Fix Health Care Policy

Premium Support Proposals: Key Elements and a Comparison

A new poll by Reason-Rupe shows that Americans support the structural reform of a premium support model for Medicare.

The current Medicare program has made $38 trillion of unfunded promises to seniors over the next 75 years, and the Part A trust fund is predicted to be bankrupt as soon as 2024. The gravity of Medicare’s fiscal mess makes reform inevitable.

With premium support, the government provides a contribution toward the cost of a health plan of the beneficiary’s choosing. Reason states, “For people not yet in the program and under the age of 55 right now, 65 percent of Americans favor changing Medicare into a program that would give recipients a credit that could be used to purchase private health insurance.”

Premium support proposals have been gaining popularity, even across party lines. There are now five major plans that include premium support for Medicare: (1) The Heritage Foundation’s Saving the American Dream, (2) the fiscal year 2013 House budget resolution (i.e., the Ryan proposal), (3) the Burr–Coburn plan, (4) the Wyden–Ryan plan, and (5) the Domenici–Rivlin proposal.

(Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: bankrupt, fiscal cliff, Medicare, premium support, trustees report, unfunded promises

Side Effects: Obamacare Adds $17 Trillion to Long-Term Unfunded Government Spending

Last week, the Senate Budget Committee Republican staff released a report revealing that, over the next 75 years, Obamacare will add an additional $17 trillion in unfunded obligations—i.e., the benefits promised by the federal government that haven’t yet been paid for.

Before Obamacare, federal programs were already responsible for racking up 75-year unfunded obligations of an astounding $65 trillion. According to the report, Medicare accounted for $38 trillion, Medicaid was responsible for over $20 trillion, and Social Security added $7 trillion.

With the enactment of Obamacare, projected federal unfunded obligations have increased by $17 trillion, now totaling $82 trillion. Obamacare’s massive Medicaid expansion and new exchange subsidies are largely to blame.

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: $17 trillion, entitlements, Medicaid, Medicare, ObamaCare, Senate Budget Committee, unfunded obligations

Chart of the Week: Obamacare’s 17 New Taxes

Americans who feel overtaxed already are in store for a shocker: Obamacare will add 17 new taxes or penalties for a whopping cost of $502 billion over its first 10 years.

This week’s chart illustrates the new taxes and offers a year-by-year rundown of their annual costs. These taxes will pay for generous subsidies, an expansion of Medicare and new government spending.

A notable jump in Obamacare taxes comes in 2013, a result of Medicare Hospital Insurance tax and an increase in taxes on investment income for high-income earners.

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: 17 new taxes, in pictures, Medicare, new government spending, ObamaCare, subsidies

Medicare Rationing and Obama’s Unelected Board of Bureaucrats

Earlier this week, the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee moved legislation forward that would repeal one of the most intrusive and unpopular parts of Obamacare: the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). A board of unelected government officials tasked with finding and implementing ways to control Medicare spending from the top-down, IPAB opens the door to rationing of care, both direct and indirect, without congressional approval.

The bill to repeal this onerous part of the health law has 226 co-sponsors, 17 of whom are Democrats. Meanwhile, support for better ways to control Medicare’s cost using a premium support model continues to surface on both sides of the aisle. Premium support would allow seniors to use a defined government contribution to purchase the private plan that suits them best in a competitive marketplace. Patient empowerment and choice would drive better value for dollars spent, bringing down costs without jeopardizing quality or patient autonomy through government rationing.  (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: IPAB, Medicare, ObamaCare, rationing, Seniors, top-down decisions

IPAB Spells Gloom And Doom For Medicare

Tomorrow, the Energy and Commerce Committee will mark up legislation to repeal Obamacare’s Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). IPAB is a dangerous mechanism that puts the power to limit seniors’ treatment options and access to care in the hands of unelected bureaucrats, essentially ending Medicare as we know it.

