thebigp

--6IH.,B13.14
NRCC says Obamacare cuts money from Medicare and seniors.
Since the 2010 midterm elections, Republicans and their allies have claimed the Affordable Care Act slashes funding for Medicare, the federal healthcare program for seniors. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney made almost identical claims in the 2012 presidential election as well.
It appears the GOP playbook for the 2014 midterms will be similar.
An early indication is in Florida’s special election to replace the late U.S. Rep. C.W. Bill Young, R-Fla., where the National Republican Congressional Committee is airing an ad hammering Democrat Alex Sink’s support of Obamacare.
The ad says the law includes a "$700 billion cut from Medicare for seniors."
We’ve tackled this claim repeatedly throughout the years. There’s some truth to it, but quite a bit of context is missing.
Obamacare does not literally cut funding from the Medicare budget, but tries to bring down future health care costs in the program. Much of this is accomplished by reducing Medicare Advantage, a small subset of Medicare plans that are run by private insurers.
President George W. Bush started Medicare Advantage in hopes the increased competition would reduce costs. But those plans are actually costlier than traditional Medicare. So the health care law reduces payments to private insurers.
Hospitals, too, will be paid less if they have too many re-admissions, or if they fail to meet other new benchmarks for patient care.
The goal is get health care providers to increase their efficiency and quality of care instead of cutting benefits for seniors.
The overall trend in Medicare spending is still expected to increase, even after the adjustments in the Affordable Care Act.
How much are the spending reductions? That has changed throughout the years as estimates get updated.
In 2011, the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan scorekeeper of fiscal legislation, estimated that the reductions in Medicare spending in the Affordable Care Act were about $507 billion between 2012 and 2021. A more recent estimate from 2013 anticipated about $716 billion in Medicare savings from 2013-2022.
It’s also worth noting that the preferred plan of Republicans in 2012, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget, assumed the same cuts to Medicare.
When asked to back up their claim, the NRCC pointed us to our own story from Nov. 2, 2012, about Young’s last Congressional race. In it, we fact-checked an ad in which Young claimed he "opposed $716 billion cut to Medicare."
THE DAILY SIGNAL---Obamacare Robs Medicare of $716 Billion to Fund Itself:
According to the CBO, the payment cuts in Medicare include:
• A $260 billion payment cut for hospital services.
• A $39 billion payment cut for skilled nursing services.
• A $17 billion payment cut for hospice services.
• A $66 billion payment cut for home health services.
• A $33 billion payment cut for all other services.
• A $156 billion cut in payment rates in Medicare Advantage (MA); $156 billion is before considering interactions with other provisions. The House Ways and Means Committee was able to include interactions with other provisions, estimating the cuts to MA to be even higher, coming in at $308 billion.
• $56 billion in cuts for disproportionate share hospital (DSH) payments.* DSH payments go to hospitals that serve a large number of low-income patients.
• $114 billion in other provisions pertaining to Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP* (does not include coverage-related provisions).
In total, Obamacare raids Medicare by $716 billion from 2013 to 2022. Despite Medicare facing a 75-year unfunded obligation of $37 trillion, Obamacare uses the savings from the cuts to pay for other provisions in Obamacare, not to help shore up Medicare’s finances.
• The impact of these cuts will be detrimental to seniors’ access to care. The Medicare trustees 2012 report concludes that these lower Medicare payment rates will cause an estimated 15 percent of hospitals,
• skilled nursing facilities, and home health agencies to operate at a loss by 2019,
• 25 percent to operate at a loss in 2030, and 40 percent by 2050. Operating at a loss means these facilities are likely to cut back their services to Medicare patients or close their doors, making it more difficult for seniors to access these services.
• In addition, as MA deteriorates under Obamacare’s cuts, many of those who are enrolled in MA (27 percent of total Medicare beneficiaries) will lose their current health coverage and be forced back into traditional Medicare, where Medicare providers will be subject to further cuts. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services chief actuary predicted in 2010 that enrollment in MA would decrease 50 percent
• by 2017, when Obamacare’s cuts were estimated at only $145 billion.
• Now that the cuts have been increased to $156 billion (or possibly $308 billion,
• as the Ways and Means Committee estimates), MA enrollment will surely decrease even further.
• But Obamacare’s raid of Medicare doesn’t stop with cuts; it includes a redirection of tax revenue from the Medicare payroll tax hike in Obamacare. The payroll tax funds Medicare Part A, the trust fund that is projected to become insolvent as soon as 2024.
• Obamacare increases the tax from 2.9 percent to 3.8 percent, which is projected to cost taxpayers $318 billion from 2013 to 2022.
• However, for the very first time, Obamacare does not use the tax revenue from the increased Medicare payroll tax to pay for Medicare;
• the money is used to fund other parts of Obamacare, much like the $716 billion in cuts are.
• With a raid on Medicare of this magnitude, President Obama’s assertion that his new law is protecting seniors and Medicare is astonishing.
• The truth is that Obamacare does the opposite.

