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Save Medicare From Private Vouchers
Once again, Rep. Paul Ryan has reiterated his plan and commitment to “save” Medicare through priatization. (http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/2012/05/medicare-two-paths-two-futures/568246) If only the logic of his plan was as clear as his determination to change Medicare into a set of capped vouchers. If passed, the popular community Medicare program would be replaced. Instead, individuals eligible for Medicare would get an annual alloawance to shop for their own insurance coverage.
Yet again, the Ryan plan would eliminate Medicare, not save it.
Quick!
Stop paying anything more to Medicare Advantage plans than to traditional Medicare. Listen to the GAO and stop all bonus payments to private Medicare plans. Start negotiating what Medicare pays for prescription drugs. Then recalculate Medicare’s fiscal solvency and begin serious discussions about Medicare’s future.
Constant calls for changing Medicare into a Voucher system will simply increase privatization of Medicare. Once again we’ll give taxpayer dollars to the insurance industry, increase costs to older people, disabled people, and their familes – and do nothing to address the needs of tomorrow.
Change the conversation. Insist on real solutions.
Let Health Care Reform Work!
Hello, Supreme Court:
Since the Affordable Care Act became law in 2010, significant progress has been made to enhance access to health care for all Americans. The health care reform law is strengtheing Medicare, helping families, and saving taxpayers money. This progress touches the lives of millions of Americans — of all ages, from every state, and every walk of life. That’s why the Constitution authorizes the FEDERAL government to implement this kind of law for the general welfare.
The Affrodable Care Act will help millions more Americans if it is fully implemented.
Let it work!
Affordable Care Act’s 2nd Anniversary: So Far, So Good
We are happy to celebrate the second anniversary of health care reform. Since the Affordable Care Act (ACA) became law in 2010, significant progress has been made to enhance access to health care for all Americans. This progress touches the lives of millions of American families.—from every state, and every walk of life. We look forward to the law’s full implementation in 2014.
Health care reform has already improved and strengthened Medicare. It’s helping older and disabled Americans in many ways, including:
1. Adding Medicare preventive health care services, usually at no cost, including an annual wellness visit, many cancer screenings, vaccines, smoking cessation and dietary counseling. This means people with Medicare can work to maintain their health and can recognize problems early, when treatment is most effective.
2. Increasing Medicare coverage for prescription drugs for people with the highest medication costs, by providing more coverage during the “Donut Hole” coverage gap. These benefits will continue to improve every year through 2020, when the “Donut Hole” will end, ensuring continued cost savings for older and disabled people.
3. Insisting that private Medicare Advantage plans provide real value to those who enroll, including appropriate Medicare coverage and quality customer service. Beginning in 2014, the law will also require these plans to spend at least 85% of the premiums they collect on medical care, rather than on excessive administrative costs and increased profits. The law also saves Medicare and taxpayers millions of dollars by ending wasteful overpayments to these private insurance companies.
These are just a few of the ways ACA insists on fair value in return for taxpayer dollars, while improving health care for older and disabled people. And this is just the beginning. If the Affordable Care Act is allowed to proceed as designed, it will continue to enhance access to quality health care, increase efficiency, and reduce costs to Medicare and taxpayers.
Spread the word about the value of the Affordable Care Act and the need to see it through to full implementation. Health care reform is good for Medicare, good for families, and good for the country. Let it work!
No Medicare For Mitt
How much does Mitt Romney really care about Medicare’s solvency? A lot. So much that he has decided not to enroll or use it at all - even though he’s turning 65.
What should we take from this? One thing for sure, Mitt Romney can afford a whole lot more financial risk than most Americans. Unless he has private insurance that will pay as the primary policy even after he’s Medicare eligible, Mr. Romney is accepting a huge liability if he intends to pay for his own heath care. Either way, he’s in a very different position than the vast majority of older and disabled Americans who MUST rely on Medicare to help pay for their health care and can not obtain insurance that will take its place.
Is Romney going to lead a battallion of well-to-do Americans out of Medicare? Leaving behind those who can not afford to pay either for their own care or for preciously rare primary insurance available to people eligible for Medicare. What a shame that would be.
Mr. Romney should enroll and rely on Medicare coverage like most Americans do when they turn 65. As a would-be national leader he should experience firsthand what works and what doesn’t, what coverage is and should be available. He should be part of the Medicare community and help it stay viable for all those who look to this national treasure to help pay for health care.
If Mr. Romney really cares about Medicare he should vote for it with his feet.
