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From: Finbar McMullen, FSC
Those over 55 have most likely been paying attention to Paul Ryan’s plan for replacing Medicare. He wants to voucherize it with a $7,000 annual payment to those eligible. Does anyone really think this is reasonable? Here are some facts to consider from my personal experience. I am in Medicare. I have a condition in one eye called wet macular degeneration that requires an injection every 4 weeks to stabilize the situation. The hospital cost for this is $2,450 each time. Medicare says OK to $298, but pays only $238. The balance is paid by private insurance. Realistically, does anyone think that the private insurance companies will have this kind of negotiating clout? Keep in mind that insurance companies will be able to set limits on coverage if the health care bill is repealed. Without Medicare, my treatments would cost $31,863 every year, and I could have many years to go. My judgment is that 90% of the dissatisfaction with the Affordable Care Act stems from all the lies that the GOP continues to spread about it.
As to the cost of Medicare, it should be kept in mind that it was the Republicans who made it impossible for the government to negotiate drug prices with the pharma companies. We could save $156 billion each year if we could get the same prices as the Canadians for the very same drugs. In ten years this comes to $1.5 trillion. The GOP claims that the ACA will add $2 trillion to the national debt in ten years, while the Congressional Budget Office reports that it will save $700 billion in that same time.
Ryan has recently stated that Obama has put on more national debt than any other president. Another lie. I could give you the true numbers, but anyone who is interested in the truth can easily check the facts in Google in regard to Reagan, and each of the Bushes. Just the other day I heard Romney say that the national debt was ten trillion when Obama came into office, and it is now 16 trillion. If you split the difference between these two numbers, the true Obama number is one trillion closer to 16, than to 10. I have never heard anyone contest information from Google. Another lie that the GOP continues to repeat is that Obama has removed the work requirement from welfare. He has simply allowed a State to opt out of the Federal system if it can guarantee that its system will provide 20% more jobs than the Federal system.
If I had the time to do the research, and if the Post would be generous enough to give me the space, I could fill this whole page with the lies that the GOP has concocted to defeat Obama.
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