Oh, whaddyaknow! Turning Medicare into a voucher program does end Medicare as we know it and will be devastating to seniors:
A new study out today by the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation confirms what many have been saying for a very long time—the Romney-Ryan Medicare plan would result in six out of ten seniors paying substantially more for the same Medicare benefits they receive today.
The premium support approach to Medicare involves the government providing seniors with a set amount of money each year—pegged to the second lowest priced private health care plan available—in an effort to turn over health care for seniors to the private insurance market. While proponents of the approach believe that this will generate more competition in health care, make seniors more responsible for how they spend their health care dollars and result in less spending on seniors by the federal government, critics have argued that the sum of money the government would pay would be insufficient to cover the rising costs of health care, leaving seniors exposed to having to pay an ever growing portion of their health insurance coverage.
The Kaiser report backs up the critics.
Not that anyone in the media will notice.
dr. bloor
They will after Smokin’ Joe Biden chews their collective ear off about it while doing the AM news show rounds on Wednesday.
trollhattan
fxd in anticipation of Willard’s response.
Corner Stone
This concept always baffles me.
Gozer
So we’re supposed to expect the same people who routinely get snookered by faux African Princes and reverse mortgages to know the ins and outs of all the myriad health-care plans out there?
Baud
@Corner Stone:
To be fair, there are a lot of seniors who waste their health care dollars on food.
Just Some Fuckhead
Opinions differ.
Suffern ACE
@Corner Stone: my guess is that they will spend healthcare dollars on whatever it is their doctor knows will be reimbursed. Much like they do now.
Corner Stone
@Baud:
Damn them! Damn them to Hell!!
cmorenc
The media will dutifully note the Kaiser study, but as a passing reference in the context of furthering horse race themed coverage of the election.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@trollhattan:
Hang the Kaiser was our slogan the last time the Navy was this small.
Baud
@Corner Stone:
Interestingly, that was the original title for Ryan’s budget.
Yutsano
@Just Some Fuckhead: We’ll just have to leave it there…
Paul
After spending more than a trillion dollars on our hard earned tax dollars on the Iraq war (easily the dumbest war in my life time), I find it just insulting to now hear that they want ME to spend my health care dollars wisely.
GoodGuyGreg
What drives me nuts about this is the “conservatives” my age and younger (40-ish) say, “of course we’ll have to pay more when we get older, we SHOULD if that’s what it takes to get the country out of the red…”
All the while, they’re driving a leased Lexus, living in a house they can *just* afford & sending their kids off to private school. They have no concept that at the age of 70 they will not be receiving a commissions check at the end of each quarter that’s going to cover the mortgage/rent/car note/doctor visits/etc.
It’s incredible to me the GOP has convinced half the population that jumping off a cliff will lead this country back to “greatness”.
trollhattan
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Your steely internets, where would you like them, please?
Just Some Fuckhead
Put a sock in it, Greg.
Bill Arnold
For people on a fixed income, this would often mean choosing to not go the doctor. Which is the intent of this flavor (the Republican flavor) of healthcare rationing: Healthcare rationing through increased freedom. Win-win.
Suffern ACE
@Bill Arnold: but once I year you could fire the company that wasn’t paying, and get another one that won’t be paying.
trollhattan
How long before Issa is investigating Kaiser FF for cooking the study’s books on behalf of Obama? “Something doesn’t smell right, Chicago-style.”
HRA
A few weeks ago while I was waiting to be summoned into my doctor’s presence, two seniors were told they did not have to pay the copay. Although they were surprised, they did not ask why. I began to wonder if this was the result of ACA. If it was ACA, I do wish they had been told.
Anyone know why they did not have to pay a copay?
Baud
That would be the one with Dr. Nick as your primary care physician.
John O
It won’t matter. People get the government they deserve, and I sense one last hurrah for trickle down economics.
It’ll be a train wreck, but until some people get personally hit over the head with a clown hammer they won’t believe it, or will refuse to believe it.
I really think Romney’s going to lie and buy his way to the WH.
Hill Dweller
@HRA: Yep. The ACA reforms give seniors preventative care visits with no co-pay.
trollhattan
@HRA:
Hard to say. My MIL was in the hospital for a week earlier this year and we have yet to see so much as an invoice. ACA is supposed to close the infamous donut hole, but given it’s being rolled out stepwise over several years, I simply can’t keep track of what’s in place and what’s yet to come.