SOURCE-NRCC, CONTORNO, STEVE-MOORHEAD, MOLLY-THE DAILY SIGNAL-SENGER, ALYENE-

JFlorio Loc: Seminole Florida

Some how I don't believe are resident liberals, such as Airnestone who worship the CBO will now take the word of the CBO.

mactheknife

This is bad news for us seniors who have paid into Medicare over the past 50+ years. My understanding is that Medicare is a "trust fund" and if politicians are robbing the fund they have failed their fiduciary duty. If so the should be prosecuted for embezzlement.

maryjane

Does everyone that insurance companies are a big part of this problem. I only discovered this scam when I retired at 65. A few months before my 65 birthday, I received a letter from the company with whom I had had health insurance for all my working life (almost 40 years). The letter informed me that on my birthday, they would no longer be my insurer, that Medicare would become my primary insurer and they would be secondary. I was upset because I did not want to make that change. But when I spoke to a representative of my company, I was told that it was the law and thst if I chose not to enroll in medicare I would have no insurance at all. Now, logic says that if I am paying for two insurance policies, all medical bills should be covered, but, no, that is also a scam. In general, Medicare pays only 80% of the bill and one would think the secondary/supplement policy would pay the other 20%. But, no, the secondary policy pays (if any) only 80% of the 20% that medicare doesn't pay. So, you can't win with insurance companies.

Airforceone

What a line of BS, where the hell did you get those figures. Damm how many times does this have to be explained. This is Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney BS at its best.

The $716 Billion Which was originally $500 billion. The health care law reduces the amount of future spending growth in Medicare. The law in no way cuts Medicare. (FUTURE GROWTH SAVINGS) The GD savings come from reducing cost that goes to the private insurers who provide the Medicare Advantage.

Medicare Advantage was created by the Medicare Modernization Act Of 2003 by the Republican Party and signed by Bush. All it was is a subsidy to encourage privatization of the Medicare. It was a slush fund to overpay by an estimated $716 billion for private companies that the right wing would lead you to believe that it would cost less money for Medicare.

Medicare Advantage was costing 14% more which Obama saved he did not cut that $716 billion. It was a savings to traditional Medicare system. Again it was a savings for (FUTURE GROWTH) should I say it again there was no cut to Medicare it was a savings on (FUTURE GROWTH)

Damm that has been debunked ever since Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan started that garbage when they were running for President.

(ITS CLASSIFIED AS ONE OF THE BIGGEST PIECES OF MISINFORMATION PUT ON THE AMERICAN PEOPLE DURING A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.

Dummy Boy Loc: Michigan

Oh well, the very people in their 70 and 80's barely paid for it (Medicare only came into existence in 1965). That same age group, didn't want health insurance mandated and now they are bitter that we "didn't figure out this healthcare thingy".

Yea, so what.

JFlorio Loc: Seminole Florida

Actually you have been classified as the biggest proponent of misinformation.

vernon

Obama took that 700 billion to help fund aca.But then he came back and got another 250 billion more , said it was for medicare but who knows.Now they want to put everyone on medicare.this will destroy

will destroy medicare because of the preexisting conditions and the welfare people who don't pay anything,While we pay into it all our working lives.They stole the ss from us .just when are the working people vote out all these crazy demorats.

Dummy Boy Loc: Michigan

I'm not going to complain about what I pay, but the reality, regardless of how long you worked and the way rates for health insurance for the ACA, clearly, the system was never properly funded because there are no controls in place to set rates for treatment or to not treat the elderly until recently. No, I'm not suggesting euthanasia, I'm suggesting that when your time is up, sometimes death is better than your treatment options. My grandmother can attest to dialysis, and being chained to a machine. That is no life.

