Mitt Romney Medicare Plan Could Face Years Of Problems
Source: Huffington Post/Reuters
WASHINGTON, Sept 10 (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney wants to turn Medicare into a voucher system and President Barack Obama hopes that fact alone will help him win votes among senior citizens and baby boomers.
But health policy experts, including two analysts who first floated the idea of Medicare vouchers 17 years ago, say no such plan is likely to become legislation - let alone law - until after the next presidential election in 2016.
That is because the mere notion of fundamentally revamping the $590 billion-a-year healthcare program, which serves 50 million elderly and disabled Americans, raises a multitude of policy issues that no politician or policymaker has addressed publicly.
Medicare voucher plans call for converting the popular safety-net program from one that offers healthcare benefits to a system that provides a fixed amount of money that beneficiaries can use to purchase coverage from a menu of private insurance plans.
"Could we enact legislation in the next year or so and implement it two or three years from now? My simple answer to that question is 'no,'" said Robert Reischauer, a former director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which reviews legislation with budgetary implications.
That may come as news to voters, particularly in battleground states like Florida, Ohio and Iowa, where the Medicare reform plan adopted by Republicans, including Romney and running mate Paul Ryan, is a main target for Democrats who say it would "end Medicare as we know it."
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/11/mitt-romney-medicare_n_1872454.html
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