Reply #35: The End of Medicare [View All]

[SOS]

is now a done deal. Of course the paid-off media which collects $2 billion from pharma, AARP which rakes in $150 million from insurance and pharma and the greased Congress failed to mention the voucher system coming soon. Here's some info from In These Times:

HR 1 would achieve privatization in stages by putting great financial pressure on seniors to leave traditional Medicare and enroll in HMOs. Under HR 1, MedicareÕs guarantee of medical services would be replaced with a voucher that seniors would use to purchase coverage from either the traditional Medicare program (which would have to start charging a premium in 2010) or an HMO. Because sicker seniors would be more likely to stay in traditional Medicare, which neither limits choice of doctor nor interferes in the doctor-patient relation as HMOs do, the Medicare premiums would be higher than those of the HMOs. This would set off a Òdeath spiralÓ: Higher premiums would drive even more disproportionately healthy seniors out of traditional Medicare, Medicare would thereby be forced to charge even higher premiums, and the program eventually would Òwither on the vine,Ó in the immortal words of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Rep. William Thomas (R-Calif) chief architect of HR 1, was not exaggerating when he told MSNBC in June that he expected HR 1 to Òend Medicare as we know it.Ó