Republicans and their allies are dusting off an old $500 billion deception about Medicare, trying once more to scare seniors into voting their way. The logic on this one turns truth on its head, but some in the media have caught on to this election tactic and have begun trying to supply missing context.
A bit of background: Before the 2010 mid-term elections, I wrote that both Democrats and the GOP had cynically exploited Medicare during the campaign, with Republicans ultimately winning that fight, not to mention the election. The Republicans hammered away at the argument—built on a half-truth—that the new health law would cut $500 billion out of Medicare, and they targeted members of Congress who supported the reform. Seniors carried the GOP to victory.
The facts were and still are these: The health reform law, aka the Affordable Care Act, does call for cutting $500 billion from Medicare to help finance subsidies for the uninsured. The administration portrayed these as “savings”—in other words, money not spent for Medicare that could be used for another purpose. But the important take-away is this: the law does not cut a dime from the basic Medicare benefits seniors receive. All seniors will still get hospital benefits, coverage for physician services, lab tests, hospital outpatient care, prescription drugs, and so on, and will continue to receive them unless pols on both sides of the aisle succeed in changing the fundamental structure of Medicare. (That indeed is possible after the election. But that’s for another post.)
Most of the $500 billion in cuts aim at reducing payments to health care providers—hospitals, nursing homes, home health agencies, though not doctors. And about one quarter of the cuts target Medicare Advantage Plans to reduce the amount of government overpayments insurers have gotten. The government was paying more to these plans to provide benefits than it was paying to provide the same benefits under the traditional Medicare program. Medicare Advantage plans are a popular alternative to traditional Medigap policies because those overpayments have allowed insurers to offer cheap premiums and extra benefits like dental and vision care. But policy experts found these payments were unwarranted, wasted money, and jeopardized the finances of the Medicare trust fund that pays for hospital care.
Of course, none of this is the stuff of campaign ads. That leaves the press to fill in the blanks.
A few news outlets are trying to do that. Tampa Bay Online reported that the US Chamber of Commerce has begun airing TV ads in some of the state’s largest cities attacking Florida Senator Bill Nelson, a Democrat who is up for reelection this year. Nelson’s sin, it seems, was supporting the Affordable Care Act. The Chamber’s ads include the “Republican contention that the plan cuts $500 billion from Medicare,” Tampa Bay Online noted. The website also points out that political fact-checking organizations, including the Annenberg Foundation’s FactCheck.org, have found that argument to be “false,” since the $500 billion figure “refers not to cuts but to limits on the planned increases in Medicare costs.” Do the findings of the fact-checking organizations make a difference in the electorate’s mind, or do the ads trump the facts? That’s something the media should explore as the campaign roars on.
The ads do grab attention, as in this smooth and reassuring message, aired by Jesse Kelly, a Republican running against Ron Barber for the House seat vacated by former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords: “Ron Barber wants to hide he supports Obamacare, which will cut $500 billion from Medicare. Our seniors deserve better.”
- 1
- 2
Your critique of the "$500 billion cut" message is both incoherent and only presents half the argument.
In the beginning, you admit the claim is in fact true. But then you say that the people making the argument are deceitful for leaving out the fact that these are savings that won't change Medicare... unless (you add parenthetically) Congress changes Medicare. But of course Congress will have to do just that or doctors will drop out and hospitals will go bankrupt. Rather than wasting your time regurgitaing a Democratic party fundraing mailer, read the midnight Friday May 18, 2012 memo to nobody from Medicare's actuary (see http://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/ReportsTrustFunds/Downloads/2012TRAlternativeScenario.pdf)
As for the half of the argument that you completely ignore (because it does not fit your narrative), the second half of very Republican presentation on this subject point out that if it is so easy to cut $500 billion in costs without hurting Medicare beneficiaries, then the savings should go back into Medicare to keep the trust fund from going bust in 10 years rather than putting these easy savings into insurance for others.
#1 Posted by Dennis Byron, CJR on Mon 21 May 2012 at 05:37 PM
Dennis, you can debate whether the way President Obama and the Dems paid for the Affordable Care Act coverage expansion was good policy, but what you can't debate is that when President Bush passed the Medicare prescription drug program and his two big tax cuts, there was absolutely no "pay for" to cover the huge costs of those bills to the Treasury. Any pay-for is going to be controversial but what the Dems did was far more fiscally responsible (and politically courageous) than passing a popular program and tax cuts and paying for them through hugely increased dificits and borrowing.
