Mitt Romney:
“There’s only one
president I know of in history that robbed Medicare, $716 billion to pay for a
new risky program of his own that we call Obamacare” (PolitiFact).
The facts:
1) Under the ACA (Affordable
Care Act), Medicare spending will continue to increase, only at a slower rate
than it would have otherwise. “[B]efore
the health law was passed, Medicare was expected to grow by 6.8 percent a year
for 2010 through 2019. With the health law, that yearly growth rate is
projected to be 5.6 percent during that same time frame, according to an analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation” (Kaiser
Health News).
2)
Thirty-five percent of these reductions come from the amount Medicare “reimburses hospitals and
private health insurance companies.” “The health law changed how Medicare
calculates what they get reimbursed for various services, slightly lowering
their rates over time. Hospitals agreed to these cuts because they knew, at the
same time, they would likely see an influx of paying patients with the
Affordable Care Act’s insurance expansion” (WaPo)
(The reason for this being “the
law’s mandate for nearly all individuals to have insurance, which meant that
providers and insurers would have millions of new paying patients and
policyholders” [NY
Times]).
3) Thirty percent of these reductions
come from the amount “Medicare reimburses private, Medicare Advantage plans. That program allows seniors to join a private health insurance, with the
federal government footing the bill. The whole idea of Medicare Advantage was
to drive down the cost of health insurance for the elderly as private insurance
companies competing for seniors’ business.” But that’s now what happened. “By
2010, the average Medicare Advantage per-patient cost was 117
percent of regular
fee-for-service. The Affordable Care Act gives those private plans a haircut
and tethers reimbursement levels to the quality of care administered, and
patient satisfaction” (WaPo).
4) None of these
reductions come from “the amount of benefits
beneficiaries receive.” Moreover, the ACA adds some new benefits, including closing the ‘doughnut hole’ gap in Medicare
prescription drug coverage, and new preventive services, such as an annual
wellness visit with a physician” (Kaiser
Health News).
5)
Many analysts believe that reversing these reductions “would hasten the insolvency of
Medicare by eight years—to 2016, the final year of the next presidential term,
from 2024” (NY
Times).
6) Additionally, reversing these reductions would
“immediately add hundreds of dollars a year to out-of-pocket Medicare expenses
for beneficiaries,” the reason being that “[b]eneficiaries, through their
premiums and co-payments, share the cost of Medicare with the government.” So
[i]f Medicare’s costs increase—for instance, by raising payments to health care
providers—so, too, do beneficiaries’ contributions.” (Moreover, repealing the
ACA “would eliminate expanded coverage of prescription drugs, free wellness
care and preventive checkups.”) (NY
Times)
7) The Ryan/Romney budget calls for the same $716 billion reduction.
Romney/Ryan want to put this money “toward deficit reduction while Obama [wants
to spend] it on health care for poor people.” Romney/Ryan argue that, because they’re
using this reduction to cut the
deficit, their plan would “make future cuts to Medicare less likely.
“But Romney/Ryan also add a trillion dollars to
the defense budget. And they have trillions of dollars in tax cuts they haven’t
explained how they’re going to pay for. So those decisions make future cuts to
Medicare more likely. Meanwhile, Obama cuts defense spending by hundreds of
billions of dollars, raises about $1.5 trillion in new taxes, and puts all that
money into deficit reduction. So that makes future Medicare cuts less likely. So if the argument is that Romney/Ryan protect Medicare by
putting the $770 billion in cuts towards deficit reduction, Obama protects
Medicare by twice as much by putting the $1.5 trillion in new tax revenues
towards deficit reduction. So far as the deficit is concerned, there’s no difference
between a dollar from Medicare and a dollar from taxes” (WaPo).