Medicare is going under. The status quo is not an option. Rep. Paul Ryan has proposed a major Medicare reform to have future beneficiaries (beginning for those that become eligible in 2022) to receive federal vouchers to purchase private plans. (This sounds sort of like Plan D Medicare, the drug benefit, that has been a huge success).
I don’t want to argue that point today. What I really want to focus on is Ryan’s idea–finally formally proposed by a major political leader–to means test Medicare based on the ability to pay. With the system going broke, it would seem a plan that such a reform is one that all Americans could get around. Republicans are on board. But not, apparently some major Democrats.
First, Speaker of the House John Boehner supports means testing. From the story:
Specifically, Boehner endorsed the idea that Medicare — whether private or public — should be means tested. In a Q&A session with one of the event’s moderators — Wall Street billionare-turned-deficit-scold Pete Peterson — Boehner said wealthy beneficiaries should pay for their Medicare premiums. “Pete, I love you to death, but I don’t think the taxpayers ought to be paying your Medicare premium,” Boehner said. “And under Paul Ryan’s plan, what it says is, let’s allow the American people to decide which health care plan fits their needs. And if you’re middle-income, lower income, we are going to pay, just like we do today, for the cost of those premiums. But for people of means, there’s no reason why we should subsidize Pete Peterson’s premium. I’m sorry. He ought to pay the full cost of his premium to be in Medicare.”
In contrast, Rep. Henry Waxman opposes. From the story:
Underscoring the fact that there’s significant opposition to means-testing Medicare in the Democratic Party, Rep. Henry Waxman’s office blasted out a statement this afternoon pushing back on House Speaker John Boehner’s strong hint that this should be part of the debt limit negotiations. “Under existing law, well-off seniors are already going to be paying more for their Medicare premiums,” says Waxman, a California Democrat. Further changes to Medicare at the expense of the wealthier or middle class seniors may push them to leave the program and end up with Medicare costing more because it would still have the sickest and poorest people left. In other words, this idea may undermine Medicare and cost beneficiaries more at the same time.
Are you kidding me? I thought the Democrats cared for the common man and the Republicans only take care of “the rich.”
What does POTUS have to say?
May 17th, 2011 | 7:19 am
Wesley,
I accuse you of committing a rhetorical hit and run here.
You know, or should know, full well that Waxman’s opposition to means testing is based on a set of economic and political premises regarding entitlement programs in general and health insurance cost and risk distribution in particular. You need to at least acknowledge them and take them into account in what you write in response.
As I have said to you before, if you want to hold others to high standards of intellectual and rhetorical rigor and honesty in arguments over issues such as stem cells and euthanasia, you need to hold yourself to those same standards in whatever you write here. This piece consists of essentially some unsupported assertions and excerpts from two PR statements by dueling members of the House. None of it adds up to support any kind of grand conclusion about which party favors “the common man” and which “the rich”.
You may think the arguments about Medicare, means testing and private versus public health insurance, and its various combinations, are old hat. You may be trying to be witty, but to me, this piece reads like something you just whipped up in a hurry. If you take the questions of Medicare solvency, health insurance finance and means testing seriously, then treat them seriously. Otherwise, you just hurt your overall credibility.
As someone who will not qualify for Medicare, assuming it still exists, until sometime after 2022, I am following this debate with a certain level of interest. That may partly explain why this piece made me cranky. I am not a fan of Waxman, but on this issue he may have a valid point.
Maybe you need to sit on pieces like this for a day or so in order to decide whether to either do more work on them or just toss them. Especially on pieces like this that involve subjects like economics or finance, neither of which are, I think, your strong suits (not that they’re mine either, but at least I try to take that into account). It’s not as if this issue was so urgent you needed to post this piece after 11 p.m. The articles you cite in this piece are already several days old (May 10 or 11), and the debate over Medicare is not going away anytime soon.
