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.