AARP Eye Center
The Takeaway: Candidates Court Older Americans on Medicare
By Elizabeth Nolan Brown, February 17, 2012 09:35 AM
Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich have all embraced some of the ideas laid out by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., whose 2011 Medicare plan would have abolished traditional Medicare for those under 55, replacing it with a "premium support" system that would give a set amount of money to beneficiaries to shop for private health coverage.
Romney's Medicare reform plan would use the premium support model laid out by Ryan, but also allow Medicare beneficiaries who like the current government-run insurance plan to opt for that instead of private insurance. It's a compromise similar to the one proposed by Ryan and Sen. Ron Wyden, D- Ore., in December. Gingrich also endorsed the Wyden-Paul compromise plan. Santorum said he supports the plan, but he'd rather it didn't preserve traditional Medicare.
President Obama, on the other hand, wrote in his 2013 budget plan that he would "not support ... efforts to turn Medicare into a voucher."
The president says he wants to preserve Medicare's current guarantee to cover set benefits, but curb costs through greater efficiencies, such as strengthening incentives for doctors, hospitals and other health care providers to give high-quality care, and cutting expenditures for those who get care through the Medicare Advantage program. ... In his budget proposal, the president sought additional savings by increasing premiums for higher-income beneficiaries, raising the price for some home health care services and increasing efforts to reduce fraud and waste.
Ron Paul's Medicare plans are vague (he's previously called the program unconstitutional, but also admitted that doing away with it wasn't practical).
Meanwhile, two Republican senators Thursday unveiled a new Medicare overhaul proposal. It features a quicker transition to private health insurance plans for many older adults, a gradual increase in the Medicare eligibility age, and higher premiums for middle-class and upper-income retirees. The plan itself is unlikely to go anywhere this year, but it will help define the debate for presidential and congressional candidates this year.
Friday Quick Hits:
- Age discrimination suits are on the rise-but becoming harder to win.
- Psychiatrists debate whether grief is the same as depression.
- With older adults working even as they begin collecting Social Security or taking distributions from retirement accounts, financial experts say a tax strategy for "retirement" has never been more important.
- A new device can deliver medication via a remote-controlled microchip implant. It's "equivalent to an injection without the pain or trouble," said researcher Robert Farra.
- And beginning with spending levels at age 65, household expenditure falls by 19 percent by age 75, 34 percent by age 85, and 52 percent by age 95, according to a new study.