Romney Adviser Says GOP Would Extend Medicare’s Solvency By Raising The Eligibility Age

[kpete]

Source: Think Progress

Romney Adviser Says GOP Would Extend Medicare’s Solvency By Raising The Eligibility Age
By Aviva Shen on Aug 19, 2012 at 10:42 am

Earlier this week, Mitt Romney pledged to restore Obamacare’s savings in the Medicare program — a move that would move up the insolvency date of the program’s trust fund from 2024 to 2016.

On Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace asked Romney senior adviser Ed Gillespie how the campaign would extend the life of the program if the Romney-Ryan reforms won’t kick in until 2023, long after Medicare reached insolvency. Gillespie replied by insisting that a Romney administration would raise the age eligibility to 67:



WALLACE: But the problem is, those reforms don’t kick in until 2023. It doesn’t affect any seniors or anybody close to being a senior. But that doesn’t solve the Medicare part A problem which kicks in in 2016. What are you going to do to keep solvent between 2016, after you have repealed Obamacare, and 2023?

GILLESPIE: Governor Romney supports increasing over time bringing Medicare eligibility in line with the Social Security retirement age … The Congressional Budget Office says assumptions about the Medicare trust fund being solvent through 2024 under the Obamacare proposal is unrealistic.

Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/08/19/711011/romney-adviser-says-gop-would-extend-medicares-solvency-by-raising-the-eligibility-age/

[TheMastersNemesis]

1. Why Not Make It 80 Or Until A Person Is Dead?

[indie_voter]

4. Heh. I just read the headline to my husband and he asked "to what? 90?" n/t

[Vincardog]

35. Rmoney's calculation is clear. Your age at death + 1 day. Everybody get's it forever

[Faygo Kid]

2. Listen closely: HE WOULD MOVE THE AGE NOW, FOR ALL OF US

If you are 64, he would move the eligibility age by at least a month.

If you are 60, forget about Medicare until you are 66, at least.

If you are 55, forget about Medicare.

Really, he wants to end it: Give an 80 year old a voucher for $6,000, that's it, and negotiate with insurance companies.

Good luck with that.

[femrap]

22. m

[Rosa Luxemburg]

30. This will not be popular for the Republicans

they are certainly playing with fire

[wordpix]

28. BUT he just told us with his white board there would be NO CHANGE to Medicare with RmoneyRyan

Which is it? Move the goal post to an older age requirement or NO CHANGE?????

Talk about another etch a sketch...

[NorthCarolina]

37. True, but the kicker for me personally is that

I'm pretty sure Obama is also amenable to, if not already working towards, raising the eligibility age.

[OKNancy]

3. JFC!! what idiots

It seems it would be better to lower the age, get more premiums from younger, healthier citizens.
Plus, people could retire earlier and make way for younger workers.

No matter. This was a stupid thing to say. Keep talking Republicans.... dig that hole deeper.

[xtraxritical]

13. Simply raise the income cap, don't fuck with eligibility.

Screw R&R, vote Democratic.

[BlueMTexpat]

19. +1000! eom

[wordpix]

29. totally agree with this

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

31. Yes, raise the cap.

Oh, and Medicare for all.
Lets get out of the dark ages.

[WestSeattle2]

40. There is no income cap on Medicare withholding; Medicare withholding

applies to all earned income. Social Security has an income cap of $106,900. I think it's important to keep that distinction clear. The withholding for Medicare is currently 1.45% for most wage earners, for high income earners it will be more beginning next year:

http://www.shrm.org/hrdisciplines/compensation/articles/pages/medicaretaxhike.aspx

[Botany]

5. Now there is a vote getter

Are they trying to lose the election in a landslide?

BTW Social Security and Medicare DO NOT COME FROM THE SAME FUNDS.

[yourout]

6. Would be like a doctor saying....."we have to kill you to cure you"

[NBachers]

7. Die first, then apply

[cap]

8. So how does the GOP plan to combat age discrimination

So that the elderly can keep working at a job that offers health insurance? Also what are its plans for covering the increase in applicants for disability from those people who are too sick to continue to work? Ya know, people do get sicker as they get older.

[Bluenorthwest]

9. They want to raise the age to 67. African American men currently enjoy a life expectancy of 69

Some on DU say it is wrong, just wrong to bring up the fact that Mitt was a missionary for utterly racist dogmas deep into his adulthood, they claim it is wrong to suggest Mitt still supports racist bullshit just because he taught others that God orders racist bullshit until he was pushing 40....

[flamingdem]

10. Another error by romunism!

What a bunch of putzes.

[onehandle]

11. France, 1789.

Keep it up, bozos. Soylent Green will be the 1%.

[kestrel91316]

18. + 5 brazillion

[PD Turk]

25. I'm afraid you might be right

I am a peaceful man and I abhor violence, but begrudgingly admit it has its place as the very last resort.

I don't know how much longer we can go in like things are going.Our repeated Petitions for redress have been answered only by repeated injury.