Protecting Medicare and the Middle Class: Themes From The State of the Union
As described in his State of the Union address, the President’s blueprint for a lasting economy is both necessary and commendable. An essential part of that blueprint is ensuring all Americans have access to high-quality, affordable health care. As the President stated, we need to ensure that Medicare “remain[s] a guarantee of security” for older Americans and individuals with disabilities. When private insurance let older people down in the 1960s, Americans embraced the President’s theme of “shared responsibility” to care for our most vulnerable citizens by creating Medicare. While the economic security of the middle class has declined for decades, Medicare has dramatically enhanced the economic and health security of hundreds of millions of older Americans and people with disabilities.
And yet, the future of Medicare hangs in the balance as members of Congress discuss ways to privatize Medicare and diminish the security it provides for middle class families.
“We applaud the President’s commitment to continuing Medicare as a community program that families can rely on,” states Judith Stein, founder and executive director of the Center for Medicare Advocacy. “Medicare is an American success story. It has served American families and adapted with the times for more than four decades. It has provided a critical economic lifeline for families” she continued. “We can not afford to risk the security of the next generation by giving Medicare away to private insurance companies.”
The Center for Medicare Advocacy also echoes the President’s call to uphold the consumer protections and health coverage in the Affordable Care Act. “The Affordable Care Act greatly enhanced Medicare,” says David Lipschutz, policy attorney at the Center for Medicare Advocacy. “Since it was signed into law, millions of older and disabled Americans with Medicare have received more help in paying for their prescription drugs, putting money back into their pockets. Among other things, the Affordable Care Act has also added no-cost preventive benefits for people with Medicare and extended the solvency of the program.”
Medicare is a tried and true American value that provides high-quality, cost efficient health care for our grandparents, parents, neighbors and friends. “Pretending to protect Medicare by shifting costs from the federal government back to older people and their families would negate Medicare’s original purpose: to protect older people and their families from illness and financial ruin due to health care costs,” said Judith Stein. “We thank the President for defending Medicare’s guarantee of security and resisting calls for a private voucher system that would further endanger the middle class and destroy the national treasure we’ve known as Medicare.”
CMA in the New York Times: Don’t Privatize Medicare
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/opinion/medicare-and-private-health-insurance.html
CMA Responds to the NY Times: Don’t Privatize Medicare!
Dec. 4, 2011
The New York Times
620 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10018
To the Editor:
Your December 4, 2011 editorial (”What About Premium Support?” ) about changing Medicare into a voucher system wisely states many of the problems with public subsidies of private health insurance for Medicare beneficiaries. All such experiments have cost more and provided less value to those in need of coverage.
I have been an advocate for Medicare beneficiaries for almost 35 years. I’ve seen numerous forays into privatizing Medicare. Clinton-era plans, Medicare Plus Choice, Medicare Advantage: none of them have provided better coverage more cost-effectively than the traditional Medicare program.
I don’t recommend a private plan to my mother. That should be a good test for anyone championing premium support.
Additionally, ever-increasing private options have made Medicare too complex, especially given the very limited number of advocates available to help beneficiaries understand, choose and navigate the system.
Call it what you will, ”premium support” is the latest jingle for privatizing Medicare. It’s not a new or creative idea, and it will only add more costs and confusion. What we need is an objective look at what’s needed to encourage participation and cost efficiencies in traditional Medicare, not further adventures in privatization.
JUDITH STEIN
Executive Director
Center for Medicare Advocacy
No Deal is Better Than a Bad Deal
The Center for Medicare Advocacy is neither particularly surprised nor terribly disappointed that the Super Committee did not reach a budget cutting agreement. Many of the Medicare proposals the Committee was considering, such as increasing the age of eligibility and increasing cost-sharing for beneficiaries, would be harmful to the Medicare program and to older and disabled people while not decreasing overall health care costs.
There are ways to strengthen Medicare and reduce costs – such as requiring Medicare to negotiate drug prices, never paying private Medicare plans more than traditional Medicare, adding a drug benefit to the traditional program, lowering the age of Medicare eligibility, and letting the Affordable Care Act do its job. The Center for Medicare Advocacy has long advocated these ideas, and others like them, that would achieve real cost-savings without harming beneficiaries or ending Medicare altogether.
There is still time to secure the financial welfare of Medicare and the country, without doing so at the expense of older, disabled people and their families. There are solutions if those in authority will insist on spending only what is necessary to provide fair health coverage, and refuse spending one dime to change Medicare into a publicly-funded opportunity for private insurance and pharmaceutical companies.
With the end of the Super Committee, decision-makers have a new opportunity to carefully explore such solutions. If politicians find the will, there are ways to save Medicare, meet the needs of its beneficiaries and decrease costs.
