A Kaiser Family Foundation study finds that converting to a privatized health care system would "cause 59 percent of Medicare recipients to pay higher premiums, some by as much as $200/month. The Obama campaign immediately put a link to the study on the website and the Romney-Ryan campaign charged that the study doesn't accurately represent their approach.
The group has noted that their findings should not be considered a report on Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and running mate Paul Ryan's health care plan due to lack of specific details. However, Kaiser stated that their research was modeled after the Romney-Ryan approach.
This Kaiser study found that the privatized plan they modeled would increase premiums for traditional Medicare coverage in Florida by more than $200 a month, and that in Nevada 50 percent of seniors would pay additional premiums of $100 or more per month.
Overall, the study found that 59 percent of all Medicare recipients would face higher premiums if they stick with their current coverage, including about half of those in the traditional program.
In five states -- California, Connecticut, Florida, New Jersey and Nevada -- more than 45 percent of beneficiaries would pay at least $100 a month more in premiums. ... But to the south, in Los Angeles and Orange counties, premiums would go up more than $200 a month.
"If coupled with caps on the growth in Medicare spending, a premium support approach could make federal (spending) for the Medicare program more predictable but also increase costs and financial risks for beneficiaries over time," the report said.
This article reports another study by the Commenwealth Fund suggesting that 72 million Americans would be uninsured by 2022 if the Romney-Ryan was put in place, and a USA study found that Romney's plan would cost families 92 percent more by 2016. The Romney-Ryan campaign was not enthusiastic about these studies either, "saying that the research was based on facts and statistics that were not representative of the Romney-Ryan approach."
We need to get this information out to voters in these key battleground states, ASAP. This is the kind of information that could be a game changer in Florida, and other very close battleground states.