Today’s Wall Street Journal posted an article by Betsy McCaughey about some recent statement’s made about Paul Ryan’s plan to cut the budget by changing Medicare for future recipients in order to ensure its survival.
The article reports:
“The Democratic Party is urging Americans to choose Medicare as we’ve always known it rather than a new plan by Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) that would enroll seniors in private health insurance beginning in 2022. This choice is a hoax: Medicare as we’ve always known it is already gone. It was eviscerated by President Obama’s health law. Yet if the president and the Democratic Party successfully bamboozle voters, they may win back independents and registered Democrats who voted for Republicans in 2010. The 2012 election could turn on this falsehood.”
This is a very important statement. The election of 2012 may depend on whether or not senior citizens understand what Obamacare does to Medicare.
One aspect of Obamacare is the rationing of healthcare under Medicare:
“The Ryan proposal also includes a $7,800 annual medical savings account to help low-income seniors with out-of-pocket costs. Amazingly, the CBO analysts exclude this $7,800 benefit from their calculations. Their warning about low-income seniors suffering is baseless.
“So what can retiring Americans count on in 2022 and after? The Obama health law leaves that up to an unelected board of presidential appointees called the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a cost-cutting panel.
“The board is a radical departure from Medicare as we’ve known it. Congress cedes nearly all control of Medicare spending to the board on the rationale that budgeting decisions should be shielded from outraged seniors and political pressures. On April 13, the president reiterated that the board would decide what care is “unnecessary” for seniors. Even the CBO cautioned that as the nation’s debt crisis worsens, benefits will be put on the board’s chopping block.”
An article posted at Big Government on Monday states:
Under his deficit reduction plan, the President proposes to expand the power of this unelected entity to increase the GDP growth per capita cut from the current 1% to 5%. In addition, under his proposal Medicaid payments to states would also be tightly controlled and access to drugs would be limited through spending on prescription drugs.
There are two things that make this proposal doomed to fail if the goal is to decrease health costs while providing quality care:
- It does nothing to change the exemptions that were given to the hospitals, and other Medicare providers that make up a majority of Medicare spending thereby protecting them from the reach of the IPAB.
- It will further decrease the already below market rate of Medicare reimbursements to doctors making it even more difficult to provide both quality care for the Medicare patient and to keep their practices open.
If Senior Citizens are paying attention, they will elect congressmen and a president who support Paul Ryan’s plan for Medicare. Anything else will eventually deny them the quality of care that senior citizens have had in this country.