Key points:
"Mr. Obama prefers to talk about how his plan will cut the cost of health care, but most of those changes he emphasizes are long-term goals aimed at altering the way medicine is practiced. In the short run, he and his congressional allies need to find immediate savings to pay for the subsidies they want to offer the uninsured to buy coverage.These cuts to government spending aren't expected to reduce the cost of care for people with private health insurance. In fact, some would argue that health-care providers will simply increase rates they charge others to make up for cuts from the government.
In February, the White House outlined cuts to federal health-care spending that wound up totaling $309 billion over 10 years. The administration also proposed $327 billion in tax increases, for a total of $636 billion—what officials called a "down payment" toward the full cost of the health-care package.Those proposed health care spending reductions included a big hit to health insurance companies, reducing payments made to the Medicare Advantage program."
In addition to all the other horrific implications of the full Obamacare agenda, it's clear that the Obamanation wants to kill off Medicare Advantage. If you're not familiar with that program, it's the privately administered alternative to original Medicare popular with many savings because it offers better coverage, lower premiums (sometimes at no cost to seniors), in many cases including prescription drug coverage.
Medicare Advantage poses a threat to any form of government health care because it is an indication that free market solutions to health care coverage are significantly better than government "solutions", which are less effective and more costly, despite what "progressive" economists and other agenda drumbeaters want you to believe.
Many fixed income seniors find Medicare Advantage to be a blessing, because original Medicare has outrageously high deductibles (Part A, the hospitalization portion's deductible is over $1000 per admission), and the cost of a Medicare Supplement policy, which helps cover these expenses, generally has a much higher premium than the Medicare Advantage programs, and prescription drug plans are an additional cost.
The savings to the beneficiaries who choose Medicare Advantage can be dramatic, but with the stealth plan to eliminate it, these seniors will pay a cruel hidden tax, one that many can't afford.In its place, we get diversion and the "Hope 'n Change" song and dance from the Obamanation and the Obaminator.
Meanwhile, we get more expensive, lower quality health care for all, and a significant portion of our citizens (joining with the other postions of the population) will end up suffering dramatically, all to fulfill a cherished "progressive" worldview social and economic agenda item.
#
No comments:
Post a Comment