#2 Posted by Harris Meyer, CJR on Mon 21 May 2012 at 06:07 PM
You don't get it, Dennis...
In Lieberman Liberal La La Land, cutting a half a trillion in payments to health care providers doesn't result in any loss of benefits to anyone!
They'll all get the same services they get now!
You don't actually think there's some sort of correlation between money and services, do you?
Sure, maybe they'll have to wait a couple of extra months to get an appointment for an X-ray once their local hospital shuts down or quits taking Medicare.
And yeah, the lab tests might not be as reliable when the lab uses work-release to hire techs.
But come now! Calling a half a trillion dollar cut in Medicare a half a trillion dollar cut?
EGAD! We can't let those filthy Republicans get away with such labeling!
#3 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Mon 21 May 2012 at 07:20 PM
This is why the U.S. Constitution allows for General Welfare, not Specific Welfare.
General welfare embodies the concept of liberty for all, "created equal," etc. Specific welfare embodies "the violence of faction": a bunch of political footballs that are used to dupe Americans into voting for either the DEM evil or REP evil.
General Welfare is a sound currency, low tariffs and user-fee taxes, no barriers to trade and market entry, national defense, etc. Specific welfare is SS, Medicare, affirmative action, income taxation, etc.
Imagine how much easier life would've been if American voters weren't so gullible and enslaved as to vote for only Constitution-raping fiends these past couple-hundred years.
#4 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Mon 21 May 2012 at 08:06 PM
@Harris Meyer
Huh? Did I mention Part D Prescription Drug Coverage? Did anything I wrote imply that I was against balancing the budget? Are you saying Obamacare is popular?
Despite your avoiding the questions I raised, yes I strongly question the Democratic "pay-for" that really doesn't pay for anything because the cuts aren't going to happen (read the actuary report I linked to) and -- therefore -- you'll bust the system in 2018 insted of 2024 and end Medicare.
#5 Posted by dennis byron, CJR on Tue 22 May 2012 at 07:47 AM
A teacher would be fired if her lectures were as unpredictable as the events the news media must investigate. And most students would flunk out of school if they studied as much as the average American studies current events. So the public will always be susceptible to lies and half truths by politicians until reporters and editors change their professional standards and start communicating like a teacher. But this will never happen because reporters and editors are too selfish to care more about their country than the fun they can have by playing gotcha journalism .
#6 Posted by Stanley Krauter, CJR on Tue 22 May 2012 at 12:44 PM
Can someone explain to me why my post exposing Trudy's hypocrisy was deleted by the CJR's censors?
HUH?
Trudy appeals to factcheck.org as an authority to snipe at the GOP's claim that the $500 billion cut in Medicare funding is in fact... a $500 billion cut in Medicare funding...
When it suits her Cause, then there is no better authority than factcheck.org...
HOWEVER...
When the fact-checkers called out the Dems for their "Big Lie" that the GOP plan called for ending Medicare...
Trudy threw a Level 9 Hissy Fit over it.
Typical, liberal hackery.
Appeal to authority when it furthers your agenda, attack the same authority when it hinders your agenda.
PITIFUL.
#7 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Tue 22 May 2012 at 01:15 PM
The fact is that medical providers have been raising costs at about double the rate of inflation and then passing those costs onto consumers or their coverage.
The coverage providers then have the choice of raising premiums or denying treatments in order to make their ends meet, tools that were largely surrendered under the Affordable Care Act in exchange for the mandate.
Anyone who has studied this knows that the systems for coverage, for health provision (hospitals & doctors), and for treatment provision (equipment & pharmaceutical manufacturers) are competing for patient dollars, for rents. The Obama government has already given up the fight against pharma by upholding the agreement not to negotiate prices made into law by Bush. (One reason for that may be this problem is due to take care of itself.
Coverage providers have been pushed to compromise on preexisting conditions, minimum levels of coverage, and children's coverage in order to meet the goal of near universal coverage.
The only place left to go is the hospitals and doctors, who as anyone who has studied this should know are spending more money on treatments with no improvements in patient outcomes. That is because they are using the wrong models for patient care, not the Mayo model which improves quality at reduced cost, but the McAllen model in which every doctor is an entrepreneur. That leads to cost explosions as doctors and hospitals ding patients and their coverage (including Medicare) for unnecessary procedures so as to recoup the costs of their expensive equipment and to make extravagant profits.
REALITY BELL! DING DING! DING!
The question you have to ask is do you want efficient and cost contained medical care or do you want every bell and whistle medical care that will increasingly eat your disposable income in the premiums, deductibles, and taxes needed to support it?
