As I've posted about here, here and here, the 2012 MedPAC Medicare Data Book is out. Here are some highlights of the second chapter (there are 11):
This section is loaded with demographics including the important fact, noted in one of the earlier links, that almost no senior depends on "traditional Medicare," called "Medicare only" by MedPAC (in the lower right corner of the chart above) and called "Medicare as we know it" by Barack Obama. Obama wants seniors stuck with "Medicare as we know it" forever and also hopes to give this terrible insurance to everyone else in the United States so that we can be just like Greece.
Most of the other demographic statistics in this key table and elsewhere in Section 2 are obvious. What is also obvious from this table (see upper left corner) is why Obama gave free mammograms to women in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act but makes me still pay a co-pay for DREs, the best preventive test for prostate cancer. That's because there are more of them voting than there are of us when you get to be our age. Oh well, women have other advantages.
-- Dennis Byron
