2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumI think see an even larger political advantage in the Medicare debate.
President Obama's changes extend solvency through 2024. Romney says he would repeal those changes, which would end Medicare's solvency around 2016, our next Presidential election year.
We should be pushing the fact that if Rmoney's plan goes into effect then there is no turning back. Medicare's money will be spent before we can possibly inaugurate another President.
I think that President Obama's surrogates should start saying "We need to be absolutely certain about this vote because if Romney gets his way there won't be any way to turn back". People don't like to make those type of absolute choices and will tend to either vote for the choice which drags things out or to not vote at all.
This would also help to bring up the fact that Rmoney would not make any changes until 2023 but that he would spend all the money by 2016. Just WTF is supposed to happen between 2016 and 2023? I'm pretty sure they don't have an answer for that because the only possible answers are to run up the deficit or increase revenues (or some combination of the two). Unless of course they just end Medicare altogether, for everyone.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/16/medicare-trustees-repealing-obamacare-cuts-would-hasten-insolvency/
^snip^
A bit of background here: Obamas Affordable Care Act Medicare cuts reduce how much the program pays hospitals, private insurers and other providers. The $716 billion in savings helped free up funds to pay for other health programs, like the expansion of insurance to 32 million Americans.
That was the primary purpose, at least. There was also a really important side effect: The health care law extended the solvency of Medicares Trust Fund. If the program pays hospitals less, each dollar stretches a little bit further. Earlier this year, the independent Medicare Board of Trustees estimated that with these cuts the trust fund would remain solvent through 2024.
Without those cuts, however, the budget gets a little tighter. Medicare keeps paying providers at the same rates it does now, but each dollar buys less. And that means, according to these trustees, that the trust fund would no longer be able to cover Medicares costs as soon as 2016.
Simply undoing the cuts would restore higher payments to those service providers, Alonso-Zalidvar writes. And that would cause Medicare to spend money faster.
toddwv
(2,830 posts)This is why Romney only wants hand-picked moderators.
His "plan" for America is to pick up in 2006 where the last Republican administration left off.
The complete dismantling of over 100 years of progress.
wordpix
(18,652 posts)O should explain how it works: everyone pays in to the system via taxes and a reasonable premium, which is how it works now. The only difference is, you don't have to wait until age 65 to get the benefits.
Let Rmoney explain after that how his plan is better
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Sunlei
(22,651 posts)evaporate before their eyes.