The Republican "Path to Prosperity" proposed by House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin eliminates Medicare as we know it. The nation's most efficient health insurance program would be turned over to the private insurance industry and seniors issued "ration cards" instead of Medicare cards. Seniors would pay more and get less care, while health insurance companies would make more billions in profits. This isn't reform - it's rationing. It's Republican Rationcare.
The Republicans would dismantle Medicare, trading seniors' guaranteed health care benefits for so-called vouchers that send hundreds of billions of dollars directly to private insurance companies. Beneficiaries would be forced to pay two to three times more than they would if the law remained unchanged. For someone turning 65 in 2022, the first year of the program, the voucher would be worth $8,000, which is less than the average cost per Medicare beneficiary today. The vouchers are deliberately underfunded and the result is that seniors would pay a staggering 68 percent of the cost of their medical care in 2030, compared to 25 percent if the law were unchanged, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
So on Day One of this Republican pipe dream, folks start out thousands of dollars behind. Then the voucher would lag behind the growth in actual medical costs because it would rise in step with the Consumer Price Index and as people's age and medical expenses rise. Using the CBO assumption of 2.5 percent annual inflation, the voucher would only grow to $9,750 by 2030. As a result, a person age 65 would be saddled with $20,700 in out-of-pocket medical costs. And that doesn't even count health care expenditures that aren't covered by Medicare. Welcome to the Republican vision of middle-class retirement. Americans can fill their golden years by juggling the challenges of rationed access to doctors and hospitals and the inability to put food on the table and pills in the medicine cabinet.
Adding insult to injury, the GOP is also hatching an appalling scheme to devastate America's seniors and families with $1.4 trillion in Medicaid cuts. This Republican plan would desert millions of children, people with disabilities and chronic diseases, and seniors who need help paying for long-term care. It would decimate the working poor and leave hospitals without enough money to provide lifesaving care.
So who benefits from the Republicans' Medicare scheme? Not you. The proposal would shift billions in health care costs onto seniors while making insurers even more profitable, making their overpaid CEOs, corporate lobbyists and Republican campaign contributors even richer. The health insurance industry will manage an estimated $863 billion in premiums this year. Under the Ryan plan, they'll get hundreds of billions of dollars more. To Republicans, this proposal makes all the sense in the world. After all, the GOP is a wholly owned subsidiary of billionaires like the Koch Brothers and global corporations that do business in America.
Insurance companies are well-suited to the task of rationing care for seniors. They have vast experience jacking up premium rates and denying care to the rest of the population. For the insurance industry it would be a seamless transition.
According to the private-market zealots at the Koch Brothers-funded Cato Institute, this will all be fine. Much of Medicare's spending is optional care that seniors would forgo if they paid a greater portion of the costs. Seniors "might even decide not to do the critical care" if it was too costly, Michael Tanner, Cato's health policy point man, told Politico Pro. If some of those costs were picked up by the individual, they might decide they wanted to save their resources for their survivors, Tanner said.
The pretense is over. The Republican plan is rationing. It's heartless. It won't be Medicare anymore. You can call it Medicareless or Republican Rationcare, but by any name, it would no longer be the guaranteed health care program that has served our nation so well since 1965.
Follow Ethan Rome on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@HCAN
http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2011/04/05/ryan-fehbp/
By all means, have them pay 50% of the cost themselves, that's maybe $400 a month. They will clamor for a low cost alternative, yes, one with fewer options, but using a British model of a National Health Service, the care will still be very good and much more sustainable for the country we all love. BTW, I'm 56 years old and a primary care doctor.
Anyone else notice that Rich is capitalized here...just like we do with the word God or Jesus?
It really is heartbreaking to think of Warren and Bill having to pay an entire insurance premium in their elder years. How little they have received from this society. It's really just a shame that the two wealthiest men in the world will receive nothing back from the society that made them so rich...oh I'm sorry Rich.
Would they have become this rich without a public school and university system to provide them with employees? Would they have become this rich without the roads, bridges and utilities (price regulated) to power their offices or factories? Would they have become this rich without consumers (read the poor rabble) to buy their products and services?
I suggest you go to a country that has no public schools, pesky health programs or public roads and see how much money you make starting a business there. Should be great, based on your premise that as little government as possible will make business thrive! I think the Ivory Coast needs a coffee shop - there's a good start for ya.
Or
Is it better to have a Manager who is sitting on a yacht with his boss the CEO extolling the latest profit figures. Complain about lack of service here and there is either a promotion or a raise.
Distasteful as it may be. I tend to think the best value for my dollar is in Washington.
Single Payer Health Care
Less paper work. Streamlined service. Allow for private insurance if desired.
Medicare not only provides a safety net to seniors, the cost of the administration of Medicare is 4% and decreasing, whereas private insurance administration is nearly 17% and increasing. These costs are passed on to consumers.
The vouchers to be issued will be wholly inadequate to purchase like coverage from private insurers, if you can get coverage at all.
As for health care. Why is it that people always talk about Insurance as if it were health care? It really is not. All insurance can be summed up easily. It is a financial institution that collects money to be distributed for services rendered. For some spastic reason. This is done at a huge profit. The beneficiaries of this method. Not the doctors. Not the patients. Not the hospitals. Yup you guessed it.
The old people that can not afford the care provided them. Are they to be left on the side of the road? Who will pay for the treatment they receive? I will in higher costs. You will in higher fees. We all will in a lowering of life expectancy.
I for one find it distasteful to hand over money to an insurance sector that craves indulgence. So that some people can claim they care about America when in fact they care only about how they look to Americans.
End Trans.