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Health care expert changes mind on vouchers program
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Health care is one of the biggest issues on voters' minds this election. And health care means the Affordable Care Act and Medicare. Of course, Medicare's getting a lot of attention this convention season, because it's the one thing that both President Obama and Governor Romney want to talk about all the time.
The Romney-Ryan plan, of course, involves the use of vouchers, an approach that the Republican Party once rejected but has now come to embrace.
Henry J. Aaron helped write the Medicare voucher program now championed by Republicans, but has since opposed the program. He's an economist and noted health-care expert at the Brookings Institution.
Aaron says that Romney and Ryan are misrepresenting facts about Medicare and the Affordable Care Act in the plan they are proposing.
"What isn't acknowledged is that if the savings and the additional revenues that would flow into Medicare as a result of healthcare reform were repealed, as Mr. Romney has pledged to do, the date of insolvency of the Medicare hospital insurance trust fund would move up from 2024 to 2016 -- forward eight years -- by their proposal," Aaron said. "And we have not seen any suggestion of how equivalent savings could be achieved in some other way."
Aaron recognizes that there are flaws to the Medicare system (i.e. it isn't as efficient as it should be), but he said that the Affordable Care Act closes two-thirds of the long-term budget gap projected in Medicare; the remainder is fully financed.
For more details why Aaron is now opposing vouchers, listen to his interview above.
OK, we know health care is a hot-button issue for listeners of this show, and we're pretty certain you have something to say. So spill it!
It is important to remember that health care reform is about creating mega-health systems just like the Wall Street bank consolidation in the 1980s-1990s. These mega-health institutions will prey on the poor and elderly just like the banks.....there will be no entitlements if laws aren't in place keeping these health systems regional.
Medicare came into existence a half century ago because the insurance industry had no interest in insuring seniors or workers with significant health problems. The Republicans fought bitterly to stop the birth of Medicare, calling it “Socialized Medicine”, and they have actively worked against Medicare ever since. The voucher program pushed by the Republicans today is just their latest effort to undermine Medicare. The only people private insurers would be interested in competing for would be the healthy beneficiaries of Medicare, ghettoizing the higher cost beneficiaries in the traditional program. We have already played that game with Part C (Medicare Advantage); privatizing Medicare does not work. Just as Medicare Advantage was never about providing “competition”, the voucher proposal is not about “saving Medicare”. Rather, it is about limiting the size of the Federal budget. If the Republicans are successful in their deceptive plan Medicare will be gutted, seniors will be forced to pay thousands of dollars of extra medical expenses they currently don’t have to pay for, and our health care system will be put into a state of chaos.
Credit your (substitute) host for calling himself out as a liberal. When presenting "experts", especially from the liberal (wiki) Brookings Institute cum think tank, call them out as well or consider presenting a counterpoint from a conservative "expert".
Please let Americans know that wealthy taxpayers whose income is from investments instead of a job, haven't been paying into Social Security or Medicare. Obamacare fixes this . They will now be required to pay a .9% tax on their investment income. This strengthens Medicare for future generations.
This also makes wealthy people pretty mad. They would save money if they could opt out of Medicare and buy their own health insurance. The voucher system would work well for the wealthy. Not so great for the rest of us average working people.
I was glad to have Mr. Aaron note that the so called extras that cheaper plans like Medicare Advantage offer are most often "window dressing." My experience was just that. I was on home oxygen when I turned 65, which my work insurance had been covering except for the monthly co-pay. So that was vital to me...but I discovered that the Advantage plans I looked at didn't cover durable medical equipment (that's what oxygen therapy falls under). If I hadn't been on oxygen already, I don't think I would have checked that out. I'd be paying out a lot of money and I probably would not have known that Medicare does cover my oxygen at the same co-pay as I had had with my work. The other problems I noted with Advantage plans were there serious limitations, like I had to stay in the county I live in or be dropped, I could only receive emergency treatment if I was out of town or state, one required checking that your doctor would accept that insurance each time you went, etc. I'm glad Obama is controlling costs by curtailing Advantage plans that are about profits.
Medicare advantage plans are required to have benefits as good or better so you may have misunderstood the benefits. Your description of the benefit difference are hyperbole, such as the emergency benefit you describe. But if it fits your narrative, what the heck.
If Obamacare ifs fully enacted your finding a doctor will only get much worse as the doctors drop out of the plan. All the "savings" in the Obama plan are unrealistic and will not materialize because the public and physicians will rebel.
