Medicare - which you and I have paid into all of our lives, on top of SS, and which we still continue to pay for even while we are receiving SS - is a lousy payer from any point of view. It doesn’t pay doctors enough and an increasing number of them are refusing it; at the same time, it has such a huge deductible (aka, the “gap”) that most people get very little coverage out of it that they are not already paying for in some other way. As somebody said, what other “insurance” program is so bad that you have to buy supplemental insurance to pay for what it is supposedly insuring?
Ryan has got to make the point that the current program isn’t working, it’s an expensive rip-off that does not pay for what people really need, and the new program actually would provide better benefits. It is not a lifetime “$7,000,” and I can’t imagine who “they” are that are saying this.
We, the Tea Party, had better be at these town hall meetings to support the Reps we elected. They are going to need all the encouragement we can manage to give them. Please folks, keep up with what is going on in your area and show up for town hall meetings.