And, keep in mind, your choice of medical care will result in NO DIFFERENCE IN OUTCOME.
The smart choice is to save 500 billion and encourage the mayo clinic model. The dumb choice is to have every doctor order thousand dollar MRI's so they can pay off the overpriced MRI machines each one has in their basement and then they can print MRI money there after.
#8 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 22 May 2012 at 02:33 PM
By the by, it's interesting how conservatives equate reduction in cost by billions in health care with a reduction in quality, forced queues, closed facilities, etcetera, etcetera...
something they don't do with education, environmental protection, financial protection, fire departments, road maintenance, water infrastructure, etcetera, etcetera.
It's almost like they're arguing that it's a betrayal of some sorts when government reduces the expense of services, like they're owed a service from government or something. Hmmph. Interesting approach there, conservatives.
Which brings us to:
"the half of the argument that you completely ignore (because it does not fit your narrative), the second half of very Republican presentation on this subject point out that if it is so easy to cut $500 billion in costs without hurting Medicare beneficiaries, then the savings should go back into Medicare to keep the trust fund from going bust in 10 years rather than putting these easy savings into insurance for others."
The republican plan for medicare, as Padikakes links to in his "level 9 hissy fit", is to replace medicare as an insurer with medicare as a voucher. This voucher would be used to subsidize private coverage purchases. The voucher would not rise with the rate of healthcare inflation, it would rise at the rate of general inflation. Since healthcare inflation is about double of general inflation and private coverage is about 5 to 10 times the administrative costs of medicare, the effect of the voucher is to push costs off the public and onto the individual senior.
That is cutting 500 billion or more out of medicare with NO cost controls and pushing it onto seniors. When democrats pointed this out, the "liberal media" and the fact checkers went out of their way not only to correct the charge that republicans wanted to change "medicare, as we know it" but to imply that the democrats are out and out liars of the year for bringing the subject up, which is why you have "Democrats want to cut 500 billion out of medicare" ads everywhere without dems putting up a "Paul Ryan and the republicans want to cancel your medicare coverage altogether" response.
Republicans get to lie and demagogue because it's expected of them. Democrats have to cower because actually standing up and saying "the republicans are wrong and are liars" will get the media, the republicans, and business friendly centrist democrats tut tutting your tone.
You people are liars. Medicare advantage is not Medicare. Cost control is not a quality cut nor socialism. Unless you people are willing to raise the revenue to account for the costs, you have no right to complain as the adults try to contain the costs by running record low spending increases:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/obama-spending-binge-never-happened-2012-05-22
"Over Obama’s four budget years, federal spending is on track to rise from $3.52 trillion to $3.58 trillion, an annualized increase of just 0.4%."
while the US population grew 0.7% percent, government employment shrank 2.6 percent (state and local contraction), federal government employment increased just 1.3%, and the country is in the depths of a historic recession requiring the families and individuals to draw upon public supports like no other time aside from the great depression.
If republican liars cared about the country, they'd be fighting to improve the lives of their constituents instead of fighting democrats because "if the people vote for someone else, THEY HATE AMERICA".
The people running these "500 billion dollars" ads are the scum of the earth. Two masters, you can't love medicare and Paul Ryan.
#9 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 22 May 2012 at 06:11 PM
To the press, this is the kind of republican to watch out for. If the democrats aren't going to make the case because you've chickened them out, you need to make the case - if informing the public and giving the electorate an informed basis for their political decisions is a priority for you.
To the general public, this is the real danger posed by Obamacare to Medicare.
Cont.
#10 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 22 May 2012 at 06:26 PM
The REASON that people (both legitimate providers and fraudsters) are making money off of Medicare is because...
Of Medicare!
Any Gubmint program that doles money out of the treasury to private citizens will be exploited and abused.
Gubmint programs INHERENTLY foster market inefficiency.
Witness the case of a local GP.
He used to do tonsillectomies in his office for Medicare patients at the Part B rate of $400 or $500. Then Medicare cut the part B rate for these procedures in half.
So what are his choices? 1. Lose money and work harder. 2. Stop taking Medicare patients and lose money.
Which would you do?
Well, turns out, thanks to the Gubmint's idiocy, there is a third option.
Namely, to reserve an operating room at the local hospital and perform the operation there at the Medicare Part A rate (something like $4000). So now this doctor is doing these procedures at the hospital, creating an insane expense for the taxpayers.
