» News
The Wyden–Ryan proposal
The need for significant Medicare reform is increasingly evident, even to policymakers long accustomed to avoiding this politically explosive topic. A host of commissions and expert groups, ranging from the President’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform to the Heritage Foundation, have argued that the United States is on an unsustainable fiscal path. Medicare is at the center of our fiscal crunch, with outlays that have grown about twice as fast as the economy over the past decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
Even if the substantial reductions in payments to health care providers included in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are fully implemented and Congress allows the 27.4% reduction in physician payments required under current law to go through, Medicare spending will continue to grow at unsustainable rates. It is more likely that Congress will not enforce such large reductions in provider payments, making Medicare’s drain on the budget that much greater. With the retirement of 76 million Baby Boomers over the next two decades, the program will consume an ever increasing share of the federal budget unless policies are adopted to bend Medicare’s cost curve.
On December 15, 2011, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) released a Medicare reform proposal based on the concept of premium support.[1] Under their proposal,
Medicare would be converted from a defined-benefit to a defined contribution program. Instead of guaranteeing to pay for services as they are rendered, as fee-for service Medicare does, the program would give beneficiaries a subsidy (“premium support”) to purchase coverage from one of multiple competing health plans. The motivation behind the approach is to give plans a clear incentive to provide necessary services in a cost-effective manner, which can result in lower premiums or other beneficiary costs, attracting enrollees and increasing the plan’s share of the market.
RANDO
August 14th, 2012
This will never fly- it’s too reasonable!
Stranded in Sonoma
August 14th, 2012
Why is it that libtards who complain about the military buying $500 hammers and $2000 coffee makers have no problem with Medicare and Social Security fraud?
Why do these same people excoriate the military for being inefficient and should have their funds cut way back, refuse to apply the same reforms to Medicare and Social Security?
Why is it that if you change the name from “the military” or “the pentagon” or “medicare” or “social security” to “unnamed generic gov’t program,” they go out of their minds and demand you name the program? Why aren’t they willing to apply their “fix” they demand of the military to their own socialist programs?
hanoverfist
August 14th, 2012
@Stranded
I’m going to go waaaayyyy off base here and suggest that maybe,just maybe,they hate the military?
Marmo
August 14th, 2012
From what I understand, Medicare is not being converted from a defined benefits plan to a defined contribution plan. The defined contribution part is being added to Medicare and you can participate in it voluntarily. The benefit is that the government will define a base contribution and then bids will be let to the insurance companies to introduce competition that will in turn (according to studies) lower the cost of premiums. So insurance companies will compete to offer benefits at the closest price to the government’s defined contribution as possible.
If the defined contribution you receive from the government doesn’t pay for the benefits, you will get reimbursed for the difference.
Someone please correct me if I’m wrong.
Stranded in Sonoma
August 14th, 2012
@hanoverfist — Ya think?
Marmo
August 14th, 2012
Whoops, I guess you won’t get reimbursed for the difference between the cost of the insurance you buy and the defined contribution you get to buy it with if the defined contribution is less than the cost. But you do get to pocket the difference if the contribution you recieve is more than what the insurance costs.
Google “Ryan-Wyden Medicare reform” to get up to speed.
Stranded in Sonoma
August 14th, 2012
So what is wrong with that? Medicare as we know it is a dismal failure. If we change to a plan that will end it as we know it now, how can that be bad?
Xavier
August 14th, 2012
“as we know it” is the new “extremism”.
or maybe it’s the new “racism”?
Nah, they’ll never replace racism.
Marmo
August 14th, 2012
If left untouched, Medicare will be bankrupt in 10 years. So it will end anyway. The Dems are just spinning to make Ryan look bad. They need to be called on it over and over. They are being deceitful, but what else is new?