Toss Momma From The Train AKA Paul Ryan's Budget and The Windfall For Insurers

[marmar]

from the Working Life blog:




Toss Momma From The Train AKA Paul Ryan's Budget and The Windfall For Insurers

by Jonathan Tasini
Thursday 07 of April, 2011


Yesterday, I wrote about how much money Paul Ryan pockets from the insurance industry--and how the health care part of the industry was going to make out like bandits in the Ryan budget proposal. This is worth digging into a bit more because you can learn very quickly how the Ryan budget truly boils down to a strategy of "throw Momma from the train and let's enrich the leeches from the health care industry".

My always helpful friends at the Center for Economic and Policy Research give us the data on what the budget proposal would do to Medicare. The bottom line is this:

It gives beneficiaries an $8,000 a year payment in 2022 dollars that does not rise through time. This means that all growth in health care costs after 2022, either due to pure inflation in health care costs above the overall rate of inflation or more services, will be borne completely by the beneficiary.(emphasis added)

And, so, what will happen?:

While the cost will make a Medicare equivalent plan unaffordable to most seniors, even at age 65, many of those who may be able to buy such a plan at age 65 will find that they can no longer afford a comparable plan at age 75 or age 85. Under the Ryan plan only a very small share of older beneficiaries will be able to afford a Medicare equivalent plan.(emphasis added)

That's the "throw Momma from the bus" piece. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.workinglife.org/blogs/view_post.php?content_id=15147

[ejpoeta]

1. the article makes a very good point... . taking people out of a program

with a 3% overhead and tossing them into one with a 15 to 25% overhead where the incentive is to deny medical care in order to make more money for yourself. is that what we want for people who have worked their asses off their whole lives? it's disgusting. $8000 today would not get you a crappy insurance policy! i'd hate to see what it would get you in 2022.