Romney right on Medicare debate

The Washington Post confirms that Romney is right: Obamacare cuts Medicare by $716 billion. Obama can't attack Romney on Medicare!

Your Medicare money

APNewsBreak: Suspect billings at 2,600 drugstores.

'via Blog this'

New Medicare overhaul plan

Two Republicans are proposing a new Medicare overhaul plan. We've got to start thinking and talking about this subject before it's too late.

Ryan proposed Medicare reform

Paul Ryan, a GOP presidential candidate, has proposed a Medicare reform and obtained the support of one Democratic Senator.

Medicare premiums for 2012

Medicare premiums will rise in 2012, but not as much as feared. The Part B premium will be $99.90 next year. That's an increased of $3.50 a month instead of $10.20, which had been forecast.

AARP's conflict of interest

Daily Caller: The AARP has a financial interest in the Medicare copay debate, but won't acknowledge it. I fume every time I see an AARP commercial.

Medicare: the chain letter

Is Medicare a good deal? 

In terms of dollars in and dollars out, Medicare breaks down this way:

• A typical 85-year-old is going to get back $2.69 in benefits for every dollar paid into the system in the form of premiums and taxes—a good deal by any measure.
• People turning 65 today don’t do nearly as well — they get back $1.25 for every dollar they pay in.
• The average worker under age 50 loses under the system — with a 45-year-old getting back only 95 cents on the dollar.
• That’s better than the deal 25-year-olds get, however; they can expect to get back 75 cents for every dollar they contribute.

Why does Medicare favor the old and discriminate against the young? Because like Social Security, Medicare finances work like a chain letter. Although workers have been repeatedly told that their payroll taxes are being securely held in trust funds, they are actually being spent—the very minute, the very hour, the very day they arrive in the Treasury’s bank account.
No money has been saved. No investments have been made. No cash has been stashed away in bank vaults. Today’s payroll tax payments are being spent to pay medical bills for today’s retirees. And if any surplus materializes, it’s spent on other government programs. As a result, when today’s workers reach the eligibility age of 65, they will be able to get benefits only if future taxpayers pay (higher) taxes to support them.
Just as Bernie Madoff was able to offer early investors above-market returns, early retirees got a bonanza from Social Security and Medicare. That’s the way chain-letter finance works. But in the long run, there’s no free lunch. That’s why things look so dismal for young people entering the labor market today.

Medicare and cancer

Seniors with cancer are facing dramatic increases in the cost of cancer drugs.

Coming meltdowns

How to get ready for the coming Social Security and Medicare meltdowns.

Medicare's future

FoxNews:

"If you're under 55-years old, guess what, we've got news for you; it's not going to be there for you,” warns [Paul] Ryan. "You will have to severely and deeply ration Medicare to seniors at that time if we keep this program going as it is."
Ryan says there is one inescapable fact: the benefit-consuming generation is increasing by 100 percent while the taxpaying generation, the ones who'll have to fund Medicare, is only growing by 17 percent.
As they say in Texas, “You can’t get there from here.”

The retirement of the first of the baby boomers may signal the beginning of the end of Medicare.

AP: Baby boomers, who will be qualified for Medicare on January 1, worry that they will outlive Medicare. It is a very real worry. From the AP report:

"Here's the math: when the last of the boomers reaches age 65 in about two decades, Medicare will be covering more than 80 million people. At the same time, the ratio of workers paying taxes to support the program will have plunged from 3.5 for each person receiving benefits currently, to 2.3."

At that point in 2028, there is no way that Medicare can be like it is today. 

Doctors across the country are limiting new Medicare patients because of low reimbursement rates.

AP: The "doc fix" came too late. Medicare payments will be slashed 32 percent for June. "Congress is playing Russian Roulette with seniors' health care," Dr. Cecil B. Wilson, president of the American Medical Association, said in a statement. "This is no way to run a major health coverage program."

The Senate passed the "doc fix," which temporarily postpones a 21 percent cut in Medicare payments.

Houston Chronicle:

Texas doctors are opting out of Medicare at alarming rates, frustrated by reimbursement cuts they say make participation in government-funded care of seniors unaffordable.

Two years after a survey found nearly half of Texas doctors weren't taking some new Medicare patients, new data shows 100 to 200 a year are now ending all involvement with the program. Before 2007, the number of doctors opting out averaged less than a handful a year.

“This new data shows the Medicare system is beginning to implode,” said Dr. Susan Bailey, president of the Texas Medical Association. “If Congress doesn't fix Medicare soon, there'll be more and more doctors dropping out and Congress' promise to provide medical care to seniors will be broken.”

This trend, which has been around for some time, is accelerating. Anyway if you are on Medicare, don't move to Texas.

I heard about a Little Rock woman with high blood pressure who called her doctor's office for an appointment. She was told she was not one of their patients any longer. They did not take Medicare patients. Shocking. We will see this happening more and more.

AP: Seniors worry about Medicare. Those on Medicare Advantage will be hurt.

In this blog post, Dr. C. L. Gray explains the problem that has developed with Medicare. He favors reform but argues that what Congress is doing is not the answer.

For Dr. Gray's article see here. 

Bloomberg: Tomorrow the Mayo Clinic will stop accepting Medicare patients at one of its primary-care clinics in Arizona. Medicare pays too little. Mayo Clinic is losing millions of dollars each year on Medicare patients. This shutdown is a pilot project. More to come.