Romney Adviser Says GOP Would Extend Medicare’s Solvency By Raising The Eligibility Age
Source: Think Progress
Romney Adviser Says GOP Would Extend Medicares Solvency By Raising The Eligibility Age
By Aviva Shen on Aug 19, 2012 at 10:42 am
Earlier this week, Mitt Romney pledged to restore Obamacares savings in the Medicare program a move that would move up the insolvency date of the programs trust fund from 2024 to 2016.
On Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace asked Romney senior adviser Ed Gillespie how the campaign would extend the life of the program if the Romney-Ryan reforms wont kick in until 2023, long after Medicare reached insolvency. Gillespie replied by insisting that a Romney administration would raise the age eligibility to 67:
WALLACE: But the problem is, those reforms dont kick in until 2023. It doesnt affect any seniors or anybody close to being a senior. But that doesnt solve the Medicare part A problem which kicks in in 2016. What are you going to do to keep solvent between 2016, after you have repealed Obamacare, and 2023?
GILLESPIE: Governor Romney supports increasing over time bringing Medicare eligibility in line with the Social Security retirement age
The Congressional Budget Office says assumptions about the Medicare trust fund being solvent through 2024 under the Obamacare proposal is unrealistic.
Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/08/19/711011/romney-adviser-says-gop-would-extend-medicares-solvency-by-raising-the-eligibility-age/
TheMastersNemesis
(10,602 posts)indie_voter
(1,999 posts)Vincardog
(20,234 posts)Faygo Kid
(21,478 posts)If you are 64, he would move the eligibility age by at least a month.
If you are 60, forget about Medicare until you are 66, at least.
If you are 55, forget about Medicare.
Really, he wants to end it: Give an 80 year old a voucher for $6,000, that's it, and negotiate with insurance companies.
Good luck with that.
Rosa Luxemburg
(28,627 posts)they are certainly playing with fire
wordpix
(18,652 posts)Talk about another etch a sketch...
NorthCarolina
(11,197 posts)I'm pretty sure Obama is also amenable to, if not already working towards, raising the eligibility age.
OKNancy
(41,832 posts)It seems it would be better to lower the age, get more premiums from younger, healthier citizens.
Plus, people could retire earlier and make way for younger workers.
No matter. This was a stupid thing to say. Keep talking Republicans.... dig that hole deeper.
xtraxritical
(3,576 posts)Screw R&R, vote Democratic.
BlueMTexpat
(15,366 posts)wordpix
(18,652 posts)WHEN CRABS ROAR
(3,813 posts)Oh, and Medicare for all.
Lets get out of the dark ages.
WestSeattle2
(1,730 posts)applies to all earned income. Social Security has an income cap of $106,900. I think it's important to keep that distinction clear. The withholding for Medicare is currently 1.45% for most wage earners, for high income earners it will be more beginning next year:
http://www.shrm.org/hrdisciplines/compensation/articles/pages/medicaretaxhike.aspx
Botany
(70,490 posts)Are they trying to lose the election in a landslide?
BTW Social Security and Medicare DO NOT COME FROM THE SAME FUNDS.
yourout
(7,527 posts)NBachers
(17,107 posts)cap
(7,170 posts)So that the elderly can keep working at a job that offers health insurance? Also what are its plans for covering the increase in applicants for disability from those people who are too sick to continue to work? Ya know, people do get sicker as they get older.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)Some on DU say it is wrong, just wrong to bring up the fact that Mitt was a missionary for utterly racist dogmas deep into his adulthood, they claim it is wrong to suggest Mitt still supports racist bullshit just because he taught others that God orders racist bullshit until he was pushing 40....
flamingdem
(39,313 posts)What a bunch of putzes.
onehandle
(51,122 posts)Keep it up, bozos. Soylent Green will be the 1%.
kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)PD Turk
(1,289 posts)I am a peaceful man and I abhor violence, but begrudgingly admit it has its place as the very last resort.
I don't know how much longer we can go in like things are going.Our repeated Petitions for redress have been answered only by repeated injury.
It may be time to break out the tumbrels very soon. It's not what I want to see but it may be our only option left
Maeve
(42,279 posts)So all you hard-working blue collar types can just suck it up a bit longer.
progressivebydesign
(19,458 posts)I remember that from Bush days. When they discussed Medicare and such.. They had a formula to decide, based on your age and income, etc., how much money they should spend to keep you alive, and what your life was actually worth.
