POLL: Republicans Oppose Paul Ryan’s Proposed Changes To Medicare

[courseofhistory]

Yet according to Marsha Gold, a health-care expert at Mathematica Policy Research, the big difference between the two is this: Medicare Advantage, like Medicare, is a defined benefit (where the government guarantees a level of coverage), while the Romney-Ryan plan transforms Medicare into a defined contribution (where the government decides what it will pay).

LINK

 

[SniperFire]

And so we return full circle to the original point: under Romney-Ryan, seniors are not entitled to any benefit at all. They are entitled instead to a fixed dollar amount--a coupon, a voucher, Romneybucks, whatever you want to call that contribution. They can then look for a set of benefits to put it toward, provided they can pay the remainder of the costs for those benefits themselves.

That's the shift being proposed. It's a fundamental restructuring of the financial risk placed on seniors seeking medical care. And it's not a shift in their favor.

Pay attention:

'All insurance plans must offer coverage at least comparable to what Medicare provides today'


The 'traditional' Medicare plan will ALWAYS BE AVAILABLE WITH DEFINED BENEFITS AT LEAST AS GOOD AS TODAY'S.

So, as clearly as you can make it,

tell us where this alleged Romney plan saves any money.

I believe the idea is to have the free market compete for the insurance plans. These are, afterall, akin to guaranteed government contracts.

Romney / Ryan are two of the best numbers guys on earth, wouldn't you agree?

 

[NYcarbineer]

Pay attention:

'All insurance plans must offer coverage at least comparable to what Medicare provides today'


Medicare

I bet you're getting very close to a coherent point. Don't give up yet!

The baseline defined benefit will ALWAYS be available from the government which is equal to today's Medicare.

Get it?

I mean, do you fucking understand this part yet?

The FLOOR is set for defined benefits equal to today's medicare benefits. PERIOD.

IF competing plans are offered cheaper than the government plan, then a senior would have to pay out of pocket the difference if they wanted to stay on the government plan. And ALL PLANS would have the same benefit floor, but some may be offered cheaper as insurance companies compete.

But let me repeat for you, as you seem to be mildly retarded:

The FLOOR is set for defined benefits equal to today's medicare benefits. PERIOD.

We already have that, essentially, with Medicare Advantage. You're saying, essentially, that Romney is offering nothing particularly new.

 

[SniperFire]

The baseline defined benefit will ALWAYS be available from the government which is equal to today's Medicare.

Oy, step away from phrases like "defined benefit," you're confusing yourself.

Seniors are not entitled to a slate of benefits, they're entitled to a fixed sum of money to use as they search for benefits (which is true even if you believe that the GOP has re-discovered its love of regulated exchanges and will police benefit offerings). Again, this is the point of the proposed reforms.

All of the insurance policies have the same baseline benefits.

All you have to do is read it.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Pay attention:

'All insurance plans must offer coverage at least comparable to what Medicare provides today'


The 'traditional' Medicare plan will ALWAYS BE AVAILABLE WITH DEFINED BENEFITS AT LEAST AS GOOD AS TODAY'S.

So, as clearly as you can make it,

tell us where this alleged Romney plan saves any money.

I believe the idea is to have the free market compete for the insurance plans. These are, afterall, akin to guaranteed government contracts.

Romney / Ryan are two of the best numbers guys on earth, wouldn't you agree?

Medicare Advantage has been subsidized since the program began. Medicare Advantage has been costing more than traditional Medicare. Getting rid of those subsidies was the ACA Medicare 'cut', or one of them.

What's wrong with that, if Romney wants the private plans competitive with traditional Medicare?

 

[SniperFire]

Of course, we could always go with the Obama plan to save Medicare:

[youtube]Byw7uquFW4k[/youtube]

 

[Greenbeard]

Of course, we could always go with the Obama plan to save Medicare

Indeed we should continue pursuing the Obama plan to save Medicare: (1) shift the way Medicare pays for services away from encouraging high-volume, low (or mediocre) value service provision, and (2) promote and assist health care providers in delivering better care more efficiently and less expensively, while holding them accountable for quality outcomes.

You can see some of what's coming down the pike in results (i.e. slower cost growth, higher quality scores) from this private sector pilot in Massachusetts that incorporates some of these principles: http://www.usmessageboard.com/healt...-reform-model-lowers-costs-improves-care.html. More importantly, there are some early indicators that providers have already begun to reorganize care delivery in response to the ongoing and coming reforms, accounting for some of Medicare's current record-low cost growth--and offering some promise that we might be entering a new era of cost containment.

Romney-Ryan's plan to shift risk to old folks ignores the cost drivers underlying the problem; Obama's plan tackles them head on, as it actually seeks to address cost growth (and not just wriggle out of paying the bill, Romney-Ryan style).

