The proposal to raise the Medicare age has a moral dimension that must be exposed. As many as 500,000 seniors will lose medical insurance if this happens. Some argue it won't be bad because Obamacare and Medicaid will pick up those poor seniors (but where are the savings then?). This ignores that the Supreme Court in upholding Obamacare let the states reject the Medicaid expansions (by ruling unconsititutional the hammer forcing compliance, which was removing all Medicaid funds if the state refused).
Greg Sargent of WaPo on The Plum Line reports on what the Republican attack on the elderly will do if accepted by Dems:
But a new report to be released later today undercuts that argument — and finds that up to half a million seniors could lose insurance if the eligibility age is raised.
The report, by the Center for American Progress, points out a key fact that’s been mostly missing from the debate: The hope of getting seniors who lose Medicare insured through Obamacare could be seriously compromised by the Supreme Court decision allowing states to opt out of the Medicaid expansion. This would inflate the number of seniors who could be left without insurance, because many would fall into the category of lower-income senior that would be expected to gain access to Medicaid through its expansion.
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“With opponents of the health care law still working to block it at every turn, many more seniors would become uninsured because they would have nowhere else to turn,” CAP’s president, Neera Tanden, tells me. “As a result this misguided proposal would undermine the promise of affordable health care for all.”
On top of this, the report finds, raising the eligibility age could also undermine a key goal of Obamacare by inflating medical costs and health care spending, for a range of reasons: Cost shifting, tampering with the health and age levels in insurance pools, and an increased reliance on private insurance, which isn’t as good as Medicare at controlling costs.
Please contact your congressperson and senators, both Democrats and Republicans.
Tell Them Say No to Ebeneezer Scrooge politics. Tell them you vote and tell them the pain and suffering of the elderly who lose insurance will be upon them.
This is not Romneyland where we say to the old and infirm, go suffer and die unless you have money. This is America.
Where are the churches, mosques, synagogues, ashrams, zen centers, temples, etc., on this? They should be in the streets and pulpits condemning this.