Medicare

Today, the Census Bureau released new data on the rates of health insurance coverage in 2012. Overall, the percentage of uninsured Americans decreased from 15.7 percent in 2011 to 15.4 percent in 2012, which represents over 600,000 newly insured Americans.

Rates of health coverage increased slightly or remained steady for women aged 18-64:

• The rate of women without health insurance declined slightly, from 19.6 percent in 2011 to 19.2 percent in 2012. But, over 18 million women still remain uninsured in 2012.
• Medicaid continued to provide health insurance to about 12 percent of women in 2011 and 2012.
• And, health coverage for young adult women ages 19 to 25 also remained steady, with about 25 percent lacking health coverage in both 2011 and 2012.

Today House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) released his vision for the next ten years. Despite having a section entitled "Fairness Restored," Ryan’s budget does anything but put forward a fair and equitable plan.

Chairman Ryan’s plan balances the budget on the backs of vulnerable women and their families. It would:

• Cut the funding available for programs like Head Start, child care, K-12 education, job training, and domestic violence prevention.
• Cut Medicaid and turn it into a block grant, allowing states to restrict eligibility and eliminate benefits. About two-thirds of adult Medicaid beneficiaries are women.
• Repeal the Affordable Care Act, eliminating the Medicaid expansions critical for low-income families, tax credits to help moderate-income families purchase health insurance, help with the cost of prescription drugs in Medicare and preventive health care services (including contraceptive services), and protections against discriminatory insurance company practices.

We’ve heard a lot of talk in the news lately about women’s health and a lot of talk about the Medicare program, but these things aren’t mutually exclusive. Medicare is a vitally important program for older women and preserving Medicare means preserving women’s health and economic well-being.

Women make up over half of Medicare beneficiaries and nearly two-thirds of beneficiaries over age 80. But it isn’t just the makeup of the program that makes Medicare so important to women. Older women also have other unique health and financial needs that mean they rely on the Medicare program more heavily than older men. Women have greater health care needs in their old age, as they live longer than men and are more likely to suffer from chronic conditions. Nationally, 49% of women with Medicare report having 3 or more chronic conditions compared to just 38% of men. Read more »

We strongly disagree with former Senator Alan Simpson, who told Bloomberg News earlier this week, “Medicare is on automatic pilot. It will use up every resource in the government.”

Senator Simpson is known for his rhetorical flair and long-standing interest in our nation’s fiscal health. He recently co-chaired a national commission on fiscal responsibility and is well known for telling Americans that we need to make tough fiscal choices. Unfortunately, he characterizes Medicare as a budget conundrum, not the critically important health insurance program it really is. Medicare covers hospital care, doctors’ visits, diagnostic tests, rehabilitation, home health care, preventive care and more for more than 47 million older Americans and individuals with disabilities. For 47 years it has been a pillar of our nation’s health care system, and – because Medicare enrollees are older, sicker and need more health care services than the rest of the population – is an important source of revenue for health care providers. For example, Medicare payments represent 28 percent of national spending on hospital care and 45 percent of spending on home health services. Read more »

Today, Medicare and Medicaid turn 47. Speaking of birthdays, did you know Medicaid covers nearly half of all births in this country? In Oklahoma, for example, Medicaid covered a whopping 64 percent of births in 2009!

And that’s not the only reason why these programs are so important to women. Medicare and Medicaid, the nation’s health care programs for senior citizens, individuals with disabilities, and low-income individuals and families, compose a critical piece of our country’s health insurance system. Already, nearly one in five women has no health insurance. Medicare and Medicare stem the tide by covering millions of women who would otherwise lack health insurance.

Here are another five reasons why women should celebrate Medicare and Medicaid:

1. Medicaid covers nearly 24 million women under age 65. To put this figure in perspective, Medicaid offers limited coverage to adults in most states– and women make up 59 percent of the adults enrolled in Medicaid.

The health care law is saving money for seniors.

Let me reword that.

The health care law is saving a lot of money for seniors.

By a lot, I mean $3.7 billion in savings for seniors and people with disabilities in Medicare. Yes, that is billion with a b. Those billions of dollars are being saved because the health care law is reducing and ultimately eliminating the donut hole in Medicare Part D that left seniors with a gap in prescription drug coverage. Read more »

You may have heard about a new report claiming the Affordable Care Act will increase the deficit by $340 billion, rather than decreasing it by $143 as projected by the Congressional Budget Office. Now, there is a big difference between these two numbers, so you would be justified in asking how this new study could come to such a different conclusion from the CBO, the government’s own nonpartisan scorekeeper. The answer is by using some very fuzzy math.

