“Mom, It’s Hokum. It’s a Bunch of Malarkey.”
On Wednesday, Vice President Joe Biden and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius hosted a town hall meeting with seniors at Leisure World, a retirement community in Silver Spring, MD.
In recent weeks, Republicans have been attempting to scare America’s seniors with false statements about what reform would mean for Medicare – namely, that the President’s plan would result in benefit cuts. Vice President Biden delivered a passionate rebuke of those scare tactics and set the record straight. He explained that reform will preserve and strengthen Medicare, lower prescription drug costs, make preventive services free and eliminate overpayments to private insurance companies.
A few key points on President Obama’s plan and Medicare:
• President Obama is committed to protecting and strengthening Medicare for America’s seniors -- Medicare beneficiaries will not experience any cuts in benefits as a result of reform.
• His plan doesn’t use a penny of the Medicare trust fund to pay for reform; instead, it eliminates waste, fraud and abuse to strengthen the financial health of the program.
• The President has proposed to eliminate waste from the Medicare Advantage program to strengthen the financial health of the overall program:
• Medicare Advantage is part of the Medicare program that allows beneficiaries to receive services through private insurance plans.
• Currently, private insurance companies that participate in Medicare Advantage receive significant subsidies from the government. Medicare pays those private plans 14 percent more on average than they pay traditional Medicare – but doesn’t result in any better care for seniors.
• Putting an end to these overpayments will strengthen the Medicare program, extend its solvency and lower costs for all beneficiaries.
• The scare tactics on Medicare are just the latest in a series of politically motivated attacks by some Republicans to stall and kill reform.
• Republicans have never championed Medicare – they’ve been waging a war against the program for years. In fact, as recently as last April, 80 percent of House Republicans voted to “end Medicare as we know it” by turning it into a voucher program that would have provided seniors a fixed sum of money to purchase private insurance, a plan one AARP policy official called “a very dangerous idea.”
Vice President Biden and Secretary Sebelius also released a new HHS report at Leisure World -- Health Insurance Reform and Medicare: Making Medicare Stronger for America’s Seniors.