Via Talking Points Memo:
In a leaked copy of their party platform, snagged by Politico on Friday afternoon after the Republican National Committee accidentally posted it to its website before taking it down, the GOP details their plan to privatize Medicare and Medicaid, dropping the current single-payer model in favor of a voucher program similar to the insurance exchange model envisioned by the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The platform also proposes 65 as the eligibility age for the new voucher program (Americans are currently eligible for medicare at age 62). Although the replacement programs will still be called “Medicare” and “Medicaid,” after privatization the original programs will no longer exist.
“The first step is to move the two programs [Medicare and Medicaid] away from their current unsustainable defined-benefit entitlement model to a fiscally sound defined-contribution model,” the draft platform reads. “While retaining the option of traditional Medicare in competition with private plans, we call for a transition to a premium-support model for Medicare, with an income-adjusted contribution toward a health plan of the enrollee’s choice. This model will include private health insurance plans that provide catastrophic protection, to ensure the continuation of doctor-patient relationships.”
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has found that the Republican plan will raise seniors’ out-of-pocket medical expenses by thousands of dollars.
Unlike the first Ryan budget proposal unveiled in 2011, the Romney-Ryan plan includes the option for seniors to buy into a government-run plan with their vouchers. In other words, the GOP plan to replace Medicare would also allow for a public option, something that the Obama administration failed to include in the ACA.
#1 by brewski on August 27, 2012 - 1:17 pm
Which part of ““While retaining the option of traditional Medicare ” didn’t you understand?
#2 by Richard Warnick on August 27, 2012 - 1:19 pm
How much of the cost of “traditional Medicare” will the vouchers pay for under the Kill Medicare Plan, and how much has to be paid in cash?
#3 by brewski on August 27, 2012 - 1:23 pm
The CBO estimate was on a plan which has now been discarded and replaced. The new Wyden-Ryan plan looks nothing like the one the CBO estimated.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/12/15/143782004/wyden-ryan-medicare-plan-shakes-up-politics-more-than-policy
“Wyden-Ryan is more like Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which also features health insurance exchanges, than Ryan I, which would have forced seniors to fend for themselves,”
Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute.
You seem completely ignorant that the old plan was already tossed out and replaced. Try to keep up.
#4 by brewski on August 27, 2012 - 1:24 pm
I guess the Progressive Policy Institute is really Fox News.
#5 by Richard Warnick on August 27, 2012 - 1:26 pm
Joseph A. Palermo says it better than I did.
#6 by brewski on August 27, 2012 - 1:29 pm
http://budget.house.gov/uploadedfiles/wydenryan.pdf
#7 by Richard Warnick on August 27, 2012 - 1:30 pm
brewski–
The ACA exchanges won’t control health care costs, so why do you believe that the Romney-Ryan Kill Medicare Plan exchanges will control costs?
Increasing costs – fixed vouchers = increasing costs.
#8 by brewski on August 27, 2012 - 1:38 pm
Wyden-Ryan retains traditional fee-for-service Medicare as a guaranteed option for retirees. Liberals take note: This is the Medicare equivalent of the “public option” you wanted President Barack Obama to include in his health reform proposal.
#9 by brewski on August 27, 2012 - 1:41 pm
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/73590.html
So what you are saying is that the Progressive Policy Institute is wrong?
#10 by Richard Warnick on August 27, 2012 - 2:00 pm
brewski–
Politico got the story wrong (as they often do). The Romney-Ryan Kill Medicare Plan does not offer “traditional” Medicare. It offers a public option that you can buy into using your voucher plus cash.
The Illusion of Paul Ryan’s Bipartisanship
Apparently they are trying to trick the news media, and some media outlets are falling for it.
#11 by brewski on August 27, 2012 - 2:20 pm
It is not a Politico story. It is a piece written by PPI. Does PPI often get it wrong?
#12 by brewski on August 27, 2012 - 2:28 pm
So what you are saying is, that if through a bipartisan healthcare commission, they agreed on the original Wyden-Ryan plan, then you’d be for it. That sounds like the basis for a deal.
There would be no need to blatantly bribe senators to vote for it.
#13 by Richard Warnick on August 27, 2012 - 2:31 pm
They got it wrong this time. The best you can say in their defense is that the opinion column is from last March, and Ryan didn’t release his Ryan 2.0 budget proposal until April. So the author of the piece, Will Marshall, got conned by Ryan’s phony “bipartisanship” just as Wyden did.
In answer to your question, the long-term solution to “saving” Medicare (which is in no immediate danger) would be to control health care costs. No one is proposing to do that, even though our costs are double compared to other developed nations. There is nothing inherently wrong with the Medicare model. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
In fact, we ought to expand Medicare so that all Americans can get covered.
#14 by cav on August 27, 2012 - 5:23 pm
They make deals only to blow them off – do what they want anyway.
Some refer to this behavior as lying.
That’s certainly my take.
#15 by brewski on August 27, 2012 - 5:40 pm
“There is nothing inherently wrong with the Medicare model. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”
I assume you were trying to be funny.
1.
Medicare faces an unfunded liability of $38.6 trillion, according to the Medicare Trustees report.
2.
Medicare underpays health care providers, so costs are shifted to other patients, raising everyone else’s costs for the same scare.
3.
The Medicare model is a strict fee for procedure model which pays low quality providers more and punishes high quality providers. The Mayo model is much better.
Your proposal is the Greek suicidal model.
#16 by cav on August 27, 2012 - 5:45 pm
brewski: Everybody, if you read it below my name, it is a cold, hard, objective fact.
The rest of the population: And that’s your opinion.
#17 by brewski on August 27, 2012 - 6:02 pm
huh?
#18 by cav on August 27, 2012 - 6:51 pm
A vote for Romney is a vote to kill Medicare.
#19 by cav on August 28, 2012 - 8:38 am
Today is the day the GOP unveils its spiffy new platform.
http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd113/lamepandp/293483_521579434534239_658993410_n.jpg
#20 by brewski on August 28, 2012 - 9:24 am
A vote for Obama is a vote to kill America:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-crpXgcnRG5I/T0yM6JAa3pI/AAAAAAAABFo/8oU1vjiP3vI/s1600/Ryan-vs-Obama-debts.png
#21 by cav on August 28, 2012 - 2:37 pm
How did it come to this?
#22 by brewski on August 28, 2012 - 3:44 pm
Because they aren’t that smart.
#23 by cav on August 28, 2012 - 5:11 pm
We have messed with the primal forces of nature…
#24 by cav on August 28, 2012 - 6:03 pm
Ann Romney is expected to get a dramatic assist: the Romney campaign confirmed Monday night that the candidate will travel to Tampa on Tuesday, though officials coyly would not say why or whether he just might stroll onto the stage after his wife speaks during prime time to energize the convention.
This henpecked sonofabitch can’t make a move without his wife’s say-so.
I hope the ChiComs aren’t watching this pathetic charade.
#25 by cav on August 28, 2012 - 8:47 pm
The conventioneers, and the country for that matter, seem desperate for magical, painless solutions to very real problems. That, and someone to blame – all the while decrying the govt din’t build nuthing…we did it with our ‘personal responsibility’.
#26 by cav on August 29, 2012 - 5:10 pm
The yacht where the elite donors of the Romney Victory Council are partying in Tampa bears the flag of the Cayman Islands.
#27 by brewski on August 29, 2012 - 7:49 pm
I was just in Greece and I saw a lot of yachts with American flags on them. I asked a Greek man at the marina why were there so many US boats but I didn’t run across any American people. He told me those boats are all owned by Greeks who register them in Delaware to avoid Greek taxes.