 

[Political Junky]

Apparently the cons who support privatization of Medicare will have no problem affording the increased cost of their Medicare. That's an extra $6,000. a year they want to give to insurance companies, just for starters.

 

[Lakhota]

Wendell Potter: Ryan is a 'dream come true' for health insurance industry

For years, the insurance industry has contributed generously to candidates who want to hand over the Medicare program to private insurance companies. That’s exactly what Ryan’s so-called “Path to Prosperity” would do. It would end the Medicare program as it has existed for almost half a century—a program that guarantees access to affordable care for senior citizens—and replace it with a scheme in which beneficiaries would be given “premium support” to help them buy coverage on the private market. Yes, the traditional Medicare program would continue to be a choice under the 2012 version of Ryan’s plan, but it would have to compete with private insurance companies. And because, under Ryan's plan, insurers would be able to cherry-pick the healthiest seniors, the traditional Medicare program would likely be unable to survive over the long haul. Perhaps it should come as no surprise that Ryan's wife is a former lobbyist for the health insurance industry.

As the head of corporate communications for Cigna—charged, among other tasks, with disseminating financial information to the news media—I came to understand the lengths insurers routinely go to to satisfy shareholders and analysts. During congressional testimony in 2009, I explained how they make promises they have no intention of keeping, how they flout regulations designed to protect consumers, and how they make it nearly impossible to understand—or even obtain—information consumers need. I described how the big for-profit insurance corporations, in their quest to meet Wall Street’s profit expectations, often cancel the coverage of policyholders who get sick and how they implement “medical management” practices that often result in policyholders being denied coverage for care their doctors recommend.

The Affordable Care Act outlaws many of the most egregious practices of the insurance industry, such as refusing to sell coverage to people with preexisting conditions and charging older people many times more than what they charge younger people for the same coverage. Ryan proposes not only to privatize Medicare but also to scrap those consumer protections, by repealing the reform law.

Of course, Mitt Romney is trying to muddy the issue. On the day he announced Ryan as his running mate, Romney accused President Obama of using the reform law to cut $700 billion from the Medicare program. That’s not true. In reality, that figure is what the Congressional Budget Office estimates will be saved over the next several years as a result of changes in the way Medicare pays doctors, hospitals and drug companies—changes that doctors, hospitals and drug companies endorsed.

They endorsed it because they understand the importance of providing coverage to the millions of people who are currently uninsured. The uninsured all too often show up at the emergency room to get care when they get sick or injured, and all too often they can’t pay their bills. Hospitals call this uncompensated care, but somebody has to pay for it, and that somebody is everybody with private insurance. Family premiums now cost more than $1,000 extra to help cover that uncompensated care. That’s what cost shifting is all about.

More: Wendell Potter: Ryan is a 'dream come true' for health insurance industry - Lean Forward

 

[Lakhota]

Wendell Potter: 'Many seniors would die' under Ryan's Medicare plan

"If we were to implement the Ryan plan, you could rest assured that many, many senior citizens would die who otherwise wouldn't have to," said former insurance executive Wendell Potter on Tuesday's The Ed Show. Stark language, but he had the math to back it up.

"Over the past 10 years, premiums in this country have increased 113%," explained Potter, who is now an analyst at the Center for Public Integrity. The vouchers provided by the Ryan plan, which have a value based on the rate of inflation, would not be enough to increase future premium increases, he said.

"The cost of medical care has always exceeded the rate of inflation, so over time, the value of that voucher would diminish, to the point that seniors would be paying a lot more out of their pockets for the premiums, and a lot more out of their pockets for medical care," Potter said.

Not all seniors would be able to keep up; and those that couldn't just wouldn't get the medical care they need. "If we were to implement the Ryan plan, you could rest assured that many, many senior citizens would die who otherwise wouldn't have to, because of the fact that benefits would be reduced," Potter said.

Of course, that is not what the Romney campaign is saying. It has a new television commercial out blasting the Obama administration for allegedly cutting $726 billion dollars from Medicare. That charge "is absolutely false," said Potter. "What the president is doing—what needs to be done—is to reduce payments over the next several years, but he is not cutting benefits."

More w/Video: Wendell Potter: 'Many seniors would die' under Ryan's Medicare plan - Lean Forward

 

[Stephanie]

omg.

many seniors would DIE under Ryans plan, says's Wendel Potter of PMSnbc

good grief

 

[OODA_Loop]

Proposed Changes.

Not we have to pass it to find out whats in it.

That is already a change I can live with for 4 years.

 

[healthmyths]

Again what Potter doesn't obviously KNOW and much less wants to tell you if he DID..