It may be time to break out the tumbrels very soon. It's not what I want to see but it may be our only option left

[Maeve]

12. The longer life span is enjoyed by the upper classes, not by the poor

So all you hard-working blue collar types can just suck it up a bit longer.

[progressivebydesign]

15. Remember, the Republicans are the ones that have the formula to decide what your life is worth..

I remember that from Bush days. When they discussed Medicare and such.. They had a formula to decide, based on your age and income, etc., how much money they should spend to keep you alive, and what your life was actually worth.

So a low income grandma, around Ryan's mother's age, who lived in subsidized housing, and had no savings.. well her life would not be worth enough money to justify paying for life saving treatments for her, etc. Wish I could find the link on that.

[csziggy]

14. Oh great - put off even more when people can retire

My husband is working off the farm just to get health insurance. Since 2001 his health insurance has paid for numerous operations that have kept me going, including both my knee replacements this year.

He'd really like to retire but both of us have pre-existing conditions that made getting insurance for any cost impossible. He was hoping to retire at 63 but the age for eligibility for Medicare was upped to 65 so no go.

Our best hope for affordable insurance coverage before we're eligible for Medicare will be the insurance exchanges set up under the ACA - but we're in Florida and pRick Scott will not set one up. So now we have to wait for the federal government to set up one for Florida - IF the Republicans don't win and don't repeal or gut the ACA.

[DallasNE]

16. If Gilliespie Thinks CBO Assumption Is "Unrealistic"

Then he is obligated to explain why it is unreal since this is CBO that he is challenging. Likewise, the Romney camp keep claiming there will be no changes in benefits with Romney even making that claim himself using his white board but others have shown that repealing the ACA will add back considerable expenses that ACA reduced and this proposal to delay by 2 years when you can start Medicare is another expensive change Romney would put in place.

Many people physically cannot work in their present jobs until they are 67. Example, construction workers, firemen and other jobs that are physically demanding. This is what is realistic. Does Romney suggest they take a less demanding, minimum wage job to bridge those years? How do Republicans like Romney make this happen? Just throw these people under the bus. It is easier for someone who has never lifted anything heavier than a pencil to say raise the eligibility age to 67 but that is not the reality for a vast pool of Americans at an age where health insurance becomes vital.

My question to Gillespie would be which is more important, existing Medicare coverage for seniors or another huge tax cut for the top 1% that are currently paying in the 13%-16% range using Romney's and Ryan's own tax returns as a source.

[kestrel91316]

17. Good move. Because elderly folks living on $800/mo

Social Security will be able to afford the $700/mo that insurance at that age will cost just FINE.........

Oh wait.......when the repukes repeal the ACA, medical insurance for folks that age will cost $1200/mo or more.......

[MurrayDelph]

20. Just the Republicans moving another goal post

With the current states of unemployment, retirement age should be made LOWER not higher.

And the solvency question would be ended if they removed the cap.

[Historic NY]

21. Pretty soon it would only be for centenarians...

what a way to extend the life of a program while filling holes in your local cemetery. Sounds like a win-win for Republicans.

[Harmony Blue]

23. Are they brain dead?

Please do this GOP. Makes this the centerpiece of your platform for the electorate.

[SheilaT]

24. Almost no companies offer health care benefits to retirees any more.

Some of them, especially union jobs, used to. Now, you either need to keep working until Medicare kicks in, or have a spouse who is still working and gets health care benefits.

Like many people, I am in my current job specifically for the health care, even though I'm the most amazingly healthy person I know. In another year, when I'm on Medicare, I will consider finding something else I'd prefer to do, knowing I'll have Medicare.

[hollysmom]

26. I was laid off at 60, so had to have private insurance,

It cost 12K a year for an HMO, I could not wait until I could get on Medicare and save that money.

[wordpix]

27. How about this: 1%-ers get no Medicare benefits b/c they can pay for health care themselves

That would be an immediate savings.

[AlphaCentauri]

32. in 4 years the president

should be some one with the following experience, never had made more than 60 000 a year in the private sector, had to pay for their children college education and be eligible for Medicare.
Just to make the presidency closer to real humans in America.

[bucolic_frolic]

33. Would you buy a used car from Slick Eddie?

It troubles me that the MSM continues to look to the same old hacks
who are long past mental competency for opinions on what should be done.

And such biased examples are by no means exhibit sound judgment if they ever did!

[sendero]

34. We've got to kill it..

.... to save it!

[greiner3]

36. To be fair;

Certainly not to Romney, Ryan and/or any Republican, the actuarial tables do show the average age for Americans is and will continue to rise. Medicare was 70.17 years, 7 years lower than it is now.

Maybe there will b a decrease in US's life expectancy; obesity. Many studies show obesity takes 10 years or so off the average citizen's life. However, the increased costs associated with cronic and life long obesity would eat into the savings that lowered life expectancy would incur.

[JDPriestly]

38. Ridiculous.

[WestSeattle2]

39. Raise the eligibility age to what, 125? They desperately want to kill that program;

raising the eligibility age to 125 would allow them to kill it while claiming they "saved" it! Exactly like Ryan's voucher scam.

THAT's a republican wet dream.