National View: Real Medicare question is about social insurance
August 18, 2012 at 7:00 pm in Duluth News Tribune
Republicans and Democrats are being equally nasty in their campaign rhetoric, but they’re not being equally truthful. To cite one example, much of what the GOP is saying about Medicare simply isn’t supported by the facts.
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Interesting article. So, given that I’ve been reading how medicare generally pays half or less of what providers bill them currently, and now according to this article under Obama’s plan we’re going to “slow the rate of growth to medicare providers”, I doubt it takes an economics professor to figure out there will be a problem real soon. Can anyone figure out what it is ????? Just think for two seconds and it should come to you.
If the government had a program where upon I reach 65, they start making my house payment for me so I can stay in my house. Let’s assume the costs increase each year to to rising property taxes, rising insurance etc… Due to budget shortfalls, they decide to “slow the rate of payment growth”. How long do you think my load holder will decide to keep accepting payments for my house that are lower than they should be ?
This “cut” will be come apparent when more and more providers decide they cannot afford to accept medicare patients. I believe this is already starting to happen and by “slowing the rate of growth”……it’s going to slowly get much worse.
So, It’s really kind of easy to see how this really is a cut in medicare benefits. If you can’t find a provider who’ll take medicare in the future due to cost controls and end up driving 50 miles to find one who will……how is that not a cut in your benefits ?
I’m not at all saying no changes need to made to keep this program solvent…..but what ticks me off is that one side is advocating changes to keep the program solvent well into the future, while the other is saying they will not make any changes that directly affect seniors all the while knowing that in the very near future their changes will indeed affect seniors and their ability to access healthcare at all local providers. You can’t pay providers less given that they already only paid 50 cents on the dollar in many cases and think this will have no direct effect in short order on seniors access to local healthcare at the clinic of their choice.
You’re darn right that will result in a change in their benefits !
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