Despite the enormity of IPAB’s power and its influence on Medicare beneficiaries, its members are not accountable to the American people, unlike Congress. IPAB will consist of 15 unelected bureaucrats who are tasked with finding savings within Medicare to meet a new, fixed target for spending growth in the program. IPAB members will be appointed by the President and approved by the Senate, and the board’s recommendations will be implemented by the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) unless Congress enacts an alternative proposal that amounts to the same level of savings.  (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: bureaucrats, cost control, Energy and Commerce Committee, IPAB, Medicare, rationing care

Obamacare Ends Medicare (As We Know It)

As budget season approaches, premium support is gaining traction as the only viable option to save Medicare. In a recent Politico article, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D–MD) is quoted as saying liberals will use Obamacare’s new provisions to combat a conservative budget that reforms Medicare using premium support.

Hoyer told reporters, “Yes, we need to make Medicare viable. We believe that the health care bill—and very frankly CBO (Congressional Budget Office) believes the health care bill will do something that Medicare very badly needs, and that is to constrain price escalation in health care.” So the left is still claiming that the health care law will help sustain Medicare’s future—but Heritage just published a new Fact Sheet showing the opposite.  (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: low physician reimbursement, Medicare, Medicare Advantage cuts, ObamaCare, premium support

Federal Spending on Health Care Doubles in the Next Decade

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its Budget and Economic Outlook for years 2012 to 2022 yesterday, and as Heritage’s Patrick Knudsen shows, the numbers add up to a dismal fiscal future. As the government continues its fiscal irresponsibility, 2012 will be the fourth straight year of trillion-dollar deficits. This trend is on track to continue as a result of increasing federal spending on health care, which will more than double between 2012 and 2022.

The CBO estimates that by 2022, the government will spend $1.8 trillion on health care, 7.3 percent of our total economy. CBO breaks down the portions of the spending each program will account for: “Rising spending for Medicare accounts for about one-half of that growth, rising spending for Medicaid accounts for roughly one-third, and the remaining growth stems primarily from the new subsidies to be provided through health insurance exchanges beginning in 2014.”

Medicare Spending

As the population ages and health care costs continue their upward trend, Medicare spending will become unsustainable. CBO projects that “gross Medicare outlays in 2022 will exceed $1 trillion, almost 90 percent more than they are expected to be this year.” But that projection includes cuts to Medicare reimbursements for doctors and hospitals included in current law that are highly unlikely to happen. For example, doctor payment reductions are scheduled to be cut by 27 percent under the flawed sustainable growth rate (SGR). This affects the CBO’s baseline greatly:   (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: budget, CBO estimate, health spending, HHS, Medicare

PODCAST: How Obamacare Will Change the Face of Medicare

In this week’s Heritage in Focus, expert Bob Moffit discusses how Obamacare ends Medicare as we know it. Click here to listen.

How does the health reform law break up traditional Medicare? What’s a better way to fix Medicare? And how much could we save by bringing free market reforms to it?

Be sure to hear Dr. Moffit answer these questions and more!  (Find the audio on The Foundry…)

Tags: Medicare, ObamaCare, Podcast, premium support, robert moffit

VIDEO: Seniors & Providers Dread Obamacare Changes

Medicare patient Ann Lorenz has relied on the advice and recommendations of her neurologist, Dr. Jeffrey English, since she was first diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease 13 years ago. So the dramatic changes coming to Medicare via the Affordable Care Act—and its potential to limit seniors’ access to care as doctors foresee dropping Medicare patients—already worry Lorenz.

“One of the first things you ask a new doctor is if they accept Medicare,” Lorenz, who lives in Atlanta, says in a new Impact of Obamacare video. “And we have always seemed to have doctors that accepted it, which has worked out very nicely because I have had to go over the last few years…to many doctors…because of age and the various things that happen to you when you get older.”  (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: cuts, Impact of Obamacare video series, Medicare, neurologist, Seniors

Republican Presidential Candidates Embrace Medicare Premium Support

Earlier this week in New Hampshire, Republican presidential candidates touted the benefits of a Medicare premium support system — the approach to entitlement reform embraced by House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) and The Heritage Foundation.

Ryan’s recent partnership with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) helped thrust the idea of premium support back into the national spotlight. Their bipartisan framework represented a breakthrough on Capitol Hill after liberals spent much of the year making false charges about Ryan’s plan.

Given the misleading information about premium support, let’s first take a moment to explain what it is. Heritage’s Bob Moffit and Kate Nix put it this way: (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: GOP candidates, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, Medicare, premium support