Alleged $700B ACA 'cuts in Medicare' were discussed several times on MTP
this morning. RNC Chair Priebus denounced them. Rachel Maddow sparred with National Review editor Rich Lowery over them, pointing out the same cuts are in the Ryan budget.
But lost in the discussions was a crucial detail: The Medicare Advantage cuts are in payments to providers, NOT in the health benefits guaranteed to seniors by Medicare law. It's essentially a cut in extra corporate profits extracted from Medicare thanks to a Bush-era corporate welfare program. By reducing overpayments to vendors but maintaining benefits to seniors, the ACA cuts actually STRENGTHEN guaranteed health benefits to seniors.
In comparison, the proposed Ryan budget cuts actual benefits to seniors, while expanding corporate welfare for health insurers. Ryan would guarantee payment of a certain amount per senior to each insurance vendor, while completely removing Medicare's guarantee of actual health services for senions.
Here's a Bloomberg story quoting a Republican healthcare finance expert to this effect:
From http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-28/medicare-scare-ad-makes-false-claim-of-cuts-for-seniors.html :
"Medicare Scare Ad Makes False Claim of Cuts for Seniors
By Heidi Przybyla - 2012-06-28T16:27:45Z
"Florida seniors will be living a 'nightmare' because Senator Bill Nelson voted for $500 billion in Medicare cuts, the anonymous voice warns in the most-aired advertisement in his re-election race -- a message repeated in similar spots targeting other Democrats across the country.
It's also wrong, according to a Republican health-care expert and independent analysts. 'There are no reductions in the Medicare benefits promised in law,' said Gail Wilensky, who served as administrator of the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare under President George H.W. Bush and is a senior fellow at Project Hope, a health-research organization in Virginia. ...
President Barack Obama's 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, ... the core of which was found constitutional today by the U.S. Supreme Court, ... slows the growth of Medicare payments to hospitals and other health providers. Seniors€ benefits weren€t reduced in the legislation. That hasn't deterred Republican-aligned groups such as Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce from the benefit-cut assertion in campaign television commercials targeting the law ...
Romney Response
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney also has been making the supposed cuts part of his campaign pitch. 'Obamacare cuts Medicare -- cuts Medicare by approximately $500 billion,' Romney said in Washington in remarks responding to the court ruling. At issue is an estimated $555 billion in spending reductions in Medicare from 2011 to 2020, according to the Congressional Budget Office, achieved primarily through slower payments to hospitals and premiums paid to Medicare Advantage providers. Republicans are assuming the payment reductions will lead insurance companies to scale back benefits above the basic Medicare package, said Wilensky, the ex-official under the first President Bush. ..."
= new reply since forum marked as read
If Medicare BENEFITS had been cut, don't they think that Medicare beneficiaries ought to have seen these "cuts" by now? 
the record. Rachel should know better. Why didn't she set the record straight!?!?!
It drives me crazy!!! 