It's not the doctor's fault - he is doing nothing illegal. People will exploit loopholes to make money and ANY Gubmint program will have tons of such loopholes. They are INHERENT in any government program because government programs cannot tolerant discretion - they MUST operate on policy for political reasons - We can't have Sally getting a procedure that Sarah can't have, after all...
And the simple fact of the matter is that just as any abstraction results in an imperfection, reducing any free human enterprise to a set of rules in a procedural manual will create loopholes, omissions, ambiguities and mistakes that will be exploited.
The screwy lefties think that they can pencil their way around Gubmint inefficiency. If only there were MORE regulations and MORE regulators then all would be good, they believe. Anyone with the slightest bit of business experience knows that such a view is just silly.
The way to fix health care is to do what France does - namely to make people pay money (around $30-$50) every time they go to the doctor. People who pay out of pocket are responsible consumers who create market efficiency.
This simple fix would put an end to most of the cost problems we have (though these costs are overblown and exaggerated by the left).
Any system wherein the consumers' bills are paid by "somebody else" is doomed to bleed money and to engender squalor and misery.
#11 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Tue 22 May 2012 at 06:28 PM
What's the danger? The similarities between republicans and democrat plans for healthcare are only separated by their priorities.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/why-ryancare-and-obamacare-look-so-similar/2011/08/25/gIQAZZa3XS_blog.html
"That has left the two parties in a somewhat odd position: Democrats support the Republicans’ old idea for the under-65 set but oppose it for the over-65 set. Republicans support the Democrats’ new idea for the over-65 set but oppose it for the under-65 set.
This isn’t quite as incoherent as it seems. Democrats say they would prefer Medicare-for-All for the under-65 set, but they’ll take whatever steps toward universal health insurance they can get. Republicans say they would prefer a more free- market approach for the over-65 set but that a seniors’ version of “Obamacare” is nevertheless a step in the right direction. For both parties, it’s the direction of the policy, rather than the policy itself, that matters.
There’s an added complication for Republicans. They have assumed huge savings from applying the exchange-and-subsidies model to Medicare. But they don’t assume — in fact they vehemently deny — that those same savings would result from the identical policy mechanism in the Affordable Care Act...
[I]f the Affordable Care Act not only survives but also succeeds, then Republicans have a good chance of exporting its private-insurers-and-exchanges model to Medicare and Medicaid, which would entrench the private health-insurance system in America.
That’s not the strategy Republicans are pursuing. Instead, they’re stuck fighting a war against a plan that they helped to conceive and, on a philosophical level, still believe in."
The only thing preserving medicare's public service status is that Republicans hate Democrats and America too much to work with them on the market based approaches conservatives came up with in the first place.
Three cheers for gridlock. Hooray. (someone else do the other two. Can't be bothered. Must be my enthusiasm gap)
#12 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 22 May 2012 at 06:38 PM
"The way to fix health care is to do what France does"
Awesome:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_France
"The French health care system is one of universal health care largely financed by government national health insurance. In its 2000 assessment of world health care systems, the World Health Organization found that France provided the "best overall health care" in the world.[1] In 2005, France spent 11.2% of GDP on health care, or US$3,926 per capita, a figure much higher than the average spent by countries in Europe but less than in the US. Approximately 77% of health expenditures are covered by government funded agencies."
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92419273
"In France, the national insurance program is funded mostly by payroll and income taxes. Those payments go to several quasi-public insurance funds that then negotiate with medical unions to set doctors' fees. (Doctors can choose to work outside this system, and a growing minority now charge what patients are willing to pay out of pocket.) The government regulates most hospital fees. This system works collectively to keep costs down.
When someone goes to see a doctor, the national insurance program pays 70 percent of the bill. Most of the other 30 percent gets picked up by supplemental private insurance, which almost everyone has. It's affordable, and much of it gets paid for by a person's employer.
"There are no uninsured in France," says Victor Rodwin, a professor of health policy at New York University, who is affiliated with the International Longevity Center. "That's completely unheard of. There is no case of anybody going broke over their health costs. In fact, the system is so designed that for the 3 or 4 or 5 percent of the patients who are the very sickest, those patients are exempt from their co-payments to begin with. There are no deductibles.""
Yeah, that could work.
#13 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 22 May 2012 at 06:49 PM
"you have no right to complain as the adults try to contain the costs by running record low spending increases:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/obama-spending-binge-never-happened-2012-05-22
"Over Obama’s four budget years, federal spending is on track to rise from $3.52 trillion to $3.58 trillion, an annualized increase of just 0.4%.""
