Future Plans to GUT MEDICARE for Seniors - Voucher System

SeaBreeze

SeaBreeze

Endlessly Groovin'
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USA
This is one of the proposals made by republicans during the last presidential election, that made me lean toward democratic policies. Many of us here won't be affected by a change like this, but the younger folks just retiring will suffer from this type of governing...

On Tuesday, House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) released his new budget blueprint for fiscal year 2015. It contains many of the same cuts to social safety net and low-income assistance programs as his previous proposals — including sweeping changes to Medicare that would turn the health care program for the elderly into a “premium support” plan that forces American seniors to pay more for their coverage.

Ryan’s new Medicare proposal hews to the same basic structure as his previous premium support plans — in essence, a system of insurance vouchers. Under the plan, future Medicare beneficiaries would have the option of choosing between traditional fee-for-service Medicare or a list of private health plans and receive a subsidy to help pay the chosen policy’s premium.

Unlike previous Ryan budgets, however, seniors who are currently 55 or younger would be forced into this alternative system, likely breaking a pledge House Republicans made last year promising that current 55-year-olds would be able to stay on traditional Medicare.

Ryan emphasizes that his proposal still gives seniors the choice of remaining in regular Medicare. But what he doesn’t mention is that his plan makes Medicare so expensive that millions of seniors will likely be forced to switch into the private plans.

While Ryan employs a different type of bidding system for private health plans under his 2015 blueprint that softens his plan’s topline effect on beneficiaries’ costs, an earlier Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis of Medicare premium support systems found that plans such as Ryan’s would increase traditional Medicare premiums by a staggering 50 percent.

Learn more here:
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/04/01/3421546/paul-ryans-latest-attempt-to-gut-medicare/
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One of the central tenets of all of Rep. Ryan’s budgets has been a proposal to tear down traditional Medicare and replace it with a voucher system, forcing seniors to use these vouchers to buy either Medicare or a plan in the private market.

The budget offered this year once again guts traditional Medicare. The House Republican budget abandons the pledge Republicans made to protect anyone age 55 or older from their Medicare cuts. While last year’s plan allowed those age 55 and older to remain in traditional Medicare once they became eligible, this year’s plan forces 55-year-olds into a new voucher system.

While Rep. Ryan uses a different formula than in past budgets to set the value of the voucher, it would still make traditional Medicare increasingly unaffordable for senior citizens.

Higher out-of-pocket premiums for traditional Medicare would force seniors into private plans, where they may not have access to the doctors they want to see.

The Congressional Budget Office, or CBO, previously found that under a premium support plan, premiums would increase by 50 percent for traditional Medicare. Despite all of the outrage from House Republicans about the changes made by the Affordable Care Act, their budget would mean that many seniors would not get to keep their same insurance and doctors.

Full article here:
http://www.americanprogress.org/iss...oken-record-of-failed-trickle-down-economics/
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I know, most of us have worked hard all of our lives and paid taxes on each and every paycheck, only to get shafted in our "golden years". I guess retirement is only for the wealthy anymore, to hell with the middle class.
 

SeaBreeze said:
I know, most of us have worked hard all of our lives and paid taxes on each and every paycheck, only to get shafted in our "golden years". I guess retirement is only for the wealthy anymore, to hell with the middle class.
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We seem to rushing headlong into the past.
 
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I over heard a couple of people talking about the, "older generation", at my pharmacy yesterday. The two were talking about how we are costing "them" taxes, and taking money out of their pockets, so they didn't have any disposable income. That we had a free ride. When one of them called us the disposable generation I lost it. I asked them if they had parents, or if they planned on growing older. I asked them what was their plan for their old age. One of them actually told me that was why people had families.
I said they needed to go back and read the history of social security, and why it was implemented in the first place.
I was told to shut up, and be glad that I was't disposed of a long time ago. As I was there by myself, they won that argument. I was an Independent voter, now I thinking of voting Democratic. :hide:
 
That's the beauty of being an Independent Ina, you can vote either way. As time goes on, I am leaning more to the Democratic side of the aisle. That's not the first time I've heard stories of these young people's comments. They are just parroting what they've heard elsewhere, and basically don't have a clue. Their time will come, if they live that long.
 
Why Paul Ryan's FY2015 House Budget Proposal Would Kill Medicare

The new GOP House Budget Proposal by Paul Ryan would kill Medicare as we know it. Hopefully most of us here won't be affected, but some of the younger seniors approaching retirement will...