IIUC the exchanges are to be in place next year.
ruemara
@HRA: That would indeed be the ACA in action. It lead me to jump willynilly over to the doctor’s for a checkup and even to allow tests to be done. It was all heady wine.
ruemara
@HRA: That would indeed be the ACA in action. It lead me to jump willynilly over to the doctor’s for a checkup and even to allow tests to be done. It was all heady wine.
Paul
@John O:
On TPM today, they had an article about how Romney had a decent lead in the swing states. It was primarily women that had switched sides from Obama to Romney after the debate. After the war on women, after the GOP objection to the Domestic Violence Act of all things, now women are going to vote for the standard bearer and leader of the war against women.
It is just mind-boggling. Yes, people get the government they deserve. Good luck to them.
El Cid
Yes, but that’s not the Ryan-Romney plan. You keep talking about this Ryan-Romney plan to change Medicare into some voucher program. Well, that’s not our plan. Under our plan, all the good stuff keeps happening and none of the bad stuff. And the details we’ll work out with Congress once we’re elected and the time comes.
Corner Stone
@Paul:
Women! Sheesh!
Bill in Section 147
@trollhattan: not even to mention fascist, Hitler-loving, and Soros lick-spittle.
gene108
@trollhattan:
Willard doesn’t have to get his hands dirty with declaring the KFF a left-wing front group for the ghosts of Chariman Mao, Karl Marx, Lenin and Stalin, because that’s what Rush, Fox News, et. al. are for; they do the dirty work for Republican politicians, so the pols can stay “above the fray” until a couple of news cycles, when it becomes “something everyone’s talking about on the news” and then mention it as a put down of the opposition.
MikeJ
@trollhattan:
My wingnut mother, who hates all things Obama, particularly hates the fact that the doughnut hole the Republicans put in won’t be completely closed until 2020.
BTW, here’s a nice chart about how much people will save each year until it is closed.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Corner Stone:
In 2010, it was people of color and the kids. In 2012, it’s women. This is why we can’t have anything nice.
Ben Franklin
I never thought Kaiser, which suborned Healthcare with HMO’s (thanks tricky Dick) in the early 70’s, would have a redemptive perspective on Obamacare. There is hope.
henrythefifth
Good thing they spent all that money and took months on a study to tell us all what was patently obvious.
MikeJ
@Corner Stone: I was under the impression that while the President has numerous problems facing him, perhaps as many as ninety nine, his standing with women was fairly solid.
Alison
@Corner Stone: Seriously. My grandma passed away very recently, and now my grandpa is alone for the first time after 60+ years of marriage, and has early-stage Alzheimer’s, not to mention depression that he’s never wanted to admit to and that is (completely understandably) only getting worse. Yeah, I really want him to have to wade through the muck and bullshit of the private insurance market and decide what’s best for him and his needs. MAKES PERFECT SENSE.
Ugh.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Paul: Somebody at NBC posted a tweet today quoting their “politically engaged cabbie” (yeah, i know) as saying, “In my heart, I like Obama, but in my head, I think I support Romney”. No tweets on how said cabbie answered when our intrepid reporter followed up by asking which policy positions of Willard’s said cabbie supported.
Jay in Oregon
Which brings us back to:
If Ryan’s bitchin’ Medicare plan is so freedomy and has lots of cost-savings-osity to it, why exempt current Medicare recipients?
Don’t they deserve to save money and get better healthcare?
Why does no one seem to ask RomneyRyan(R) this basic question? Or does Ryan start whining about how math is hard before finally yelling “SMOKE BOMB!” and diving out a nearby window?
gene108
@trollhattan:
I thought the exchanges go live 2014, when the mandate kicks in.
I think 2016 will be interesting.
All the Democratic/liberal talk of how the PPACA was a Republican/Heritage foundation plan will find its way into Republican campaign ads, as they look to take credit for Obamacare.
Also, too Republicans dubbing the PPACA Obamacare may blunt the impact of these ads a bit.
quannlace
What does that even mean?