Austerity to the left of me, austerity to the right.
Here I am, stuck in the recession with you.
#14 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 22 May 2012 at 07:11 PM
Before the lefties start going nuts over the wikipedi-enhanced liberal version of the French health care system...
Note that:
1. The French spend the most in Europe (as a percentage of GDP) on their health care - indeed when the cost of the "free" medical education given to doctors and nurses is factored into the equation, they spend nearly as much as we do.
2. They PAY MONEY when they go to the doctor. Not a huge amount, but enough to keep them from showing up at the ER when their kids get earaches.
Requiring people to reach into their pockets and part with their own cash in exchange for services is the way to create efficiency.
It is such a simple notion, but one that lefties will fight tooth and nail.
As for the notion of having "somebody else" pay for health care, the Euros are facing the inevitable process of "de-universalizing" their "universal" health care plans.
It would seem that the Euro Gubmint Money Fairy is running low on Free Health Care Dust...
#15 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Tue 22 May 2012 at 07:24 PM
"Before the lefties start going nuts over the wikipedi-enhanced liberal version of the French health care system..."
Yeah, keep an eye on the lefties.
When you've lost people to the left of Matt Welch, you've lost America and then some.
Maybe you just shouldn't have brought up the French (and then try to change the topic to the Spanish - HA! You're a card!).
#16 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 22 May 2012 at 08:41 PM
Here we go with the bitching about "austerity".
In Liberal La La Land, government spending (especially deficit spending) is an economic panacea.
Well... The government can't make money. Not possible. Printing money doesn't make wealth. It just dilutes it.
The government can either get in the way of economic freedom and keep people from making money (a role that Thimbles espouses - indeed he equates free enterprise with "criminal activity") or the government can instead get out of the way and encourage people to make money (a role that nearly everyone who has ever actually run anything espouses).
Only WORK makes wealth. And nothing (except coercion) makes it faster or more efficiently than a profit motive in a free market. ECON 101.
Wealth is crystalized work. It represents the added value of labor. Something is worth more than it was earlier because somebody did something to make it or to make it better.
Commie/Socialist/Progressive/Liberal wealth-snatching plans (like the redistribution of wealth by the Gubmint) are doomed to fail because they don't produce or improve anything. They just dilute wealth.
I know the liberals hate hearing it.. But as I've proven here with census data, the fact of the matter is that for every one hour worked by an adult in the bottom 20% of American households (by income) and adult in the top 20% works nearly 12 hours!
More work, more money? Whodathunkit?
What a freaking concept.
We don't need to dole out Gubmint grants or guaranteed student loans to the OWS kids so that they can wallow off to major in stupidity and to graduate without skills and with worthless, impractical degrees. These kids need to do some damned work.
The sooner we get a government that cuts the apron strings and requires able-bodied adults to support themselves or to face the consequences of failing to do so, the sooner this country will be on the road to restoration.
#17 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Tue 22 May 2012 at 08:54 PM
"The government can either get in the way of economic freedom and keep people from making money (a role that Thimbles espouses - indeed he equates free enterprise with "criminal activity")"
Funny, critics of parasite capitalism say that about you:
http://www.salon.com/2012/05/18/corporate_criminals_gone_wild/
You guys engage in criminal behavior and call it "free enterprise".
#18 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 22 May 2012 at 10:08 PM
Back on the topic of medicare, an interesting article right up Trudy's alley:
"Requiring people to reach into their pockets and part with their own cash in exchange for services is the way to create efficiency.
It is such a simple notion, but one that lefties will fight tooth and nail."
Wrong.
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/8508-patients-rarely-considered-in-press-coverage-of-medicare
"In his 2013 budget, Barack Obama has proposed a 26 percent funding hike for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Almost all of the increase, however, would go to help states implement his 2010 healthcare act. Responsibility for Medicare would gradually shift toward beneficiaries. Obama wants to tack new co-pays, deductibles and premiums onto numerous benefits, such as visits to help the frail elderly remain at home. Commenting on the shift, a Washington Post blog (2/13/12) stated blandly: “Research suggests that the more individuals pay for health services out of pocket, the less likely they are to consume unnecessarily expensive care.”
In fact, a review of existing research on the effect of co-pays by Jonathan Gruber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Kaiser Family Foundation, 10/06) concluded that raising so-called cost-sharing reduced use of low-cost but important preventative care, such as pap smears and immunizations. Most ominous for Medicare users, half of whom made less than $22,000 in 2010, Gruber found higher co-pays led to a “significantly higher risk of dying” and “a sizable increase in adverse events and emergency room utilization” among sicker and poorer patients.