In fact, in October of 2015, if a doctor treats someone with a low threshold of survival they won't get reimbursed. My aunt learned about that, since they rejected her for cancer because she was told that she wouldn't walk of the operating table. It's great getting old in a capitalist society, isn't it? Guess we should all take better care of ourselves.

Chocura750

As far as I'm concerned my Medicare and BC/BS Medex work just fine.

Dummy Boy Loc: Michigan

And Paul Ryan is going to bring the axe down on it next, it won't be the Democrats doing it....Paul Ryan.

Radiance3

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That $700 billion happened during the initial funding of the Obama care. Money taken from senior Medicare funds, thus reducing their own medical care to distribute to tens of millions of illegals and free loaders. These are the voters and future voters of the democrat party.

That fund however shortly lived, due to many fraudulent activities not accounted for. Therefore the Obama administration raided the funds of Fannie and Freddie Mac in tens of billions of dollars, by changing certain policies that appeared as legal transaction. However, the fund belong to the private investors without them knowing it. So many things happened the inefficient handling of that Fannie and Freddie accountability, now, it appears that that huge organization is going bankrupt. Ultimately, the private investors are the losers. Are you one of them?

mactheknife

It is called "embezzlement" and the perpetrators should be prosecuted.

Airforceone

To thebigp
Again when I read this stuff about $716 billion in Medicare cuts. First the president cannot cut anything Congress has to approve these cuts and Congress now has been 100% controlled by republicans. So if I may try to clear this insidious line of misinformation and try to keep it simple in order for Trump supporters who never read. CBO report in there lifetime.

This $716 billion cut is a Paul Ryan line of BS. The numbers quoted by thebigp was a CBO scoring for Ryan only (IF REPUBLICANS WERE SUCCESSFUL IN REPEALING THE ACA IT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH OBAMA CUTTING MEDICARE IT WAS FOR RYAN ONLY AND RYAN AND REPUBLICANS PASSED THIS BS LIE ONTO TO ROMNEY) It was all part of a memo from the CBO in July of the Romney Obama campaign. It invovled the Republican House plan to repeal the ACA. If the ACA was repealed Medicare would increase in cost over 10 years from 2013 to 2022 by $716 billion. There is absolutly nothing in that CBO report that Obama would cut benefits or anything about cuts to funds. It was a CBO memo to Ryan of numbers that increased Medicare spending if the ACA were to be repealed. But Ryan and other republicans twisted it to mean something that was a flat out lie.

Those numbers put out by Ryan and Romney on Obama cutting Medicare by $716 billion is without a doubt the most insidious lie from republicans, Paul Ryan and Mitt Romneywho refuse to correct what that CBO report actually meant.

This has been throughly debunked by left and right media outlets. But cable channels like Fox And Limbaugh continue with This insidious lie.

( THERE ARE NOT ANY CUTS TO MEDICARE BENEFITS NON) show me cuts in benefits.

That same CBO report to Ryan which he conveniently left out the full extent that over that same period from 2013 to 2022 actually under Obama trimmed $428 billion in waste, fraud and abuse. (NO CUTS TO BENEFITS AND RYAN AND ROMNEY KNEW IT AND CONTINUED WITH THE LIE) That same memo from the CBO indicated to Ryan it will add an additional 8 to 10 years in solvency to Medicare (WITHOUT TOUCHING BENEFITS) this really bother Ryan because his constant agenda to eliminate Medicare and turn it over to the private sector and create a block grant.

Let’s take an attempt at common sense when Republicans and Paul Ryan want to use there agenda of saving Medicare with there block grants while democrats who created it and have fought to sustain it want to suddenly destroy it by cutting $716 billion. (IT MAKES NO SENSE AND DEFYING COMMON SENSE)

This has been exposed as one of the most insidious lies and misinformation about Obama trying to cut Medicare.

mactheknife

I'm not saying that Obama did cut Medicare. What I am saying is that because Medicare is a trust fund, whoever makes cuts should be prosecuted as the taking of money from a trust fund without the authorization of the trustor is "embezzlement". I hope that this clears up your confusion.