April 1, 2014
Statement by Medicare Rights Center President Joe Baker on Representative Paul Ryan’s House Budget Proposal

New York, NY—The budget released today by Congressman Ryan repeats on an old and tired theme—ending the Medicare program as we know it. The Ryan budget would replace Medicare’s guaranteed health benefits with a voucher (or premium support) that seniors and people with disabilities would use to purchase health coverage through private health care plans.

The Ryan budget’s privatization scheme would grind away at traditional Medicare, funneling younger and healthier retirees into private health plans and leaving older, sick beneficiaries in the traditional Medicare program. Providing coverage for this vulnerable population will make traditional Medicare more expensive and less able to compete. In short, the Ryan budget preserves Medicare as we know it, only to allow it to wither on the vine.

At the same time, the Ryan plan forces seniors and people with disabilities to pay more for less. The Ryan budget would raise the Medicare age of eligibility and force middle class beneficiaries to pay higher premiums.

The Ryan budget would repeal key advancements made by the Affordable Care Act to strengthen Medicare benefits, including more affordable prescription medicines and access to low cost preventive health care benefits.

Congress must reject this plan and instead look to responsible options, like obtaining lower prices for pharmaceutical drugs and advancing the delivery system reforms made possible by health care reform, to secure Medicare’s future for years to come. In many ways, the Medicare program is stronger than ever.

Adoption of the Ryan budget would only serve to dismantle that success.

http://www.medicarerights.org/newsroom/press-releases/4114-2/
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Why Paul Ryan's budget proposal would kill Medicare as we know it for those approaching retirement age...http://democrats.budget.house.gov/fact-sheet/gop-budget-ends-medicare-guarantee
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Paul Ryan is a dangerous nut. Unfortunately, Florida has a governor nearly as crazy. They are extremists. It is up to us to educate ourselves so we can better inform others how our system of Social Security and Medicare came about and how it will benefit them when they get older. I teach personal financial planning to college students of all ages and it is amazing how little they know about civics, politics, and policy. They get their news from talking heads on TV and radio who are all biased one way or another.
 
CPA-Kim said:
Paul Ryan is a dangerous nut. Unfortunately, Florida has a governor nearly as crazy. They are extremists. It is up to us to educate ourselves so we can better inform others how our system of Social Security and Medicare came about and how it will benefit them when they get older. I teach personal financial planning to college students of all ages and it is amazing how little they know about civics, politics, and policy. They get their news from talking heads on TV and radio who are all biased one way or another.
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You are correct, Kim, what is really sad is the fact that there are entirely too many of these extremist nuts in leadership roles.....the governor of Texas can be added to the list.
 
Looks like they're giving up the idea to transform Medicare? If so, that's good news. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...publicans-surrender-on-transforming-medicare/


So if Republicans no longer want to talk about voucherizing Medicare (or “premium support,” as they would have it), does that mean they’ve given up the idea? I actually think it does.

This doesn’t mean they wouldn’t do it if they could. But they know they can’t, and this is a concession to that reality.One of the main reasons Ryan put his voucher proposal down on paper was to start a debate that over time could move opinions and make change possible. But it didn’t work.

Maybe he didn’t have enough time, or maybe altering Medicare in this way is just politically impossible and always will be. Either way, once you stop talking about it, you have no chance at all to build support for your position, and that affects your range of options in the future.

It isn’t as though a Republican president could get elected, then Congress could just spring an overhaul of Medicare on the public. “Oh, by the way, while we’re cutting taxes and increasing defense spending, we’re also going to turn Medicare into a voucher program.” Not a chance.

It takes years to prepare the ground for that kind of change. Republicans may still want to do it someday, but if they’ve stopped putting it in their budgets, it’s a sure sign they’ve given up on trying to enact it any time soon.
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Look! Republicans greedily looking at SS and Medicare has been going on since both programs inceptions. Franklin Roosevelt brought us SS in 1936 and Johnson put Medicare into law in 1965. The Republicans have been trying to either eliminate or trim both programs ever since. I will NEVER vote for a political party that has so little respect for seniors. If the younger people would stop and think we seniors were them, we were young and all we want now is a stress free last quarter of our life. We are what they want to be and what they will be if lucky. Right now the only restraint the Republicans have is our Democrat President. We must elect a Democrat or pay the consequences.
 
Most people here would be grandfathered in from what I see. Any system replacing entitlement programs would be set up pretty much like a 401k that has replaced traditional defined benefit pension systems. Good luck to the younger generations that face these uncertainties...
 
