Joseph Lieberman Wants to Increase Medicare Eligibility Age

Joe Lieberman Wants to Increase Medicare Eligibility Age
By: David Dayen
June 11, 2011

This isn’t so much legislation as it is a wish list in op-ed form from a retiring, disliked Senator. But Joe Lieberman’s attack on Medicare is noteworthy, given the trajectory of his history with Medicare.

I’m so old I can remember when Lieberman wanted to expand Medicare. It was in 2009. He endorsed at that time a plan to lower the eligibility age for Medicare to 55 and allow people from 55 to 64 to buy into the program. Then he got wind that liberals liked that idea, and revoked his support, killing the idea when it was on the precipice of passing as part of the Affordable Care Act. Now, in this op-ed, he’s gone completely in the other direction, by endorsing a plan to “raise the Medicare eligibility age every year starting in 2014 by two months until it reaches 67 in 2025.”

This is a pretty cruel idea, mainly because it will actively harm seniors without any financial benefit.

And the rest of his ideas in this op-ed are really not much better. He wants to shift costs to seniors by adding co-pays to Medicare and increasing premiums to 35% of program costs. He also wants to “reform Medigap,” which he says leads to overutilization, and he wants to raise additional taxes on the wealthy to pay for the program. But what Lieberman fails to address are delivery system reforms that would, at the root, attack overstuffed provider payments. Notice who Lieberman puts the burden on in his reforms: patients. Notice who he leaves out. He wouldn’t allow Medicare to negotiate for prescription drugs to lower costs. He wouldn’t put dual eligibles into Medicaid, to provide similar care to patients with lower provider costs for the government to pay. He wouldn’t touch reimbursement rates. He wouldn’t further phase out Medicare Advantage, the private insurance alternative to Medicare.

Read the full article at:

http://news.firedoglake.com/2011/06/11/joe-lieberman-wants-to-increase-medicare-eligibility-age/

NSA, Homeland security, not sure if it has anything to do with Lieberman.

But his name does not bode well Lie be r man.

So I have my doubts, although don't let 'labels' make such decisions.


Tears For Fears - Shout
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xcyvnu_tears-for-fears-shout_music

http://vimeo.com/1764428


And I am pretty sure it was after the accident on the Pepsi commercial, when MJ went to the hospital, that was when they scrambled his deeper mind.

He did not know how to comb his hair, and they probably got to him there.

Have to know how to break, flip, reflect, or shred curses.



Brothers in Arms - Dire Straits
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5JkHBC5lDs

Bonnie Raitt - I Can't Make You Love Me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW9Cu6GYqxo

Bonnie Raitt - Nick Of Time
http://www.123video.nl/playvideos.asp?MovieID=407128

Dire Straits - Walk of Life
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZxVC0GB838

We need to understand what the fight is about. It's single payer or bust.

"We" also know what the fight's all about. Try taxing the rich and corporations and limiting ourselves to, what, maybe 2 wars at a time?

without touching benefits. For example, by lowering profit margins allowed to profit-making hospitals; and by negotiating lower drug prices with the drug companies.

The only thing left to do is either raise Medicare taxes, find a way to cut payouts, or a combination of both.

Medicare is going broke, and if we do nothing to fix it, the Repukes will be able to lay it on our doorstep. They'll claim that they at least came up with a plan or two, and they just couldn't get it passed.

Increase taxes. Our spending is waaaay in excess of other countries and we don't even provide for all.

elsewhere, is another way to save significant amounts of money.

So is using research to eliminate unnecessary tests and procedures.

But I'm fully in support of single payer as well, or at least a public option.

You need uniformity. Ergo single payer.

should not be given to healthy 80 year olds. (Who have more of a risk of dying from a perforated intestine than from undetected bowel cancer.) And you can enforce that by not paying subsidies for people who choose insurance companies that don't follow the rules. None of the companies will want to miss out on the millions of subsidized patients, so they'll be motivated to comply.

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