Romney and Ryan yucking it up. Is it over trying to trick senior citizens?
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have gone to great lengths to try to convince America's seniors that, even though they want to end Medicare for future seniors, they're not going to do anything to harm current retirees. Medicare for the over 55 crowd, they insist, will be preserved and current seniors won't feel a thing. What they don't mention, though, is that
their plans to repeal Obamacare, while at the same time "restoring" the $716 billion in the law to Medicare Advantage programs, will hit current Medicare patients' wallets and hasten the end of the program.
Repealing the health law would mean higher Medicare premiums, the Kaiser Family Foundation found in a recent analysis. Wellness visits and prescription drugs also would cost more. [...]
The impact could be greatest for the lowest-income seniors, who qualify for both the Medicare and Medicaid programs, and there could be a significant slowdown in federal funds available for their care.
The health-care law cuts $716 billion in Medicare spending, largely by reducing how much insurers and health-care providers get paid to manage seniors’ care. Since Medicare beneficiaries pay a percentage of the program’s overall budget, lower spending means lower premiums.
“If the Medicare savings are repealed, and the benefit enhancements are repealed, there’s a direct effect on seniors today,” said Tricia Neuman, director of the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Medicare Policy Project.
Earlier this year, Health and Human Services
estimated that Medicare beneficiaries now save $94 in out-of-pocket medical costs, thanks to Obamacare. By 2021, they will be saving $572 compared to pre-Obamacare. That's because the slower rate of growth in Medicare costs means slower rate of growth for overall spending, including what seniors pay out of pocket. Repealing Obamacare would also mean the "donut hole," the gap between Medicare’s regular and catastrophic drug coverage, opens up again for some seniors. Closing it, as Obamacare did, is an additional $694 out of some seniors' pockets.
Repeal Obamacare? Poof! Seniors—current seniors—are paying more. That's provided Medicare continues to exist, not a safe bet under Romney/Ryan. That's just on the Medicare side. Don't forget what they want to do to Medicaid, and the six million seniors who are currently covered by it as well as Medicare. The cuts they intend to make to Medicaid are even more draconian than what they plan to do to Medicare, and that's where there will be real pain, right now.