I just saw this press release from the American Medical Association concerning this week’s Federal budget proposal. It contains a 2.8% cut to reimbursements to doctors. In inflation-adjusted terms, Medicare payments to doctors have dropped 33% since 2001. What’s going to happen is that fewer and fewer doctors will accept Medicare patients, they will go to (as Clark has observed) concierge medicine business models. And the impact will be worse in rural areas, where there are more older people as a % of the population.
Just so that people know, Medicare and Medicaid are quite different. Medicaid is basically a medical welfare benefit to poor and disabled people who can’t afford to pay. But Medicare is the medical plan for all other retirees, 68 million people, it’s paid-for over someone’s entire working lifetime (I have been paying in for 49 years), and it’s not cheap after retirement! It costs $2,220 per year, that’s just the basic Part B premium, which doesn’t include important Medicare Supplemental, or the Prescription Drug Plan.
You have to be a US Citizen or legal Permanent Resident in order to receive Medicare. No undocumented or temporary aliens can get it.
Cutting Medicare is not cutting someone’s freebie… we all earned those benefits, and we continue to pay a lot into the system as retirees.
I know there is a diversity of political affiliations here, but I’m going to bet that no one, or at least very few, voted for having earned and paid-for and still-paying-for retirement benefits cut.
I urge everyone who cares about how they are going to obtain healthcare in retirement, no matter what age you are, to call your US Senators and US Representative and let them know how you feel. If they don’t pick up the phone, leave a voice mail, then send them an email through the CONTACT ME link somewhere in their official website. Please do it today.
Now I am as concerned about the Federal debt as anyone, more concerned than most, but you don’t take away from the ability of retirees to get healthcare while at the same time defense apparently doesn’t get cut in this budget. That just doesn’t work. I thought we were supposed to be drawing back our forward military posture and focusing in on the homeland and American citizens.