Would you be willing to bet your health care coverage on the flip of a coin?
Before Medicare, nearly half of American seniors were forced to go without coverage because insurance companies were reluctant to insure them - making the chances of having health insurance as a senior the same as getting tails on a coin flip.
Today marks the 45th anniversary of the implementation of Medicare. Thanks to Medicare nearly all American seniors now have health care coverage. Additionally, Medicare played a role in dropping the rate of poverty among seniors by nearly 75 percent.
Yet as we celebrate this anniversary, Republicans are willing to risk all of the progress we've made. This year, House Republicans voted to end Medicare, reduce benefits, and increase health care costs for seniors. Their plan puts the burden of cutting the deficit on the backs of American seniors to protect tax giveaways for big oil and companies that ship U.S. jobs overseas.
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.
(The 5 Things To Know About the GOP Plan for Medicare was also cross-posted on the House Democrats blog.)
Follow Rep. John B. Larson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/housedemocrats
- Allow the federal government to negotiate down pharmaceutical prices for Medicare like any other large purchaser on the open market as it already may do for the Veterans Affairs system. End this corporate welfare which would save billions and billions.
- Allow anyone under 65 the right to buy into Medicare as a public option alternative to for-profit insurance. Younger, healthier consumers will flee their overpriced for-profit insurance plans and bring their dollars to buy Medicare premiums -- as a positive by-product of this for-profit insurers will be forced to lower their premiums for everyone else to stay in business.
- Best of all -- Raise the Medicare tax and make it progressive and lower the starting age to zero.
WASHINGTON, June 30 (Reuters) - Medicare will continue paying for Roche Holding's Avastin for breast cancer, a spokesman said on Thursday.
An FDA panel recommended on Wednesday that Avastin no longer be used to treat the disease because it has not proven safe or clinically beneficial in large trials.
Patient groups pleaded with the FDA to keep the Avastin breast cancer label. Some 17,000 U.S. patients take Avastin, which costs about $8,000 a month or $96, 000 a year each patient.
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It is ridiculous to pay that much for something that doesn't work. Ibet they didn't try to get a lower price.
We need to hire a head CEO from Wal-mart to cut the fraud, waste and abuse.
Preventive care is another Medicae rip off.
They need to go back to negotiating prices and also bidding on equipment and drugs.
I know Bush passed a law that we couldn’t bid on drugs, but he is no longer president.
They should not cut Medicare Benefits, they should cut the overcharges, etc.
http://www.ssa.gov/oact/trsum/index.html
"The projected date of HI Trust Fund exhaustion is 2024, five years earlier than estimated in last year’s report, at which time dedicated revenues would be sufficient to pay 90 percent of HI costs."
What this means is that given current laws and economic conditions, the Trust Fund (the surplus of revenue over expenditures) will be exausted in 2024, thirteen years from now, not eight. This does not mean that Medicare would be broke, just that there would be no surplus in the Trust Fund. Assuming current costs of healthcare increases (including the non-negotiated prescription benefits), as of 2024, Medicare would cover 90% of the costs that they currently pay. For example, instead of paying $50, they would be paying $45 for the same bill in 2024.
Thirteen years gives time for economic recovery (increased revenues via payroll taxes) and other 'tweaks' to improve Medicare, such as public buy-in (I would drop my private healthcare cover in an instant to buy into Medicare), and to recind the 'non-negotiable' prescription coverage (such as the VA uses now ~ drugs purchased thru VA are half the price of medicare part D purchases. Same drugs, just 'volume' discounts.)