Fact-Checking PolitiFact On Its pick of "Republicans Voted To End Medicare" as the "Lie Of The Year"

[Bill USA]

http://politicalcorrection.org/factcheck/201112200007

Earlier in the year, Republicans in the House overwhelmingly voted on a budget proposal crafted by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). Ryan's radical piece of "right-wing social engineering," as Newt Gingrich once referred to it, aims to, among other things, convert both the Medicaid and food stamp program into block grants, repeal the Affordable Care Act, and end the single-payer health care system known as Medicare. Unfortunately, the fact checkers at PolitiFact have decided that this indisputable fact — that the Ryan budget ends what Americans have long understood as Medicare, and replaces it with a more expensive and inferior privatized health care system that will be Medicare in name alone — warranted their "Lie of the Year" designation. But PolitiFact is wrong. Republicans have voted to end what all Americans know as Medicare. As economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman writes of PolitiFact's decision, "they've bent over backwards to appear 'balanced.' (...and in the process made themselves useless and irrelevant)"

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CBO: Under The GOP Budget, "Most Elderly People Would Pay More For Their Health Care Than They Would Pay Under The Current Medicare System." According to the Congressional Budget Office: "Under the proposal, most elderly people would pay more for their health care than they would pay under the current Medicare system. For a typical 65-year-old with average health spending enrolled in a plan with benefits similar to those currently provided by Medicare, CBO estimated the beneficiary's spending on premiums and out-of-pocket expenditures as a share of a benchmark: what total health care spending would be if a private insurer covered the beneficiary. By 2030, the beneficiary's spending would be 68 percent of that benchmark under the proposal, 25 percent under the extended-baseline scenario, and 30 percent under the alternative fiscal scenario." [CBO.gov, 4/5/11]

Politico: GOP Budget "Will Control Costs By Requiring Seniors To Ration Themselves." From Politico Pulse: "The Ryan plan to privatize Medicare will control costs by requiring seniors to ration themselves, said Michael Tanner with the Cato Institute. 'Rationing is going to go on within the Medicare system. It's a fact of life' given financial constraints, he said. 'The question's going to be, is that decision going to be made by government and imposed top down under the current system? Ryan wants to shift that responsibility to individuals and from the bottom up.'" [Politico, 4/7/11]

CEPR: The Republican Budget Would Leave "Seniors With A Bill Of $20,700." According Dean Baker, the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research:

[div class="excerpt" style="background-color: #A9A9F5"]According to the CBO analysis the benefit would cover 32 percent of the cost of a health insurance package equivalent to the current Medicare benefit (Figure 1). This means that the beneficiary would pay 68 percent of the cost of this package. Using the CBO assumption of 2.5 percent annual inflation, the voucher would have grown to $9,750 by 2030. This means that a Medicare type plan for someone age 65 would be $30,460 under Representative Ryan's plan, leaving seniors with a bill of $20,700. (This does not count various out of pocket medical expenditures not covered by Medicare.)

According to the Social Security trustees, the benefit for a medium wage earner who first starts collecting benefits at age 65 in 2030 would be $32,200. (This adjusts the benefit projected by the Social Security trustees [$19,652 in 2010 dollars] for the 2.5 percent annual inflation rate assumed by CBO.) For close to 70 percent of seniors, Social Security is more than half of their retirement income. Most seniors will get a benefit that is less than the medium earners benefit described here since their average earnings are less than that of a medium earner and they start collecting Social Security benefits before age 65.

[CEPR.net, 4/6/11]

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[CAPHAVOC]

1. I don't mind rationing as long as it is a triage system.

The Republican Plan however is as bad as the ACA. Maybe worse if that is possible.