A) Average insurance company PAYS 80% of all their premiums in CLAIMS!!
B) THEY AVERAGE 4.6% net profit BEFORE TAXES!!!
C This means those evil corporate salaries, computers,utilities, rent,office space, etc.etc...
Average less then 15% so that is NEVER mentioned though!!!

Just evil insurance profit grubbing and senior executive gross compensation..

Again people should be VERY suspicious of the extreme anti-business bias the MSM/Obama/socialists have and understand THESE people have NO idea of how to read a financial statement much less
how insurance premium actuaries work!

They make a fortune in denying claims and dragging their feet until people give up or die.

What a f...king idiotic statement!
"Make a fortune"!!! Denying claims!
YOU Idiot! Everything I wrote WENT so far over your head!
80% of every dollar in Premium goes to paying CLAIMS! THAT is not an indication of denial or waiting for patient to die!

What you and most idiots do is take the EXCEPTIONAL situation and make it the rule!
Why are people like you so f..king quick to jump to conclusions?
Is it something that makes you so stupid?

The truly sad state of today's discourse between people like you and me is one of us deals in FACTS the other heresay, anecdotal, the exceptional situation.

And the FACTS are :
Insurance pay 80% of the premium in claims,
They pay the $600 billion in "duplicate,specialist referral claims admitted by physicians
out of fear of lawsuits and so costs ESCALATE!
They pay the "padded and passed" on of hospitals because they simple raise premiums!

Stop these two gross cost drivers and watch premiums decline which will mean people affording health insurance.

But as long as idiots like don't deal in FACTS we have this totally inane and wasteful dialogue!

Deal with FACTS not suppositions.. not anecdotes, not the exceptions but what really happens day to day!

 

[Old Rocks]

On the evidence of their own proposed policies and hypocracy concerning seeking federal dollars, both Romney and Ryan will lose this election. Their plans for the eviseration of social services and increased spending on the military-industrial complex is not going to set well with American voters.

 

[Old Rocks]

A great many people already die in the US because of our nineteenth century medical system. People that would live in most other industrial nations.

 

[Political Junky]

omg.

many seniors would DIE under Ryans plan, says's Wendel Potter of PMSnbc

good grief

Which is what happened before Medicare.

 

[NYcarbineer]

You might want to consider another perhaps overlooked consequence of privatizing Medicare,

giving it over to the for-profit insurance companies:

Seniors will get a voucher.

The voucher will come out of tax revenues.

As the cost of healthcare continues to skyrocket, and as the insurance companies demand higher and higher premiums to cover the requirements of Medicare (and of course make their profit) the voucher value becomes less and less able to pay for the insurance and seniors have to pay more and more out-of-pocket,

BUT, and here's the consequence,

as that happens POLITICAL pressure will also skyrocket, and that political pressure will be to repeatedly increase the amount of the voucher - out of tax revenues -

and politicians, bowing to that clamor, will in fact comply, and all the savings you once thought were going to magically occur will evaporate,

and the voucher program will be just one more version of a government spending program sucking up billions and billions every year.

And don't think the private insurance industry doesn't know this...

 

[swizzlee]

Lady - PAY ATTENTION!

The Ryan plan does NOT affect ANYONE over 55.

No matter what you're paying, no matter whether you're on Medicare Advantage, no matter where you live.......

NOTHING will change for you under the Ryan plan. You will NOT be paying higher premiums. PERIOD!

 

[Greenbeard]

The Ryan plan does NOT affect ANYONE over 55.

Yes, it does. Preventive coverage, prescription drug coverage, and Medicaid funding (supporting long-term care, seniors' Medicare premiums, and any number of other things that Medicaid supports for nearly 1-out-of-4 seniors enrolled in Medicare) are affected immediately under Ryan.

The long-term deterioration of Medicare's market power under Ryan will have effects (e.g. access) for all seniors in the 2020s, regardless of whether they're 55 or older right now.

And certainly the shift away from Obama's reforms to the way Medicare pays for and delivers services -- aimed at actually getting costs under control (not just shifting them to seniors ala Ryan) and improving quality -- will affect everyone.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Lady - PAY ATTENTION!

The Ryan plan does NOT affect ANYONE over 55.

No matter what you're paying, no matter whether you're on Medicare Advantage, no matter where you live.......

NOTHING will change for you under the Ryan plan. You will NOT be paying higher premiums. PERIOD!

So the Ryan plan doesn't change Medicare at all for 10 years? Is that your claim?

When Romney and the GOP repeal Obamacare, as they promised, the insolvency date of Medicare falls back to 2016, under current conditions.

That's 4 years from now, not 10. The program would thus be broke before the Ryan plan even took effect, if what you're claiming is true.

Do you understand what I'm saying? Can you answer the question within?