eyeheartlenin
7th January 2012, 20:43
AP Article: "Medicare as we have known it is not part of our future."
Associated Press article, 1/2/12, Cleveland Plain Dealer
WASHINGTON -- Baby boomers take note: Medicare as your parents have known it is headed for big changes no matter who wins the White House in 2012. You may not like it, but you might have to accept it.
Dial down the partisan rhetoric and surprising similarities emerge from competing policy prescriptions by President Barack Obama and leading Republicans such as Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan.
Limit the overall growth of Medicare spending? It's in both approaches.
Squeeze more money from upper-income retirees and some in the middle class? Ditto.
Raise the eligibility age? That too, if the deal is right.
With more than 1.5 million baby boomers a year signing up for Medicare, the program's future is one of the most important economic issues for anyone now 50 or older. Health care costs are the most unpredictable part of retirement, and Medicare remains an exceptional deal for retirees, who can reap benefits worth far more than the payroll taxes they paid in during their careers.
"People would like to have what they used to have. What they don't seem to understand is that it's already changed," said Gail Wilensky, a former Medicare administrator and adviser to Republicans. "Medicare as we have known it is not part of our future."
Associated Press article, 1/2/12, Cleveland Plain Dealer
WASHINGTON -- Baby boomers take note: Medicare as your parents have known it is headed for big changes no matter who wins the White House in 2012. You may not like it, but you might have to accept it.
Dial down the partisan rhetoric and surprising similarities emerge from competing policy prescriptions by President Barack Obama and leading Republicans such as Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan.
Limit the overall growth of Medicare spending? It's in both approaches.
Squeeze more money from upper-income retirees and some in the middle class? Ditto.
Raise the eligibility age? That too, if the deal is right.
With more than 1.5 million baby boomers a year signing up for Medicare, the program's future is one of the most important economic issues for anyone now 50 or older. Health care costs are the most unpredictable part of retirement, and Medicare remains an exceptional deal for retirees, who can reap benefits worth far more than the payroll taxes they paid in during their careers.
"People would like to have what they used to have. What they don't seem to understand is that it's already changed," said Gail Wilensky, a former Medicare administrator and adviser to Republicans. "Medicare as we have known it is not part of our future."