Hochul demands Corwin state position on GOP budget proposal

Jane says: "You aint the boss of me." Then she said a lot of other stuff that makes me blush and a little horny at the same time. Oh Jane, how could you? And oh Kathy, who the hell do you think you are? Jack coughed while Ian Murphied. And life goes on with a little more glee in my life.

Republican Jane Corwin will make a comment of what she thinks just as soon as Republican House Speaker John Boehner tells her what she thinks and not a minute before...besides he's busy privatizing medicare and social security.

Actually Liz Benjamin from Capital Tonight got the answer -- http://www.capitaltonight.com/2011/04/corwin-i-would-have-voted-yes/

Jane Corwin would have voted "yes" to privatizing medicare. A budget that if passed would dismantle medicare and plunge many senior's into poverty and bankruptcy.

Genesee County has a large senior citizen population. This plan is radical and dangerous. My parents and mother-in-law cannot afford to pay 68% of their health care costs and I don't know many Genesee County seniors that can.

http://www.concordmonitor.com/article/251817/adieu-medicare

Does John Boehner pronounce his name boner, beaner, or booner?

Lorie...where you are getting that 68% increase in health care costs for your parents and mother-in-law? Under Ryan's plan, Medicare and Social Security would remain unchanged for people 55 and older. I'm assuming your parents are over 55.

Have you read the plan?

Here's the CBO's analysis of the plan http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/121xx/doc12128/04-05-Ryan_Letter.pdf

And from countless news sources. This article in today's LA Times and again backed by the CBO that Ryan himself asked for http://www.latimes.com/health/la-fi-hiltzik-20110417,0,1181721.column
"The vouchers would rise in value with the consumer price index, but as medical expenses have been rising much faster than general inflation, the value of the government subsidy would erode over time. The CBO calculated that the share of standardized medical expenses paid out-of-pocket by the typical 65-year-old in 2030 would be 68% under Ryan's plan, compared with 25% under current law."

If you want more links I can supply hundreds.

Medicare came to be in part because the risk was inherently high for private insurance companies to underwrite. The Ryan plan is actually an extension of Obama's Health Care Reform Act to seniors. Why would we go from single payer with low overhead (what Medicare is) to a private voucher system when the risks are so high? And who will suffer?

My initial question to you was in response to your statement that your parents and mother-in-laws medicare expenses would increase 68% under Ryan's plan. You quoted the CBO analysis as proof of your statement. The CBO analysis of the plan plainly states:

Eligibility for the traditional Medicare program would not change for people who are age 55 or older by the end of 2011 or for people who receive Medicare benefits
through the Disability Insurance program prior to 2022

Your parents and your mother-in-laws medicare benefits would remain unchanged under Ryan's plan, so your initial statement is incorrect. It's the perpetuation of such myths that prevents an open and honest discussion of health care.

As long as you brought up the CBO analysis, let's discuss it.

It highlights the key features of Ryan's plan:

The payment for 65-year-olds in 2022 is specified to be $8,000, on average, which is approximately the same dollar amount as projected net federal spending per capita for 65-year-olds in traditional Medicare.

The premium support payments would also vary with the income of the beneficiary. People in the top 2 percent of the annual income distribution of the
Medicare-eligible population would receive 30 percent of the premium support amount described above; people in the next 6 percent of the distribution would
receive 50 percent of the amount described above; and people in the remaining 92 percent of the distribution would receive the full premium support amount
described above.

The premium support payments would vary with the health status of the beneficiary.

Beginning in 2022, the federal government would establish a medical savings account (MSA) for certain beneficiaries with low income. (An MSA is an account
that holds deposits that can be used for medical expenses.) Eligibility for MSA payments would be determined annually by the federal government on the basis of
income relative to the federal poverty thresholds. The amount of the contribution in 2022 would be $7,800, and the annual amounts in subsequent years would
grow with the CPI-U.

Everyone that is quoting the CBO figure of a 68% increase in premiums and out-of-pocket medical expenses for seniors is either being willfully misleading or they didn't actually read the full CBO report.

On page 24 of the report it states:

Paying more for health care would be particularly challenging for elderly people with less savings and lower income. However, the proposal specifies that people with sufficiently low income would receive an additional federal contribution to a medical savings account that would help them pay for their premiums and out-of-pocket medical spending. The analysis here for a typical 65-year-old does not address the impact of those accounts on the financial burden facing low-income beneficiaries (nor does it consider the effect of lower premium support payments for high-income beneficiaries). Moreover, because CBO assumed participation of all eligible beneficiaries in the premium support program, the agency did not evaluate the possible effects on participation of those additional features of the proposal.

I also disagree with your statement:

Medicare came to be in part because the risk was inherently high for private insurance companies to underwrite.

But that's a discussion for another time. (google the history of health insurance in the US)

I found this very enlightening.

http://wnymedia.net/buffalopundit/2011/04/jane-corwin-and-the-republica…

Lori,
Did you see this from Fact Check?