Are there all these wild eyed old-timers out on a toot, throwing money away on flu shots and blood pressure medication? The nerve!
ruemara
Why did my comment post 2x? I hit enter once. Stupid WordPress.
Paul
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’m just speechless. This guy is part of the 47% but will still consider voting for Romney in spite of his insulting comments to this cabbie.
So I guess this cabbie is OK with giving up part of his income to support the tax cuts for billionaires, fine with dismantling ACA, fired up about a war with Iran, is on track to support himself without Medicare or Social Security when he retires.
Good luck to him. We all have a right to vote and we all have to take responsibility for how we ultimately vote.
PreservedKillick
And this was, somehow, not patently obvious?
There is a HELL of a hidden bomb in this plan. The voucher is equivalent to the cost of the second lowest priced plan in your area. Kaiser is assuming that the plans are equivalent. You can bet that the republican’s will drop this requirement, in which case insurers will be free to offer crap plans at a very low price – which many seniors will go for (thus not having coverage for a lot of potential problems) – and also driving down the defined benefit, thus driving up costs for “real” coverage by an even larger amount.
Also, too, Kaiser projects that 77% of the seniors in FL would pay more, even without the bomb. 77%!
ruemara
@Paul: I’m fairly sure the cabbie is as real as unicorns, tooth fairies and Kirsten Stewart’s 3rd facial expression.
ranchandsyrup
i love the winger “source” game. NFIB is totes non-partisan to them. Same for AEI.
Jay in Oregon
@quannlace:
It means that when seniors end up out on the street because their health care costs bleed away what little money and assets they have, conservatives can feel good about telling them it’s their own fucking fault.
pseudonymous in nc
Here’s a line that PBO can use for free:
“Perhaps Gov. Romney’s idea of a happy retirement is spending hours comparing deductibles and co-pays and reading the small print of policies and waiting on hold with insurance companies; I think most seniors would like to use that time with their families and doing the things they saved up for their whole working lives.”
gene108
@MikeJ:
I think Romney’s debate performance basically reassured a lot of folks, who have been on the fence about President Obama that Romney isn’t as bad as the Obama campaign has portrayed him to be.
Because of the slow recovery there’s a lot of trepidation to vote for President Obama. At some level, if ‘A’ isn’t working like you want, then try ‘B’ is instinctive in a lot of people.
Heck, my mom – a fairly liberal, solidly Democratic voting person – didn’t want to vote for President Obama, when I visited her in June for her birthday. She said Obama hadn’t done enough about jobs and spent time on non-job things like HCR and Fin. Reg.
When she visited me in July or August, she said she’s definitely voting for Obama, because Romney’s such a sleazy guy.
A lot of less liberal minded, yet equally frustrated folks, were probably thinking Romney’s sleazy, but came away from the debate and post-debate coverage getting over their reservations about Willard. There’s no putting Romney back into the “sleazy-hole” with this set of voters, unless he really screws up worse than the 47% video. I don’t see it happening.
Davis X. Machina
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The cabbie is male. Men vote for Romney. The “head” he’s talking about is not north of his shoulders.
Corner Stone
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I thought in 2010 it was the cultist devotees of Ed Schultz going around nationwide, flattening the tires of those community buses that bring people to the polls.
Paul
@ruemara:
You’d be amazed how many low-information voters like this cabbie that there out there. It still makes me speechless each time I hear examples about it.
Ruckus
@GoodGuyGreg:
It’s incredible to me the GOP has convinced half the population that jumping off a cliff will lead this country back to “greatness”.
It’s the lemming party.
Derp
@MikeJ:
I see what you did there, and I am in awe. Well played.
raven
Lima, Peru (CNN) — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the buck stops with her when it comes to who is to blame for security ahead of a deadly assault on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.
“I take responsibility” for what happened on September 11, Clinton said in an interview with CNN’s Elise Labott soon after arriving in Lima, Peru, for a visit. The interview, one of a series given to U.S. television networks Monday night, was the first she has given about the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.
TenguPhule
So Romney’s winning the abused spouse vote? Guess the bruises have already healed and he’s sent them flowers.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@TenguPhule: someone linked to a CNN (yeah, I know) article about “Wal Mart Moms” including a single mother, who worked 50+ hours a week and was trying to finish a medical assistant program, who said the forty-seven percent comments bothered her, but then Romney apologized, so now she’s back to undecided.