Next time, maybe just get some sleep and look at it again in the morning. The blogosphere can wait.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
May 17th, 2011 at 9:43 am
Then all Waxman had to do is embrace means testing as a theory and say we can argue over methodology. But he rejected it because, supposedly, the rich would drop out if MCARE were means tested. Well, that would only help the program because taxes for Medicare are mandatory but drawing benefits is not. Waxman’s cynicism is so thick I can cut it with a knife.
May 17th, 2011 | 8:41 am
Hmmm… the Medicare approach sounds suspiciously like “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” But then, other Republicans are saying we should continue to give tax breaks to the super-rich and big business. I suspect that some time during President Obama’s second term the GOP will finally reach some kind of consensus about its domestic policy.
HW
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
May 17th, 2011 at 9:36 am
Hmmmm. Can’t really deal with the issue I presented, e.g. Dems opposition to means testing–so you take it elsewhere in typical HW fashion. But as a good liberal I would think you would support MT.
HistoryWriter Reply:
May 17th, 2011 at 4:07 pm
@Wesley J. Smith,
Poor Wesley, you try so hard to look serious about the trash you peddle to non-thinkers on behalf of the GOP.
You must think people are too stupid to see that depriving the uber-rich (who don’t need it anyway) of Medicare is a small price to pay for the Party of the Privileged to get the camel’s nose (“means testing”) into the tent. From that point on, of course, it’s simply a matter of time before the the eligibility cut-off numbers are pushed so low that Medicare dies a painless death.
In GOP-speak that’s called “saving” Medicare. In English, it’s called “the means accomplish the end” (pun intended).
HW
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
May 17th, 2011 at 4:43 pm
Not too many “non thinkers” here, except perhaps writers of history.
HistoryWriter Reply:
May 18th, 2011 at 7:57 am
@Wesley J. Smith,
Now THAT comment sent my [CW (cow manure] meter off the scale.
HW
May 17th, 2011 | 10:28 am
Hmmm… the Medicare approach sounds suspiciously like “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”
Yes, social safety net programs are socialist, if not communist.
But unrelieved capitalism is not acceptable politically. That’s why we have not only safety net programs but shared or communal emergency services, public schools, unemployment insurance, etc.
Socialism or communism is an economic drain and is prone to corruption. Pure capitalism is unsustainable. Neither works in its purest form. America has so far chosen capitalism, with socialist-type interventions on an “as needed” basis – except even just the small amount of socialism we’ve brought in was enough to introduce wide-scale corruption. IMO it’s a real problem.
May 17th, 2011 | 1:49 pm
Wesley, don’t fall for the Repub proposal to means-test Social Security and Medicare. Sorry to include SS, but both programs in this context have to be considered together.
The Republicans have opposed both programs since their respective creations. Means-testing the two has been quietly discussed in Repub circles since the 1980s. They know that if the two become just another means-tested welfare system, with increasingly draconian criteria for receiving benefits, then popular support for them will vanish—especially if dedicated withholding continues from everyone’s pay for both.
The analogy would be to university financial aid. Students from even struggling working-class families (I was one) get told they don’t qualify for even a Stafford loan, let alone a Pell grant, because their parents “make too much”.
The same will happen with SS and Medicare after means testing begins and rules are made final. You own your old house free and clear, Mr. K-Man? Too bad, you have too many assets! No SS or Medicare for you! Can’t work? Well, here’s a convenient suicide clinic for you to put yourself out of our misery! Oh, you have $25,000 in savings, Mr. Smith? You have too many assets too! Etc., etc. And we don’t care that money was withheld for these programs from your pay during your entire working life!
By the way, the US Supreme Court decisions Flemming v. Nestor and U.S. v. Lee have already said that you have no property or other interest in your SS contributions (and by extension, Medicare as well). Congress can change or end these programs no matter how much you contributed without recourse to you. The groundwork has been laid.
After all, one of the biggest grips many everyday citizens have with the current welfare system is that they pay taxes, pay taxes, pay taxes, but if they need help, they are told that they “don’t qualify” for any of the programs their taxes funded. When I was a caregiver to my late mom and stepfather and finances were tight, I inquired about food stamps and was told that as a male with no dependents I didn’t qualify. (But I know a 50–year-old woman with no dependents and no disability who received $200 a month in food stamps after simply leaving her husband… But that’s a topic for another time.) Such anger over only certain privileged groups qualifying for these programs led to welfare reform in 1996.
