CBO: You Can’t Double-Count Medicare Savings
Democrats in Congress are claiming that cuts in Medicare spending will both pay for health reform and add to Medicare’s long-term solvency. But a new CBO report says it’s either/or, but not both. [Of course, this also implies that the Medicare and Social Security trust funds are not holding anything of value — Congress has been double-counting there since the inception of those programs.]
Good point. Robert Pear has an article about this in the New York Times this morning.
Nothing new here. Congress has been double counting this way since the beginning of time. Every time they raise the payroll tax and spend the money on some new program, they claim at the same time that they have added to the Social Security and Medicare trust funds.
My question is: if Bernie Madoff is going to jail, why aren’t the members of Congress who are responsible for misrepresenting the financial health of Social Security and Medicare also going to jail?
What nobody is considering is the fact that the first of the long discussed “Baby Boomers” arrives this Friday and as the “Cost Curve” is being “bent”, the “Demand Curve” will be bending more quickly in the exact opposite direction”-up!
In addition to an increased number of Medicare recipients being added each year an increasing number also “live longer”, while not as long as the other industrialized Nations. These two factors will increase Medicare recipients from the current 45 millon by an average 4 million (10%) in each of the next 10 years, as some $450 million in cost bending reductions are implemented.
This not only increases the number of voters who do not see this cost bending as being anything other than “age discrimination” but to their families who will be involved in “caring for their aging family members” as government long term care is planned to be increasingly reduced.
Perhaps in coming froma “family” without any ties, President Obama doesn’t recognize that the majority of citizens have strong ties of responsibilities and love with their parents and grandparents and go “home for the holidays” to vsiit with them which rarely provides beach and golf time.
It is much easier to be a good familyman when ones family is only immediate!
There is good news for Medicare beneficiaries in 2012.a0 A new Special Enrollment Period was ctaered by Medicare starting in 2012 that will allow Medicare beneficiaries to join a 5 star rated Medicare Advantage Plan or Prescription Drug Plan at any time during the year.a0 Currently, most beneficiaries are only allowed to sign up for a Medicare Advantage plan or Prescription Drug Plan during the AEP or Annual Election Period which runs from October 15 until December 7.a0 See my post on Medicare Advantage Enrollment Dates For 2012.