FACT CHECK: Paul Ryan Falsely Claims Republican Plan Won’t Ration Medicare

.This morning on Face the Nation, Republican Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan falsely claimed that Republicans didn’t believe in rationing Medicare.

Ryan said, we just don't think government rationing on Medicare is the answer.

The fact is that independent analysis say that the Republican budget would result in rationing Medicare.

Republican Budget Will Lead to Rationing

The independent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) warned that higher payments could affect care as beneficiaries might be less likely to use new, costly, but possibly beneficial, technologies and techniques. According to NPR, that is exactly the sort of rationing that so frightened Republicans when they were fighting the health law the health law that Ryan’s proposal would repeal, by the way. [NPR, 4/06/11]

Joe Baker, president of the Medicare Rights Center, said that to ask people with Medicare and Medicaid to foot the entire bill is not only unfair, but it will eventually lead to much less care and a type of rationing […] There’s no doubt that putting more costs on consumers, particularly upfront, leads them to access less care. [National Journal, 4/04/11]

Proposed House Republican Budget for 2012 Would End Medicare. The plan would essentially end Medicare, which now pays most of the health-care bills for 48 million elderly and disabled Americans, as a program that directly pays those bills. [Wall Street Journal, 4/4/11]

Bea, what I would really find enlightening, is if you spoke for yourself instead of relying on the words of pundits.

I'm sure I could do a google search and come up with a hundred or so pundit's opinions that refute your pundit. What does that prove?

Do you really want to engage in a battle of the pundits or do you want to have a real discussion about the actual plan and the CBO's analysis of it?

Can you cite a specific part of the plan that you disagree with and a corresponding analysis of that part by the CBO that bolsters your opinion? That would make for an enlightening discussion.

Quite honestly, I don't want to engage in a battle at all.
I live with senior citizens who are LIVING the nightmare of this tug of war in Washington.
They are NOT stupid. They watch the news and hear Ryan and others, in Washington, acknowledge that it is primarily the seniors or today, and those coming into that age, that will be hit the hardest. They KNOW that the people who can least afford it will be taking the big hit.
At the risk of being called a drama queen, I will refrain from engaging in battle. I put up quotes because I am busy today and really don't have time. Perhaps tomorrow there will be more time to discuss this at length.
Have a grand remainder of this Sunday.

I don't understand how seniors can be "living the nightmare".

Even if you don't like the Ryan plan, it does not affect anyone receiving benefits right now, today, so why should they be scared?

I remember the same scare tactics being used when under President Carter, the age to collect Social Security was moved back.

I wasn't inviting you to do battle. I was suggesting quite the opposite - engage in a real conversation.

When you DO have time, can you cite the source where Ryan acknowledges that it is primarily the seniors of today, and those coming into that age, that will be hit the hardest?

I have to work a double shift tomorrow, so I won't be able to continue the discussion; but I will check to see if you have posted a source.

You're absolutely right...seniors are not stupid, but they are easily swayed by people they presume to trust. Let's stop cherry picking phrases out of context and give them all of the facts.

Have a nice day!

I would think seniors would be living a nightmare under obamacare..Its is spose to cut 500 billion out of the medicare budget.Where is all the screaming about that by Democrats...As far as the Ryan plan it doesn't effect anyone one over the age of 55...Where are the other ideas to address the medicare problem..

Why would there be any screaming? The donut hole is closed and for the first time there is real savings on the prescription drug end. And at least a temporary decline in rising costs according to this article http://www.sunherald.com/2011/04/16/3032215/health-costs-still-high-in-…

And on my end, I was able to include my daughter (under 26) on my insurance which gives her and us tremendous peace of mind. She works and goes to college, but her employer does not offer health insurance.

It is quite ironic that the same group that hollered "death panels" during the health care reform debate last year are mum on the Ryan budget plan that completely wipes out Medicare as we know it and places it in the "trusted" hands of private, for profit insurance companies.

What happens if the voucher allowance is exceeded? What happens if the private savings accounts are exceeded? And why in the world would we take a program with a 6% overhead and switch it to a program with upwards of 40% overhead? Another irony -- the insurance companies don't even want this. The risk is way too high.

I lifted this from the Atlantic, written by Merrill Goozner.
>>Here's the real argument young and middle-aged people need to hear, and the real reason why the "more skin in the game" argument can never work for seniors or other vulnerable populations, including them when they reach that age. Seniors and the poor account for over half of health care spending. Within those groups, 5 percent of the population accounts for 50 percent of health care costs; and 20 percent of the population accounts for about 80 percent. These costs come for the most part at times when economic incentives have no influence at all on medical decision-making: in medical crises; in treating chronic conditions; and, for most Medicare patients, in the last six months of life.

That's why a voucher program for Medicare, which will shift an increasing share of those inevitable costs onto the elderly themselves, can fairly be categorized as a 100 percent estate tax or death tax. People under 55 need to know that if the plan crafted by Rep. Paul Ryan were passed, most of them will never have a cent to leave to their children. It will all go to the health care industry to support the American way of dying.<<