Medicare's Demise is Not Imminent, But Health Care Costs are Rising

Medicare For All Support Hits Record High (Again)

RNs to Hold Candlelight Vigils, Protests in 20 U.S. Cities | National Nurses United

RNs to Hold Candlelight Vigils, Protests in 20 U.S. Cities | National Nurses United:

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 On the fiscal cliff showdown, “raising the age for Medicare or Social Security, delays in cost of living increases, or cuts in benefits, three of the approaches proposed by some in Washington, would severely harm the seniors and low and moderate income families who have suffered the most from the economic crisis, which continues in Main Street communities across America,” said Deborah Burger, co-president of the 185,000-member NNU.

“Wall Street’s agenda, of more punishing cuts for working people, and more handouts for the banks, who are the main beneficiaries of policies that put debt payments ahead of protecting seniors and working families, was roundly rejected by voters in November. Let’s not hand Wall Street the victory they lost at the polls. Instead, it is time to hold the bankers and speculators accountable, and levy a small tax on their reckless behavior to help rebuild the economy they did so much to wreck, Burger said.

Actions are planned in California, Florida, Illinois (event held Dec. 6), Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Texas, with events in other states pending. RNs are joining with labor, senior, and scores of community activists in insisting on no increase in the eligibility age or cuts in benefits.

Photo from Chicago action on Dec.6, 2012.

Hands Off Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid

claire mccaskill comments on budget

Yahoo! Mail Reply from Senator McCaskill Tuesday, November 20, 2012 12:52 PM From: "senator@mccaskill.senate.gov" To: November 20, 2012 Dear M Thank you for contacting me regarding your priorities for the federal budget. I appreciate hearing from you and welcome the opportunity to respond. The growing federal debt is an imminent threat to our nation's economy and the long-term viability of our most essential federal programs. Today our nation's gross debt is $14 trillion. If we do nothing, interest payments on the debt alone will limit our ability to invest in essential programs. For example, current projections show that by 2035, we will be paying more in interest than we currently spend on Medicare and Social Security combined. In the Senate, I have been focused on reducing the annual budget deficit in a responsible way. I have never requested an earmark and I worked to ban earmarks from Congress. As Chairman of the Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight, I have been working to root out waste and fraud in government contracting, especially in the Defense Department. I support allowing the Bush era tax cuts to expire for multi-millionaires, and I sponsored Pay-As-You-Go legislation that would require any new tax cuts or spending to be deficit neutral. With Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, I fought to impose binding caps on discretionary spending that came within one vote of passing the Senate. However, I will continue to oppose any budget proposal, like the Ryan budget plan passed by House Republicans and supported by nearly every Senate Republican, which would end Medicare as we know it. Instead of guaranteed access to affordable health insurance, the Republican plan would give seniors a voucher and force them to fend for themselves against health insurance companies in the private market. Under the Republican plan, when health costs go up, seniors would be forced to shoulder the burden. In fact, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office concluded that the Republican budget would double senior's out-of-pocket costs for health care. For most seniors, who are on a fixed income, this poses an impossible and unacceptable burden. I am also committed to protecting Social Security. That is why I am a cosponsor of the Keeping Our Social Security Promises Act, S. 1558. Introduced by Senator Bernard Sanders of Vermont, this legislation would eliminate the cap on Social Security payroll taxes for income above $250,000. Currently, these payroll taxes are only assessed on an individual's first $106,800 of income. If enacted, this legislation would ensure that Social Security remains fully funded for the next 75 years, strengthening the program without cutting benefits. I also know that the absence of a cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security beneficiaries for 2010 and 2011 only made getting by more difficult, which is why I voted three times in 2009 and 2010 to provide Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries with additional support. Providing Social Security is a pact we have made with our nation's seniors and I will oppose any attempt to privatize Social Security, which would fundamentally undermine the program and jeopardize the benefits of millions of beneficiaries. And, I will not support any plan to drastically slash benefits for future beneficiaries. I am committed to reducing our nation's deficit and the debt, and that means I consider any serious proposal to address these challenges. Because, in the long term, doing nothing is the surest way to jeopardize middle-class priorities like education, veterans' benefits, Social Security and Medicare. I assure you, I will continue to work with my colleagues to address our growing federal debt in a balanced manner that protects our most important federal programs, especially Medicare and Social Security. Again, thank you for contacting me. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future if I can be of further assistance to you on this or any other issue. Sincerely, Claire McCaskill United States Senator P.S. If you would like more information about resources that can help Missourians, or what I am doing in the Senate on your behalf, please sign up for my email newsletter at http://mccaskill.senate.gov. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Real Time with Bill Maher: Overtime - Episode #266

language warning--bill has potty mouth.