It’s a little complicated, even for me and I’m a numbers person! But the issue is basically this: Medicare benefits are paid out of a trust fund. Legally, the trust fund can’t spend money it doesn’t have. So this new study is based on the assumption that when the trust fund is expected to run out, the government will simply stop paying for Medicare benefits. This is important because one way the ACA reduces the deficit is through long term Medicare savings. The new study argues that these savings shouldn’t be considered, since the Federal Government won’t be paying for Medicare benefits eventually. Basically, if the government wasn’t going to spend the money anyway, we shouldn’t consider this money “savings.”

But frankly, this is bogus. Does anybody think that the government is really going to cut off health care benefits to millions of seniors? Read more »

You've heard of slash and burn, but how about slash and burden?

On Thursday, the House is expected to vote on a budget for Fiscal Year 2013 introduced by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). The Ryan budget would devastate vital services for women and their families while giving trillions in new tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans and large corporations — on top of extending provisions of the Bush-era tax cuts that benefit only the very wealthy.

Let's make it clear that we will not stand for a budget that slashes programs for women and families and puts the burden of paying for tax breaks for millionaires and corporations on middle- and low-income Americans.

Tell your Representative to oppose the Ryan Budget. As your Members of Congress start budget negotiations, they need to know that their constituents expect them to protect programs for women and families — and to require the wealthy and corporations to pay their fair share of taxes.

What's wrong with Rep. Paul Ryan's Budget? For starters, it would:

• Repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Insurance companies could continue to charge women higher premiums than men, deny coverage to women due to preexisting condition, and refuse to cover maternity care.

The super-committee could not agree on a plan to cut the deficit by $1.2 to $1.5 trillion. Some in the media are calling it a failure – but we’re relieved that there were members who rejected plans that were unbalanced and unfair. Here are five reasons why:

1. The most immediate deficit the nation faces is the lack of jobs—and further spending cuts would have made that deficit worse.

   Yes, the nation faces a long-term fiscal imbalance. But the most urgent economic problem is unemployment. Since the “recovery” started in June 2009, the job market has made only modest gains— unemployment is still at 9 percent—and women have actually lost jobs, largely because cuts to public sector services have disproportionately eliminated jobs held by women. More spending cuts would have meant more job losses. In contrast, providing more help to struggling families boosts the economy, and thus can help reduce long-term deficits. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that extending emergency unemployment insurance and providing additional refundable tax credits in 2012 for lower and moderate-income people “would have the largest effects on output and employment per dollar of budgetary cost.” And growing the economy reduces the fiscal deficit as well as the jobs deficit; workers with jobs need less from safety net programs and pay more in taxes.

The House plans to vote tomorrow or Friday on H.J. Res. 2, a balanced budget constitutional amendment (BBA) sponsored by Rep. Goodlatte (R-VA).  The amendment is not new – it nearly came to the House floor over the summer, and similar amendments have been proposed many times over the years, especially in the 1990s.  But amending the Constitution to require the federal government to balance its budget every year was a terrible idea then, and it’s a terrible idea today. 

So terrible that a group of more than 1,000 economists, including 11 Nobel laureates, issued a joint statement in 1997 that said, “We condemn the proposed ‘balanced-budget’ amendment to the federal Constitution.  It is unsound and unnecessary…[and] mandates perverse actions in the fact of recessions.”

So terrible that five winners of the Nobel Prize for Economics issued a statement  in July opposing a BBA because of the negative effect it would have on an already troubled economy.

So terrible that Macroeconomic Advisers, a private economic forecasting firm, recently concluded that if a BBA had been ratified and were now being enforced for fiscal year 2012, “the effect on the economy would be catastrophic” and “recessions would be deeper and longer.”  According to the report, if the budget were balanced through spending cuts in 2012, about 15 million more people would lose their jobs and the unemployment rate would double (from 9 percent to a staggering 18 percent).  

Still not convinced?  Here’s a recap of my top five reasons why the House should reject the BBA:  Read more »