Medicare to base fees on income

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/15478076.htm ^

[lauriehelds]

After 41 years of charging most older Americans the same price for the same care, Medicare will require affluent seniors to pay higher monthly premiums for coverage of doctors' visits, diagnostic tests and outpatient hospital care beginning in 2007.

A little-known provision of the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act calls for an estimated 1.5 million seniors to face higher premiums, from 10 to 55 percent over the next three years, if they have income of at least $80,000 a year, or $160,000 for married couples. Seniors taking in more than $200,000 and couples making more than $400,000 will see their so-called Part B premiums rise the most.

The move, designed to help shore up Medicare's shaky finances, has enraged many because it was adopted without public debate. A Republican-led conference committee added the measure to the Medicare bill even though neither the House of Representatives nor the Senate version contained it.

Medicare, the national health plan for the elderly and people with disabilities, faces an uncertain future because of rising healthcare costs, a growing number of beneficiaries who utilize more services and a dwindling tax base to support the program.

The premium increases are expected to boost revenue by about $7.7 billion from 2007 to 2011, and $20.8 billion from 2007 to 2016.

[reelfoot]

More Marxist-friendly legislation by the Feds.

[LZ_Bayonet]

"It only makes sense to apply a means test to this entitlement."

You are out of your mind. As another poster said, this is being done "... to assist those who didn't bother to invest/save properly". So all of us who scrimped and saved for retirement, skipping cigarettes, and cruises, and fancy dinners, now have to pay for those who went out and spent their money on these things instead of saving it for retirement. This is incredibly harmful to this country. It is a disincentive to save for retirement.

[LZ_Bayonet]

Congress also banned from Long-Term Medicare those owning a residence worth over $500,000. If you are someone who scrimped and saved, and gave up "fun" spending so that you could put everything into your home - you've made a mistake.

And, what's scary, it has only just begun. If the Dems take over, it will be "monetary terrorism" against every saver.

[meyer]

And, what's scary, it has only just begun. If the Dems take over, it will be "monetary terrorism" against every saver.

At which point people will stop being savers. I mean, why bother when you're only saving to give it (by force) to some useless, high-school dropout, democrat-voting dumb*$$, free-loading liberal deadbeat.

[meyer]

It's subsidized. Medicare is currently costing taxpayers over $350 billion a year. Premiums "paid for it" amount to about 1/10 that amount. That's a handout.

And as one of those taxpayers, I am most certainly paying for it anyway.

I'm certainly in favor of abolishing medicare and social security as long as I can get my previously-confiscated premiums (and those paid on my behalf by my employer) back, with interest.

None of this would be a problem if these programs were voluntary and self-sustaining entities.

[Sandy]

I'm certainly in favor of abolishing medicare and social security as long as I can get my previously-confiscated premiums

You think there's a pile of money just sitting around the treasury with your name on it? News flash: the premiums you gave the government are long spent and gone. There is no getting that money back. The only thing you're going to "get back" is what the government takes from others on your behalf. Kids who aren't even old enough to work yet will someday be paying you what you think they "owe" you. That's why these welfare programs never end. Each generation has no qualms about voting for the "right" to sponge off the next, and on and on it goes.

[NittanyLion]

This is precisely how an antipoverty program became a behomoth, because selfish people like you always have to get theirs, even though their are huge disparities in how people use medical care, you want it to be fair.

Ayn Rand was truly a visionary. That statement could just as well be lifted directly from Atlas Shrugged.

Scary...

[Gaffer]

Not really sure if this should be directed at you or at the other one I"ve been arguing with. I've never read "Atlas Shrugged" ....I try not to read things that will depress me....although I've heard of the premise.

I'm tired of people 'suffering' with their hearts instead of their brains. Feelings are like a$$holes -- everyone has some (or just one in the case of the latter). The true thing that sets us apart from animals is that the human brain also has the capability to comprehend and apply logic and fairness in addition to coloring actions with some modicum of 'feelings'.

I've done my part in all parts of the social spectrum: working since age 14, been poor been rich, 8 years military, raised children and grandchildren, paid bills, taxes, more taxes, still more taxes and on and on and on. I'm tired of feel good quasi-liberals (and RINOS)telling me that I'm a right bastard because I don't give a damn about some no good that doesn't even have the wherewithall to plan where he's gonna take his next crap, let alone plan for his life and potential illness..

[NittanyLion]

I'm tired of feel good quasi-liberals (and RINOS)telling me that I'm a right bastard because I don't give a damn about some no good that doesn't even have the wherewithall to plan where he's gonna take his next crap, let alone plan for his life and potential illness..

Yep. And yet some people would call that "selfish". It's pure insanity.