letter from afl-cio richard trumka---off the cliff negoations

We told you the mega-millionaires wouldn’t waste any time. Last week, a coalition of millionaires and corporate CEOs announced they’re launching a $35 million campaign to strong-arm Congress into cutting Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid benefits under the guise of “fixing the debt.” You took the first step in stopping this assault on the middle class by signing our petition. Rep. Russ Carnahan, Sen. Claire McCaskill, and Sen. Roy Blunt need to hear from you. Call now at 888-659-9401 and tell them to oppose cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits and to end the Bush tax cuts for the richest 2%. Here's some short talking points you can use for your call: I voted to Protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and to make the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share in taxes. Do not cut these benefits for working people or give another tax break to the wealthy. While the rich were holding their press conference last week in a posh Washington, D.C., office to announce their multimillion-dollar campaign, tens of thousands of working people like you were outside elected officials’ offices with a simple message: The middle class voted on Tuesday for Congress to create jobs, not to cut Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security benefits or continue to pad the pockets of the richest 2% by lowering their tax rates. Congress needs to hear this message now. Members are back in D.C. this week, ready to make high-stakes decisions on all of these issues. If we don’t hold our senators' and representatives' feet to the fire, some of them may not be with us on one of the most important legislative battles of our lifetime. Call now at 888-659-9401. In Solidarity, Richard Trumka President, AFL-CIO----- I have already called. Missouri senators currently not taking positions according to staffers. one gop and the other blue dog dem and I suggest folks give a call

redo of resolution on social secury and medicare--grand bargin

earlier this year, soar 11-3 means this now and then. grand bargin, my rear -------- RESOLUTION: SOAR 11-3 Officers and membership affirm the following: We shall not support any effort to cut Social Security benefits, Medicare or Medicaid benefits currently being debated by our political leaders nor shall we support any institution advocating such cuts. We shall withhold any political or financial support to "cutters" of these programs now and in the future. Social Security or Medicare did not contribute to the budget crisis and to hold hostage these programs is insane and unneeded. What did contribute to the problem, unpaid wars, tax cuts for upper income and corporate welfare, out sourcing jobs, trade laws none of which are being addressed. Negotiation of drug prices would save billions over the next decade. Bringing home troops from Iraq would also save tremendous amounts. Going back to Clinton tax rates would save billions and more

Grand Bargain = Grand Larceny, Grand Lie

krugman on Maddows: Debunking the GOP’s ‘Vouchercare’ plan

NBCNews.com video: Debunking the GOP’s ‘Vouchercare’ plan:

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Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Guest commentary: How the ACA helps seniors

Guest commentary: How the ACA helps seniors

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Medicare is a cornerstone of the American middle class. Before it was passed, half the seniors in the country had no health insurance. Today, nearly all are covered. Medicare is one of our nation's greatest success stories, rooted in shared American values of hard work and fiscal responsibility. For decades, a worker pays a small portion of each paycheck to Medicare for the peace of mind of knowing that he will have access to affordable medical care in retirement. The new law strengthens Medicare and protects the middle class from the self-interest and arbitrariness of the private health insurance industry. Repealing the law weakens Medicare and weakens the middle class.

But seniors care about more than just themselves. We care about our country and its future. The new health care law allows our grandchildren to stay on their parents' insurance until age 26, protecting them as they try to land a job with benefits. We are happy that our children's health no longer is hostage to insurance companies discriminating against those with pre-existing conditions or finding loopholes to cancel coverage when people need it most. We are delighted that 30 million more Americans will be able to afford health care coverage. By upholding the law, the high court has guaranteed that families of all ages will remain free from the fear that they will go bankrupt when someone gets sick.

Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/guest-commentary-how-the-aca-helps-seniors/article_610d7c4d-30bb-5991-85e5-de4a07930bef.html#ixzz20SFCuQrq

Martin Sheen: Stand Up for Medicare

'Ask Voters,' 70 percent of them want to keep Medicare

No ‘magic potion’ will make the GOP budget plan work

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Jennifer Granholm is joined by Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, to discuss the GOP’s proposed budget plan. Dean Baker says Representative Paul Ryan’s budget plan not only cuts care to the country’s most vulnerable but “ignores all the evidence all around us” that proves these kinds of cuts just don’t work.

“(Paul Ryan) acts as though there will be some magic,” Baker said, ”that if we hand over (health care) to the states that the governors have some magic potion that will make all their dollars go further. Well, we’ve tried this… and it costs more.”

5 Worst Things About GOP Budget Plan

Paul Ryan’s GOP balanced budget plan is a disaster that would create $4.3 trillion debt in 10 years

wyden medicare

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sticking it to the old folks is not way to help dems.

politaco medicare Wyden plan article

Ryan, Wyden back new Medicare plan
By: Jennifer Haberkorn
December 14, 2011 05:48 PM EST

Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan on Thursday plan to introduce a new Medicare reform plan that would allow seniors to choose between traditional Medicare and new private insurance programs.