The GOP has had it's eyes on SS and Medicare since their inception. Privatizing Social Security and voucherizing Medicare are nothing more thanh "GIFTS" to Wall Street and the Health Insuance industry.. Just another way to move money away from the Middle Class and up to the top. I'm just not sure what the end game is. What kind of America do they foresee? Dickens England comes to mind.. A very small upper class.. and 99% of us living in shanties and eating garbage? It makes no sense.
 
[h=1].......and today...

Repub House Budget Proposal to be released this morning: Sharp cuts[/h]to Medicaid, food stamps and health care subsidies, tens of billions more to the Pentagon (over what President Obama asked for).

House Republicans Tuesday will propose using tens of billions of dollars in additional war funding to get around tight budget limits on the Pentagon in their new budget plan. The move is designed to placate defense hawks, but is already making tough-on-spending elements in the party uneasy.

The latest plan by Republicans controlling the House also reprises sharp proposed cuts to the Medicaid program for the poor, food stamps and health care subsidies under so-called Obamacare.

House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price is releasing the measure Tuesday morning. He's said it will promise balance within 10 years, if not before.

The Georgia Republican's plan borrows heavily from prior GOP budgets, including a plan that would transform Medicare into a voucher-like "premium support" program for seniors joining Medicare in 2024 or later. They would receive a subsidy to purchase health insurance on the private market.
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http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-03-16-17-37-30
 
Can you just see it? Seniors trying purchase health insurance? Especially if the Insurance Companies are again allowed to deny insurance for pre-existing conditions.. Who at our age doesn't have pre-existing conditions?. In addition, I'm sure they will be allowed to increase premiums for better plans way above the voucher amount, and offer only the most minimal of coverage for those unable to pay more. Seniors will be left to pay the difference if they hope to get good care.... the care that the present Medicare program offers will be out of reach for most.
 
Our present Health Care System, and Medicare/Medicaid is headed for a brick wall. The Greed in our present system is going to bring down this entire house of cards. The Insurance and Drug companies, and the AMA, etc., are quickly pricing themselves out of existence. Already, Health Care is far and away the largest single expenditure in our Federal and State budgets, and is growing at a pace that far outstrips inflation. The ACA does nothing to slow down these increasing costs...instead it just moves money around, to the benefit of our Health Care Industry. We spend 17% of this nations GDP on Health Care, and all indications are that this number will reach 20% within the next few years.

Contrast this to the SP health care systems that most of the rest of the civilized world uses. They pay half of what we pay, and the vast majority offer their populations far better care than what we receive.

The ONLY thing keeping us subservient to this current Bloated and inefficient system is the millions of dollars the Health Care Industry pours into our politicians political campaigns. I wonder how long it will take before the people of this nation wake up and realize just how badly we are being shafted.
 
Lobbyists are choking Americans slowly to death, literally in some cases (denied medical procedure or medications)! They are the hand shakers and back patters who, with their brethern in Congress are taking good care of themselves and screwing the rest of us. Yep! That's them hacking at our incomes and it will still be them gnawing at our bones.
 
Most of these politicians spend Far More time sucking up to the Lobbyists than they ever do meeting with their constituents....and the vast majority of these Lobbyists represent the wealthy, corporate, and special interests...few, if any, which have the well being of the general population as part of their agenda. Big Money, and its Oligarchy, are taking over the governments of this, and most other nations. Most of the voters get their information from the Attack Ads that permeate our media in the weeks leading up to elections. With every passing election, we become more and more of a Democracy, in Name Only.
 
Ina said:
I over heard a couple of people talking about the, "older generation", at my pharmacy yesterday. The two were talking about how we are costing "them" taxes, and taking money out of their pockets, so they didn't have any disposable income. That we had a free ride. When one of them called us the disposable generation I lost it. I asked them if they had parents, or if they planned on growing older. I asked them what was their plan for their old age. One of them actually told me that was why people had families.
I said they needed to go back and read the history of social security, and why it was implemented in the first place.
I was told to shut up, and be glad that I was't disposed of a long time ago. As I was there by myself, they won that argument. I was an Independent voter, now I thinking of voting Democratic. :hide:
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I've heard similar talk, and it makes me mad as hell. I PAID into Social Security for over 50 years Medicare and social security were promised to us when we were younger, and we trusted the government's promise. How dare these young whippersnappers decide we are now disposable! I certainly wasn't disposable when I was paying a whopping tax bill every year. How much taxes do these young people pay? Probably not much. And my property tax dollars educate their children! I haven't had any children in school for years and years, yet I still have to pay for education.
 

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