So a low income grandma, around Ryan's mother's age, who lived in subsidized housing, and had no savings.. well her life would not be worth enough money to justify paying for life saving treatments for her, etc. Wish I could find the link on that.
csziggy
(34,136 posts)My husband is working off the farm just to get health insurance. Since 2001 his health insurance has paid for numerous operations that have kept me going, including both my knee replacements this year.
He'd really like to retire but both of us have pre-existing conditions that made getting insurance for any cost impossible. He was hoping to retire at 63 but the age for eligibility for Medicare was upped to 65 so no go.
Our best hope for affordable insurance coverage before we're eligible for Medicare will be the insurance exchanges set up under the ACA - but we're in Florida and pRick Scott will not set one up. So now we have to wait for the federal government to set up one for Florida - IF the Republicans don't win and don't repeal or gut the ACA.
DallasNE
(7,402 posts)Then he is obligated to explain why it is unreal since this is CBO that he is challenging. Likewise, the Romney camp keep claiming there will be no changes in benefits with Romney even making that claim himself using his white board but others have shown that repealing the ACA will add back considerable expenses that ACA reduced and this proposal to delay by 2 years when you can start Medicare is another expensive change Romney would put in place.
Many people physically cannot work in their present jobs until they are 67. Example, construction workers, firemen and other jobs that are physically demanding. This is what is realistic. Does Romney suggest they take a less demanding, minimum wage job to bridge those years? How do Republicans like Romney make this happen? Just throw these people under the bus. It is easier for someone who has never lifted anything heavier than a pencil to say raise the eligibility age to 67 but that is not the reality for a vast pool of Americans at an age where health insurance becomes vital.
My question to Gillespie would be which is more important, existing Medicare coverage for seniors or another huge tax cut for the top 1% that are currently paying in the 13%-16% range using Romney's and Ryan's own tax returns as a source.
kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)Social Security will be able to afford the $700/mo that insurance at that age will cost just FINE.........
Oh wait.......when the repukes repeal the ACA, medical insurance for folks that age will cost $1200/mo or more.......
MurrayDelph
(5,293 posts)With the current states of unemployment, retirement age should be made LOWER not higher.
And the solvency question would be ended if they removed the cap.
Historic NY
(37,449 posts)what a way to extend the life of a program while filling holes in your local cemetery. Sounds like a win-win for Republicans.
Harmony Blue
(3,978 posts)Please do this GOP. Makes this the centerpiece of your platform for the electorate.
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)Some of them, especially union jobs, used to. Now, you either need to keep working until Medicare kicks in, or have a spouse who is still working and gets health care benefits.
Like many people, I am in my current job specifically for the health care, even though I'm the most amazingly healthy person I know. In another year, when I'm on Medicare, I will consider finding something else I'd prefer to do, knowing I'll have Medicare.
hollysmom
(5,946 posts)It cost 12K a year for an HMO, I could not wait until I could get on Medicare and save that money.
wordpix
(18,652 posts)That would be an immediate savings.
AlphaCentauri
(6,460 posts)should be some one with the following experience, never had made more than 60 000 a year in the private sector, had to pay for their children college education and be eligible for Medicare.
Just to make the presidency closer to real humans in America.
bucolic_frolic
(43,128 posts)It troubles me that the MSM continues to look to the same old hacks
who are long past mental competency for opinions on what should be done.
And such biased examples are by no means exhibit sound judgment if they ever did!
sendero
(28,552 posts).... to save it!
greiner3
(5,214 posts)Certainly not to Romney, Ryan and/or any Republican, the actuarial tables do show the average age for Americans is and will continue to rise. Medicare was 70.17 years, 7 years lower than it is now.
Maybe there will b a decrease in US's life expectancy; obesity. Many studies show obesity takes 10 years or so off the average citizen's life. However, the increased costs associated with cronic and life long obesity would eat into the savings that lowered life expectancy would incur.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)WestSeattle2
(1,730 posts)raising the eligibility age to 125 would allow them to kill it while claiming they "saved" it! Exactly like Ryan's voucher scam.
THAT's a republican wet dream.