The plan has some key differences from the Ryan blueprint that Republicans had rallied around earlier this year — and which Democrats had been united in pummelling in Congress and on the campaign trail as the beginning of the end of Medicare.

The biggest difference is that seniors would have a choice between staying in traditional Medicare, or opting into new private plan alternatives, the two lawmakers said in an interview with POLITICO.

Wyden is the first Democrat on Capitol Hill to so strongly embrace a variant of Ryan’s approach. And Ryan has accepted more flexibility than the Medicare approach in the House budget.

Wyden insists the plan would be designed in ways that would preserve the safety net for the elderly.

“I will never do anything to shred that or weaken it or harm [Medicare] in any way,” the Oregon Democrat said. “I simply believe that there is now an opportunity for progressives and conservatives to come together and to strengthen the program for the long term and particularly, deal with the costs and demographic challenges.”

The Ryan budget plan would have moved seniors in the future into private health plans, with government subsidies known as premium support or — to his critics, vouchers.

Ryan and Wyden plan to release a white paper with more details Thursday at an event sponsored by the Bipartisan Policy Center.

The plan has the potential to be a political firecracker, but its most significant change — keeping traditional Medicare as an option — eliminates the greatest political assault lobbed at Ryan’s plan: that it would “end Medicare.”

The Wyden-Ryan plan has other significant differences from Ryan’s original proposal: It institutes a series of consumer protections for seniors, it installs a cap on total Medicare spending and changes the way premium support is calculated.

Ryan said he’s concerned that if genuine changes to Medicare don’t take place soon, there won’t be enough of a financial cushion to gradually institute a new plan while allowing seniors to remain in the system they know now.

“If you wait and allow the political paralysis to stop us from fixing and saving this program, then you’re not going to be able to grandfather people,” Ryan said. “Then you’re going to have severe disruptions in seniors’ lives that would just be, I think, morally wrong because we see this problem coming. What Ron and I are trying to do is prepare the ground for a consensus to be accomplished as soon as the politics allow it to happen.”

Just like in Ryan’s House budget, seniors would get premium support — a government subsidy that’s also been dubbed a “voucher” — to help buy coverage, whether in the private market or through Medicare.

Beginning in 2022, they’d buy coverage through a Medicare “exchange.”

Insurers would be able to sell coverage if they meet federal requirements designed to protect consumers. They would have to meet actuarial requirements, sell a program at least as comprehensive as traditional Medicare and agree to offer insurance to all seniors, regardless of age or health status — to prevent insurers from cherry picking the healthy and cheaper clients.

In some ways, the exchange approach and the regulations are similar to the new state-based insurance markets creating by the health reform law for the under 65 population starting in 2014.



Under the Ryan-Wyden approach, the senior would have to pay the difference between the sticker price and the premium support or subsidy, although low-income people would get more help.

The House budget version tied the premium support to the Consumer Price Index. In this plan, it would be tied to the second-least expensive private plan or Medicare, whichever is lower.

Ryan predicts the market would look like the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan, one that insurers want to participate in because of its predictability, stability and large pool.

Wyden and Ryan argue that the consumers’ choices will drive insurers and Medicare to be more efficient and price conscious, which would drive down all Medicare spending. If not, they would require Congress to act if Medicare spending growth exceeded the Gross Domestic Product plus 1 percent.

The cap is a new feature that is designed to ensure that Medicare spending would be kept under control.

It a somewhat similar concept to the health reform law’s Independent Payment Advisory Board, which requires action when Medicare spending hits a certain level. Republicans strongly oppose IPAB.

While IPAB would have a 15-person board decide what to cut when the spending triggers are hit, the Wyden-Ryan plan requires Congress to intervene and choose what to cut, such as provider reimbursements, overhead or means-tested premiums. They’re still discussing if and how it would be enforced.

“Rather than have a group of 15 people impose price controls to live within a cap, we’re giving the power to senior citizens through choice and competition to let the market make those decisions with them,” Ryan said in the joint interview.

The plan also would allow businesses with 100 or fewer employees to offer their employees under 65 the option of buying coverage on the free market instead of at work — with the employer contributing the same amount they would have paid for employer-sponsored insurance. This is similar to the “free choice” vouchers Wyden has favored.

At first blush, Wyden and Ryan may look like an unlikely duo to team up on a Medicare reform plan. But they share an interest in policy over politics and both have worked on health policy issues and bipartisan bills.

On health care especially, Wyden has shown that he’s willing to work outside of what his party supports. During the health reform discussions in 2009, he supported eliminating the employer sponsored tax benefits on a bill co-sponsored by former Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah).

