Medicare - there should be, or should not be, a means test for eligibility ...

[slipslidingaway]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100711/ap_on_bi_ge/us_governors_debt_commission

"Republican Alan Simpson and Democrat Erskine Bowles told a meeting of the National Governors Association that everything needs to be considered — including curtailing popular tax breaks, such as the home mortgage deduction, and instituting a financial trigger mechanism for gaining Medicare coverage..."

[Sebastian Doyle]

1. There should be only one eligibility for Medicare

Q: "Are you a citizen of the United States of America"?

[RC]

2. I second that.

If the republicans weren't so money grubbing with other people money, we'd have that already.

[slipslidingaway]

3. Thanks and I agree, Medicare cuts scare me more than SS cuts...

several cousins in our family contribute to supplement a relative's SS income.

Medical bills are in a different league and would leave us virtually powerless to help.

[FooshIt]

17. this is dangerous thinking

because they won't let certain people become citizens, ever!

how about:

Q: "Do you need medical attention?"

[KamaAina]

18. Slight amendment

Q: "Are you a legal resident of the United States of America"?

Congress really boned the states that serve as gateways for immigrants, California chief among them, when it denied basic benefits to legal immigrants back when the repukes ran the playpen.

[tularetom]

4. There already is a means test on Medicare

not on eligibility but it is used to determine premiums for Part B.

Based on a sale of a piece of property, we showed a rather large (for us) capital gain on our 2007 tax return.

In 2008 I received notice from Social Security Administration that our premiums would be increased to reflect our increase ion income.

Subsequently our income returned to its pre 2007 level, but the premiums have never been lowered to reflect this.

[slipslidingaway]

6. Thanks, just a quick search and I'm sure there is more ...

from 2006.

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-1011295961.html

"Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y. (18th CD), issued the following press release:

A little-known provision of the law creating the Medicare Part D drug plan will soon take a chunk out of the pocketbooks of seniors across the country by means testing Medicare Part B for the first time in history..."

[mysuzuki2]

10. they will

take your latest tax return to an ssa office and ask that your premiums be adjusted. This should happen automatically eventually and a refund issued but you don't have to wait for that.

[regnaD kciN]

5. Neither Social Security nor Medicare should be means-tested...

...because, if they are, they become merely "more government welfare programs," and thus very easy to kill.

[slipslidingaway]

7. Agreed, but here is what James Clyburn had to say ...

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/05/28/james-clyburn-supports-means-testing-for-social-security/

"Mike Stark caught up with Democratic Majority Whip James Clyburn and asked him where he stood with regard to the Deficit Commission and potential plans to cut Social Security benefits.

Clyburn said he met with the commission yesterday, had confidence in its composition and had worked with Nancy Pelosi to choose the Democratic members from the House.

Mike asked him if he thought Social Security benefits would ultimately be cut. Clyburn replied “I don’t think it will be cut, I think there will be modifications, I think there will be adjustments.” But he also told Mike that he supports means testing, and that is explicitly a benefit cut:

CLYBURN To be fair — and I may get beaten up by some people on this, and that’s all right, I get beaten up a lot. But I think to be fair, you cannot possibly not modify a program that at the time of its enactment, we had 17 people working for every one person that was a retiree. Today, you have about three people working for every one person that is a retiree. Now that is unsustainable.

Now what we got to do is really get real about how we make that kind of adjustment. People are living longer, at the turn of the last century the life expectancy in this country was less than fifty years, at the turn of this century life expectancy got over 70 years.

When I was a little boy, my dad was 55 years old, I thought he was an old man. Come July 21 if all goes well, I’m going to be 70 years old. I’m not thinking about retiring. And so most 70 year olds I know are not thinking about retiring any more. And so ll of that needs to be taken into consideration going forward.

STARK: Is means testing the fairest way?

CLYBURN: I think that’s one way we ought to be…we ought to be discussing means testing. I think that those of us who operate at the income level that I operate at ought to be means tested..."

[Motown_Johnny]

8. If I understand this correctly...

we are talking about cutting the benefits of the wealthy so that there will be more money so spend on those of lesser means.


I am not against that in principle but it does seem to be politically precarious.

I'm not going to vote on this one because I think it is a more complex question than a simple yes or no.

[slipslidingaway]

12. For now this is just another trial balloon so there are no details...

as I said above cutting back on Medicare scares me more than cutting back on SS.

Hope that does not happen, then again we all know Medicare is the big problem, not SS.

One reason I thought we needed a SP system instead of the government having a large responsibility for the HC of seniors and leaving the profitable customers to the private sector.

IMHO that should have been explained to the American people.

[MrSlayer]

9. Sure, if you don't know how many houses you own, you probably don't need it.

I'm not sure where to set the bar, $250k, $500K or whatever but if you make one dollar more than the set amount a year then you don't need social security or medicare. I would personally prefer medicare for all but as it stands now I could get behind a means test. We should also significantly raise the SS cap.

[slipslidingaway]

13. HC costs are in a different category, a significant illness could put ...

many people in financial trouble. We'll see where this leads, but the idea that any recommendations will be made after the elections and could be voted on right before the holidays (without debate) necessitates being proactive IMO.

[SheilaT]

11. Do other countries,

all those others with "socialized" medicine, the ones whose citizens never have to worry about medical bills, do they means test?

I didn't think so.

Neither should we.

We should have Medicare For All.

[slipslidingaway]

14. We should and the future Medicare shortfalls should have been discussed...

when we did HC reform.

:(

[SheilaT]

15. The obscene sums of money

we spend on our military -- more than the entire rest of the world put together -- if used for things like Medicare, would fund health for all. I'm not saying cut military to zero, but lets start by funding health care and decent education and so on, and then, with what's left over -- and there would still be a lot left over -- then fund the military.

If everything is supposed to be on the table, then military spending should be part of "everything".

[slipslidingaway]

16. Totally agree! n/t

[KamaAina]

19. Same deal as SS

Remove the cap on the payroll tax so that everyone pays for it. That way everyone gets it, fairly.

[eShirl]

20. they only want a means test to make it easier to weaken Medicare and kill it off