Make SS and Medicare similar and watch Joe Taxpayer’s anger grow in a similar way. Then these programs will be “reformed” out of existence—which has always been the Republicans’ real agenda.
Sorry to turn this into a sort of political diatribe, Wesley, but the truth needs telling. If someone agrees with ending these programs, fine, say so. (After all, I find extremely hypocritical those elderly persons and Tea Party members who protest Obamacare for “socializing” medicine but don’t want their (socialized) SS, Medicare, and Medicaid touched.) But to propose means testing is a sneaky way to kill these programs without saying so. That’s the real agenda here.
HistoryWriter Reply:
May 17th, 2011 at 4:17 pm
@K-Man,
Well said, K-Man. Apparently the GOP thinks people are too stupid — or too forgetful of the Republican Party’s past — to see this.
HW
May 17th, 2011 | 8:08 pm
Means rating Medicare and SS benefits are not very productive ideas if one is Primarily concerned with saving money and reducing deficits. Unlike income, the rich do not consume a disproportionate share of Medicare benefits. The richest 1% consume about 1% of Medicare resources. Even if you cut them off completely, you’d save just 1%.
If we were actually concerned with the fiscal situation, we would simply raise taxes, especially on the income brackets that constitute the lion’s share of income. By ruling this policy option out, we’re clearly signaling that the deficit is NOT our top priority. This is why it’s somewhat ironic That the voices screaming the most hysterically about the deficit are the same people who categorically rule out the most effective means of dealing with the problem.
May 17th, 2011 | 8:31 pm
[...] of making bogus claimsBuffalo NewsWhich of the candidates has the right remedy?Tonawanda NewsWho Opposses Medicare Means Testing? Democrats!First Things (blog)all 88 news articles [...]
May 19th, 2011 | 9:23 pm
Means testing for SS and Medicare will be the final attack on the American Middle Class. Think about it folks. Traditional retirement plans (fixed benefit) are gone. Whats left are 401Ks, IRAs, and Social Security (SS). If you save for your 401k and IRA you will lose your SS with the means testing. Do the math,
your taxed 6.2% on a salary up to around $106K for a guarrenteed benefit of Social Security. If you do the 401K you risk another 5% or more of income for a potential better gain. In most cases this gain is nominal and you will be penalized by your saving through means testing and loss of SS. If your in the middle class and the government starts means testing, stop 401K and IRA. Spend what you saved during your late 50′s and early 60′s before you take SS. Also, hide all liquid assets. Mine will get lost in Vegas. wink. wink.
This income manipulation is done for more than SS but also protect your Medicare. One serious illness and your middle class estate is wiped out.
Don’ kid yourself the target for means testing isn’t the very wealthy like Bill Gates. That is a strawman argument. The target is the upper middle class making $100k to $250K.
The answer for SS is to raise the salary cap for contributions to SS to $250K and put a top level limit on SS payout at 70 yr old of $55K adjusted for inflation.
May 25th, 2011 | 11:43 am
[...] anymore of solving our own problems. One can agree or disagree with Ryan’s proposal. I like the means testing idea. I think the competing private insurance plans underwritten by government approach, which has [...]
May 26th, 2011 | 8:34 am
[...] problems through representative government. One can agree or disagree with Ryan’s proposal. I like the means testing idea. I think the competing private insurance plans underwritten by government approach, which has [...]
May 26th, 2011 | 2:50 pm
[...] “Who Opposses Medicare Means Testing? Democrats!,” Wesley J. Smith, Secondhand Smoke [...]
May 31st, 2011 | 1:42 pm
[...] to a federally subsidized market system approach similar to the successful Part D Medicare. It would also means test, which it seems to me is an essential reform that the usually anti-rich Democrats would [...]
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