After the reform law passed, he introduced a bill that would allow states to implement their own reforms more quickly than the law would let them, as long as they covered as many people.

President Barack Obama publicly endorsed that state flexibility but Majority Leader Harry Reid hasn’t put the bill on the floor.

Ryan has a record of bipartisanship, too. He and Alice Rivlin, who led the budget office for former President Bill Clinton, released a Medicare reform plan, too, although the version that Ryan led through the House went farther than Rivlin could accept.

Wyden’s move is unlikely to go over well with Democratic leadership. Politically, Democrats feel that Ryan’s plan gave them the upper hand on the Medicare message ahead of a pivotal election year.

Both Ryan and Wyden acknowledge that any Medicare reform proposals can be quickly turned into a political weapon by the other side. But they hope that by releasing a detailed plan without legislative text — and the worry about having to decide whether to vote for it or not — can help foster serious discussion.

“People don’t have to descend on their congressperson [and say,] ‘Don’t vote two weeks from today for such and such,’” Wyden said. “This is a chance to get beyond the discussion that’s been held.”

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 5:11 p.m. on December 14, 2011.

© 2011 POLITICO LLC
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privatizing medicare is bad idea and one soar and others will oppose.

were is the minds of the democrats. soar 11-3 is on record it will not support any canidate that wishes to prizatize social security or medicare. it is a vow we intend to keep

Paul Krugman: Obama must lead on debt ceiling Medicare

Paul Krugman: Obama must lead on debt ceiling

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from article:

"For Medicare, with all its flaws, works better than private insurance. It has less bureaucracy and, hence, lower administrative costs than private insurers. It has been more successful in controlling costs. While Medicare expenses per beneficiary have soared over the past 40 years, they've risen significantly less than private insurance premiums. And because Medicare-type systems in other advanced countries have much lower costs than the uniquely privatized U.S. system, there's good reason to believe that Medicare reform can do a lot to control costs in the future.

In that case, you may ask, why didn't the 2010 health care reform simply extend Medicare to cover everyone? The answer, of course, is political realism. Most health reformers I know would have supported Medicare for all if they had considered it politically feasible. But given the power of the insurance lobby and the knee-jerk opposition of many politicians to any expansion of government, they settled for what they thought they could actually get: near-universal coverage through a system of regulation and subsidies.

It is, however, one thing to accept a second-best system insuring those who currently lack coverage. Throwing millions of Americans off Medicare and pushing them into the arms of private insurers is another story.


Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/paul-krugman/article_42f4550b-49cc-56e1-aad6-3b648c8ff541.html#ixzz1TDzillVh

Russ responds to cuts Medicare and Social s

Responding to your message
Thursday, July 21, 2011 8:32 AM


July 21, 2011





Dear Mr. R:



Thank you for contacting me to share your concerns about potential cuts to Medicare and Social Security as part of a larger deficit reduction agreement. I appreciate hearing from you and welcome the opportunity to respond.



Please know that I am committed to protecting Social Security and Medicare. These critical programs form the foundation for the retirements of millions of seniors. Social Security and Medicare are two of America's most successful and efficient government programs, and I will continue to fight to preserve these hard-won institutions.



The United States has had a statutory debt limit since 1917, and Congress has raised the debt limit several times since then, including ten times since 2001. Raising this limit is often a necessary step to ensure that America pays its bills and takes responsibility for its commitments.



Virtually all financial experts have made it clear that a failure to avoid a default crisis would create massive disruptions to the economy and risk economic catastrophe. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has reported that we will reach the debt limit in early August. Discussions about avoiding the default crisis are now being tied to larger deficit and budget reduction talks. In order to craft a long-term debt solution, the President and Congressional leaders are discussing many possible means of lowering our national debt and ensuring that we put America on a sustainable path forward.



Reducing the deficit and debt are important objectives that we should work towards over time. Cuts to valuable programs will be necessary as part of the national commitment needed to reduce the deficit, but we must target reductions on duplicative and wasteful programs while preserving essential investments that create jobs and lay the foundation for a more prosperous economy and not harming our fragile recovery.



If a compromise means that we must make changes to valuable programs, we must also eliminate tax breaks for wealthy individuals and corporations. Everyone must pay their share and we cannot balance the budget on the backs of seniors and the middle class.



Please be assured that I will keep your views in mind as Congress debates the budget and efforts to reduce the deficit.



I always appreciate hearing the views of constituents about issues facing Congress. Please feel free to contact my office if I can be of further assistance to you on this or any other matter of concern. I also hope you will find my website, carnahan.house.gov, a useful resource for keeping up with my work in Washington and the St. Louis region, and I welcome you to sign up for my e-newsletter at carnahan.house.gov/updates.

Sincerely,

Russ Carnahan