Moreover, Medicare patients are already paying more out of pocket than workers with private insurance; one in four enrollees pays 30 percent or more of their income (Kaiser Fact Sheet, 9/11). Medicare users contribute at least 20 percent of outpatient bills alone, plus doctors are allowed to charge 15 percent more than Medicare’s fixed-rate ceiling for any procedure, effectively raising co-payments to 35 percent. And despite reforms still being phased in, this year Medicare will cover just 55 percent of mental health costs, leaving some patients bearing 70 percent of the load.
This is on top of charges for drug coverage, deductibles and monthly premiums ($100 to $320) based on income. In addition, Medicare does not cover dental care, most vision care and many preventive and long-term health services."
You can look up medicare deductible costs here.
http://www.medicare.gov/cost/
The problems aren't the lack of cost sharing or the feisty nature of the left, the problem is cost explosion as the three constituencies attempt to capture their share of profit from consumers that cannot negotiate over the cost of their lives.
Bringing down those costs from the world's most expensive healthcare system requires a change in mindset from business to service. You cannot contain costs when the industry is more focused on profits than on health and quality of service per dollar.
#19 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Wed 23 May 2012 at 01:56 PM
Yeah...
Well, you might want to take it back, Thimbo, since it appears that Mr. Gruber has flip-flopped on the copay issue since the 2006 article you cite.
At any rate, John Gruber is a great guy alright.
On the take from the Gubmint while advocating for the Gubmint.
Liberals will do anything to get other people's money....
#20 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Wed 23 May 2012 at 03:49 PM
Wow.
A) boy did I screw up the link somehow. This is an unfortunate symptom of being too multitasked.
B) did you read the paper linked?
The man's opinion is highly nuanced (though maybe not so much when it comes to apple).
#21 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Wed 23 May 2012 at 05:30 PM
PS.
"(though maybe not so much when it comes to apple)"
KIDDING!
#22 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Wed 23 May 2012 at 05:34 PM
Padikiller,
Where did you get your data supporting your comment about France and their healthcare / medical school expenditures? The OECD data I saw showed the following 2009/2008 data (the most recent I could find):
As a percentage of GDP
Healthcare
U.S. - 17.4%
France - 11.8%
Education (France)
Total * - 6.0%
Tertiary - 1.4% (Public 1.2%; Private - 0.2%)
* includes all levels of education (primary; secondary; post secondary; and tertiary)
Even if one assumes that 100% of the public portion of France's tertiary education expenditures goes to medical schools, you only arrive at 13.0% for France, which is not "... nearly as much as we do" (17.4%). Also, if one were to include public subsidies for medical schools in the healthcare figure for France, one should also do the same with respect to the U.S. healthcare costs.
My sources can be found at the following links:
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/46/33/38979719.pdf
http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/888932463802
#23 Posted by Bobcanuck, CJR on Thu 24 May 2012 at 02:11 PM
Given the magnitude of the Medicare challenge, there are only three broad options available to policymakers:
Raise general or payroll taxes to cover the rapidly rising costs of the Medicare program. This would mean levels of taxation for all Americans unlike they have ever seen, reducing disposable income for younger families, small businesses, and capital investment.
Double down on failed provider payment cuts with the certain knowledge that ever deeper provider payment cuts will make it increasingly difficult for doctors, hospitals and other medical professionals to continue to offer the level or quality of care that seniors are getting today. It also means that the practice environment for physicians will worsen, aggravating the already dangerous physician shortage that baby boomers are facing.
Build upon the defined-contribution (premium support) programs that already exist in Medicare Part D and the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.
#24 Posted by Carly EngageAmerica, CJR on Fri 25 May 2012 at 10:49 AM
Whoever wrote this article in not a senior. Medicare Advantage Plans have been a life saver for millions of seniors. Unlike traditional Medicare the Advantage plans pay !00% of costs associated with illness save the copay of $35-$45.00 if you stay within the plan whereas traditional Medicare only pays 80%. If you need more coverage you are forced to chose a supplemental plan such as (AARP, that's why they lobbied for Obamacare) and pay an additional $300-$400 a month. Taking the $500 billion out of medicare hurts, really hurts especially when you do not tell the truth as to the advantages of these health plans for the elderly and the less affluent. Shame of you for 1/2 truths.
#25 Posted by Renee, CJR on Sat 18 Aug 2012 at 10:30 AM