters by Ryan to the government asking for such funds. Funds were paid to Ryan's projects in Wisconsin. He is therefore a liar. This is what we have to look forward to with Paul Ryan.
So this is who Mitt Romney wants as his running mate. This says a lot about Romney. He is in bed with the most radical right--wing of his party. He is willing to destroy Medicare, health insurance reform, the middle class, and the poor.
Mitt Romney has already approved of the Ryan budget proposal. The Republicans in both houses of Congress are now on the record as voting for the Ryan budget proposal which abolishes Medicare as we know it. The Ryan plan attacks the deficit by lowering taxes paid by the wealthy and makes the Bush tax cuts permanent.
Ryan’s plan to demolish Medicare would save the government billions of dollars by shifting the burden of paying for medical care from the government to the senior citizens who would have been covered by the current program.
The way Medicare works today, the government pays for all approved medical care for senior citizens. Let’s say that you need to have heart bypass surgery. The surgeon will bill Medicare for the cost of the surgery, which might be in the tens of thousands. Medicare will approve a percentage of that bill and pay the surgeon. Most surgeons will accept as full payment the amount paid by Medicare, but if there is a deductable or amount in excess of the Medicare amount, many seniors are able to pay it by taking-out Medicare-Plus insurance. That insurance is affordable for most senior citizens.
Under the Republican plan put forth by Representative Ryan, the government will no longer make Medicare payments for people 55 years old and under at the time the legislation is enacted. When those people become eligible for Medicare, there will be no Medicare for them. They will have to purchase private health insurance. The government will assist people earning less that $80 thousand per year by giving them a voucher to help pay for health insurance. For people earning over $80 thousand, the voucher will be half the amount, and even less for people earning over $200 thousand per year. The voucher amount will be pegged to the cost of living.
There is one basic problem with the Ryan plan. The cost of health insurance is rising at a rate far higher than the cost of living. In ten years, when the 55-year-old generation reaches eligibility for Medicare, the cost of health insurance will be more than double the amount provided in the Ryan budget. Sure, this will save the government billions of dollars, but it will deprive millions of seniors of health care during that period of their lives when they are most in need.
According a new survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, health insurance premium are going up much faster than overall inflation and workers’ wages. By the survey’s calculation, increases over the next decade would translate to the average policy for a family costing in the neighborhood of $24,000 a year.
While Medicare may be an expensive program, the solution is not to eliminate it. There are ways to lower the cost of Medicare without the drastic kind of demolition envisioned by the Republican budget. President Obama has offered a proposal which would lower the cost of Medicare by lowering the cost of the terribly wasteful (private insurance) "Medicare Advantage" program. There are many other steps that can be taken without lowering the benefits to seniors.
The Ryan budget also calls for the repeal of President Obama's health care reform law. That would save billions in federal subsidies that will be given to lower-income people to buy insurance. Such repeal would bring-back the doughnut-hole for seniors under the Medicare Part D prescription law, would put over 40 million people back into the list of uninsured, and would, among other things, restore the right of health insurance companies to deny insurance on account of pre-existing conditions.
According to The New York Times: "As House Budget Committee chairman, Mr. Ryan has drawn a blueprint of a government that will be absent when people need it the most. It will not be there when the unemployed need job training, or when a struggling student needs help to get into college. It will not be there when a miner needs more than a hardhat for protection, or when a city is unable to replace a crumbling bridge.
And it will be silent when the elderly cannot keep up with the costs of M.R.I.’s or prescription medicines, or when the poor and uninsured become increasingly sick through lack of preventive care.
More than three-fifths of the cuts proposed by Mr. Ryan, and eagerly accepted by the Tea Party-driven House, come from programs for low-income Americans. That means billions of dollars lost for job training for the displaced, Pell grants for students and food stamps for the hungry. These cuts are so severe that the nation’s Catholic bishops raised their voices in protest at the shredding of the nation’s moral obligations."
Supposedly, the impetus for the Ryan/Republican budget comes from the huge deficit which was initially incurred during the Bush Administration due to tax cuts for the wealthy and two wars. Because of Republicans’ refusal to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire, the deficit has continued to rise during the Obama Administration. Ryan’s solution to the deficit is to—cut taxes! Yes, Ryan and the Republicans want to cut the tax rate on the wealthy and on corporations from 35% to 25%. They also want to make the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy permanent! Needless to say, Ryan intends to reduce the deficit and support this reduction in revenue by cutting programs for the poor, disabled, and aged.
According to Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor under President Clinton: "That budget would cut $3.3 trillion from low income programs over the next decade. The biggest cuts would be in Medicaid, forcing states to drop coverage for an estimated 14 million to 28 million low income people, according to the nonpartisan Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. In all, 62 percent of the budget cuts proposed by Ryan would come from low-income programs."
The Nobel Prize laureate and economist, Paul Krugman, says the Congressional Budget Office: “finds that a large part of the supposed savings from spending cuts would go, not to reduce the deficit, but to pay for tax cuts. In fact, the budget office finds that over the next decade, the (Ryan) plan would lead to bigger deficits and more debt than current law."
We now know that Ryan is also a liar--first class! He has repeatedly said that he did not ask for stimulus funds, but the newspapers were able to turn up several letters by Ryan to the government asking for such funds. Funds were paid to Ryan's projects in Wisconsin. He is therefore a liar. This is what we have to look forward to with Paul Ryan.
So this is who Mitt Romney wants as his running mate. This says a lot about Romney. He is in bed with the most radical right--wing of his party. He is willing to destroy Medicare, health insurance reform, the middle class, and the poor.
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