"Medicare: Not Such a Budget-Buster Anymore"

[applegrove]

Medicare: Not Such a Budget-Buster Anymore

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/28/upshot/medicare-not-such-a-budget-buster-anymore.html?hpw&rref=upshot&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpHedThumbWell&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0&abt=0002&abg=1

"SNIP.........................


You’re looking at the biggest story involving the federal budget and a crucial one for the future of the American economy. Every year for the last six years in a row, the Congressional Budget Office has reduced its estimate for how much the federal government will need to spend on Medicare in coming years. The latest reduction came in a report from the budget office on Wednesday morning.

The changes are big. The difference between the current estimate for Medicare’s 2019 budget and the estimate for the 2019 budget four years ago is about $95 billion. That sum is greater than the government is expected to spend that year on unemployment insurance, welfare and Amtrak — combined. It’s equal to about one-fifth of the expected Pentagon budget in 2019. Widely discussed policy changes, like raising the estate tax, would generate just a tiny fraction of the budget savings relative to the recent changes in Medicare’s spending estimates.


In more concrete terms, the reduced estimates mean that the federal government’s long-term budget deficit is considerably less severe than commonly thought just a few years ago. The country still faces a projected deficit in future decades, thanks mostly to the retirement of the baby boomers and the high cost of medical care, but it is not likely to require the level of fiscal pain that many assumed several years ago.

The reduced estimates are also an indication of what’s happening in the overall health care system. Even as more people are getting access to health insurance, the costs of caring for individual patients is growing at a super-slow rate. That means that health care, which has eaten into salary gains for years and driven up debt and bankruptcies, may be starting to stabilize as a share of national spending.




.............................SNIP"

[daredtowork]

1. Still it's shocking to think

...we could cover the whole cost of that with one "super plane" on the DoD's toy list.

Sure we need to defend ourselves, but Congress has got to collectively screw their heads on straight and put taxpayer dollars where taxpayers want them to be put first: on addressing domestic issues and the problems that touch their every day lives. Congress has gotten enamored with global "glamor" issues so they can write books and say they individually did World Important things.

Well, it's also important to notice you have an almost permanently unemployable class that are trying to live on almost worthless vouchers for rent ($300 in the Bay Area???!!!!), NO direct cash for necessities, an ever shrinking budget of food stamps, and a GOP creed that won't even put stuff like transportation and work training on the table.

Isn't it sad to think that certain notorious Human Rights Violators could seriously read up on this, they could lecture US hard on OUR Human Rights failings and laugh in our faces every time we sought to insist they do something to improve their moral standing in the world?

Anyway, this number compared with the number given for ONE PLANE in the Social Security thread really puts things in perspective.

[FuzzyRabbit]

2. the NYT is absolutely wrong about social security and the deficit

fron the NYT: "The country still faces a projected deficit in future decades, thanks mostly to the retirement of the baby boomers . . ."

So "serious people" are still trying to convince us that social security payments to the poor and elderly need to be cut.

Social security payments do not come out of the general fund. Never have. Social security is, and has always been, paid by working people through the social security payroll tax.

The right wingers' hero Ronald Reagan was wrong about many things, but he was right about social security:

[Recursion]

7. Notice they stick to the word "deficit": it will add to yearly *deficits*, but not total debt

Because bonds will be sold to redeem existing bonds (which was the whole idea in the first place). But since John Q. Public doesn't understand that "deficit" and "debt" are different things (and sort of vaguely thinks they are "bad&quot , it goes on being repeated.

[Cha]

3. "Medicare: Not Such a Budget-Buster Anymore" Kick for the veracity of the OP. And, Thanks Obama

mahalo to you, applegrove

[sorechasm]

4. The last two paragraphs tell all...

"In all, technical changes have been responsible for a 12 percent reduction since 2010 in the estimates for Medicare spending over the decade ending in 2020. In dollar terms, that’s over $700 billion, which is more than budget cutters could save by eliminating the tax deduction for charitable giving or by converting Medicaid into a block-grant program or cutting military spending by 15 percent."

And

"But the analysts at the Congressional Budget Office say the economy is playing a negligible role in what’s happening in Medicare, meaning that they’re more confident that the practice of medicine really is changing. And those changes, if they persist, will do more to reduce the federal deficit than nearly any policy option budget cutters talk about."

Thank you Mr. President
Goodbye 'death panel' mourners
GObamacare Supporters

[Major Hogwash]

5. And yet, the Republicans still want to eliminate it!!!

And also Medicaid, and privatize Social Security.

Young people are watching.
They are watching how the Republicans treat old people.
And they are watching how the Republicans treat poor people.
And they are watching how the Republicans treat sick people.

And there will be a whole new generation of Americans rise out of this mess that will correct it.
They are the young people, the ones that are watching the Republicans treat their grandparents and parents like scum.

The young people are the future of this country.
They are the hope of this nation.
And they will finally right the wrongs that the Republicans have foisted upon the American people.

[riqster]

6. The biggest and most consequential change from the ACA was increased transparency.

The dollars and cents of Health Care used to be hidden. Making the financial picture clear and open has led to these cost reductions.

[Fred Sanders]

8. But the mass media has no time to mention this...will Obama wear burgundy next presser needs more

some airtime and panel discussions.

Sorry, American voter, there is just not enough news airtime for this minor good news....

[mdbl]

9. Medicare is just shifting costs to the Dr's and the patients

Don't forget how medicare doesn't cover at least 20 percent of almost everything. Now, if you want to cover that 20 percent you have to get an add-on insurance policy. So the fact that they are all proud of their dumbass reduction, it just really isn't. I don't disagree that the healthcare system was getting over bloated with unnecessary fees, but those could have been handled without throwing a lot of the cost on the patient. But who cares, right?

Oh forgot, you also have to pay anywhere from 104 to over 300 per month just to cover that 80 percent. What a deal.

[sendero]

10. Someone has....

... to "shift costs" (which are really just ridiculous overcharges) somewhere. The "name your price" system of health care in this country, in which providers make up a number with ZERO market competition, has to end.

[mdbl]

11. Yeah well they are no worse than the insurance companies

who do their best to pay ZERO claims while pocketing 25 percent of their premiums. I still say this could be worked out without screwing those who can't afford it.

[sendero]

12. I'm certainly not defending ..

... the insurance companies, but health care in this country is way overpaid and situations like that tend to correct of their own dynamic eventually.

Medicare is doing a lot to help. Look up the Readmissions Reduction Program and the Hospital Acquired Condition reimbursement deductions. And hospitals are required to publish their "charge master" (soon if not already) which will at least provide some pricing transparency for hospitals (many of whom are serious pricing abusers).

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/08/hospital-prices-cost-differences_n_3232678.html