Michael2
Plus, even if they did and they reported it, Romney/Ryan would just say the report didn’t use the correct constituent parts of _their_ actual plan, but they can’t explain it because it’s too complicated, but no, totally trust them, because *they* are right and the Kaiser study just has the wrong numbers. Which are secret. Also.
Quaker in a Basement
So there will still be health care and we’ll still call it Medicare. The only difference is it will cost a buttload of money.
See? All that “getting rid of Medicare” talk was just one big lie, lie, lie!
Ben Franklin
@raven:
“I take responsibility”
There’s not enough of this. Good on her, but i don’t think it should rest on her broad shoulders, alone.
raven
@Ben Franklin: I commented earlier that Obama needs a sensible response to this issue tomorrow night and I think this is a step in that direction.
Corner Stone
@Ben Franklin:
But are they the kind you could land a 757 on?
Corner Stone
Am I the only person here who plans to watch The Noodler and The Rivers go at it on a little thing they used to call MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL?!
raven
@Corner Stone: PIP knucklehead!
raven
@Ben Franklin: I commented earlier that Obamba needs a sensible response to this issue tomorrow night and I think this is a step in that direction.
Corner Stone
@raven: Why? What else is on tonight?
Ben Franklin
@Corner Stone:
Just for context, let me tell you a story.
In the early 90’s I had a business that went belly up. The Bankruptcy Trustee was giving us fits which arose because his staff was incompetent. I wrote Hillary and within two weeks the Trustee was sucking on my kneecaps because a clerk was burying paperwork, and the WH call drove a spike up his ass.
I will never forget that.
srv
You all need to stop seeing problems and start seeing opportunities. Health care mutual funds are going to skyrocket under Mittens. Get that reverse mortgage now and double down.
raven
@Corner Stone: Cards-Giants.
Corner Stone
@raven: I was bustin’ balls because there’s no football open thread for MNF, or Open Thread for whatever pornographic activity may be floating your personal boat tonight.
PurpleGirl
…pegged to the second lowest priced private health care plan available…
The Kaiser FF may have treated all plans as equal but we know they are not and will not be equal. If the budget law says the “premium support” is pegged to the second lowest priced plan, we can predict now that any plan that is aimed at that cost point will not cover a number of major health issues. We know that private plans now do not cover any number of things. It will just be much worse for Seniors.
becca
@HRA: If they were getting flu shots or some other preventive care they would not have a co-pay.
ACA at work.
Mnemosyne
@GoodGuyGreg:
So they’re willing to pay more for healthcare when they’re seniors in the distant future, but they’re not willing to pay higher taxes right now when it would actually do some good and ensure they they wouldn’t have to pay more later?
You’re going to have to ask the question of them, because I would probably be shaking them by the ear and getting all shouty about it.
Mnemosyne
@raven:
I know this is a typo, but now I’m going to be going around singing it to the tune of “La Bamba” for the rest of the night.
My husband may be having words with you later.
Brian
@MikeJ: ROFL… I do feel bad for you son.
Sly
“Hello, my name is [insert random minor celebrity from the 70s], and I’m here to tell you about the amazing new insurance plans from Colonial Heartland Enterprise American Trust. If you’re sixty five years or older, call this number on your screen now and our talented and caring agents, many of whom remind you of your grandson, will help you explore all the fantastic options that we have to offer!”
Cain
@raven:
I can see the political ads now when Clinton runs for President. Combine the two towers and her statement about 9-11. Uh huh..
Cain
I think Romney is still fucked.. His route in EC is still a uphill slog.
We need to get out there and start phone banking. Get as many newer voters.
The thing with the women switching over is disheartening considering what all the Republican party has done in regards to women. Demographically, they would not be voting in their interest at all.
opie_jeanne
I love Kaiser. I wish we had it here in Seattle.
Falmouth
The polls don’t take into acct those with cell phones only or supposedly those who are poor in English. This should distort their results by at least a couple of points and hopefully Obama is still up a little in many of the toss up states. As far as low info voters go, many aren’t uninformed they are just believing the outrageous lies of the right.