Romney claims Obama "robbed Medicare" to distract from GOP plans to END Medicare

[ProfessionalLeftist]

The Ryan-backed GOP budet maintains these cuts, but rather than using them to improve the Medicare program, it applies the savings to pay for massive tax cuts.

The $716 billion figure comes from the Congressional Budget Office’s latest estimate of the Republican proposal to repeal the law, though the office doesn’t back up the charge that Obama stole the money from the current Medicare budget. Rather, the savings slow the growth of Medicare over the next decade: eliminate overpayments to private insurers, reform provider payments to encourage greater efficiency, tie reimbursements to improvements in economic productivity, and reduce fraud and abuse.

As a result, “growth in spending will be restrained” and the life of the Medicare trust fund is expanded by eight years, the government estimates. Sixteen million seniors are also benefiting from the savings by receiving preventive benefits without deductibles or co-pays and saving more than $3.9 billion on prescription drugs.

The Ryan-backed GOP budet maintains these cuts, but rather than using them to improve the Medicare program, it applies the savings to pay for massive tax cuts. As the budget chairman himself admitted during an April 5, 2011 speech at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), “We retain the Medicare savings” — and that’s not all. The Republican blueprint transforms the existing Medicare benefit guarantee into a premium support program that would provide seniors with depreciating vouchers to buy insurance from private plans.

http://www.nationofchange.org/romney-claims-obama-robbed-medicare-distract-gop-plan-end-medicare-1344871520

[SunsetDreams]

1. AARP, the seniors’ lobby and chief gatekeeper of Medicare benefits ENDORSED Obama Plan

The Medicare cuts, passed in the Affordable Care Act, come in the form of reimbursement reductions to hospitals, Medicaid prescription drugs and supplemental private insurance plans under Medicare Advantage. The Congressional Budget Office projects that they’ll extend the solvency of Medicare by eight years.

AARP, the seniors’ lobby and chief gatekeeper of Medicare benefits, endorsed the Affordable Care Act despite its cuts, arguing that they wouldn’t affect seniors’ access to care. The law expanded benefits by closing the prescription drug coverage gap known as the “doughnut hole.” The hospital and drug industries also endorsed the legislation, believing that the additional customers via the coverage expansion would more than make up for the cuts.

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The Congressional Budget Office projects that Ryan’s plan would raise seniors’ out-of-pocket expenses by $6,500 per year.

Obama’s long-term plan to save Medicare, approved under the Affordable Care Act, is to set up a panel of 15 Senate-confirmed experts tasked with issuing proposals to rein in the growth of spending if it exceeds a certain level. The Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB, may only propose cuts to providers, not beneficiaries. Congress may replace the cuts by passing its own or with a three-fifths super-majority.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/difference-between-paul-ryan-barack-obama-medicare.php?ref=fpa