Please, let’s settle this claim that the affordable health care act will “strip” $500 billion from Medicare. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the law will raise Medicare payroll taxes by $113 billion over 10 years and help the current program’s financial situation. Around half of the cited $500 billion “cut” will come from reduced expenses for private management companies, taking nothing from actual care. Proposed payroll taxes and reductions in unnecessary, added handling costs will add about $358 billion to the Medicare trust fund.
Note that the CBO has historically been the most neutral source of information about the impact of various proposed bills and cited by both sides — unless, of course, one does not like what it finds.
Republican leadership simply does not want Medicare to work; it wants any excuse to privatize this and everything else that can be turned to unregulated private profit.
James D. Patton
Vancouver
