As posted earlier, the 2012 MedPAC Data Book is out.
As a senior and a Medicare subscriber, I take offense at one of its major findings: that we seniors are "shielded" from the true cost of health care (maybe they mean all people are so "shielded" but I'm still offended). Tell that to the guy from Miami who can't get heart treatment because Medicare lacks catastrophic coverage.
The finding seems particulrly absurd when the Data Book documents elsewhere that we seniors -- on average -- pay for over half of our health care costs and Medicare pays for less than half of them (more to come in future posts but see Chapter 5 of the Data Book if you can't wait). We pay for over half our healthcare costs (worse than any high deductible catastrophich coverage policy would ever require) and yet we don't get catastrophic coverage?
Also ignore the crazy 70-year projections in Chart 1-6. I feel i must include it because you'll see it a lot from both Democrats and Republicans. The Republicans say this chart proves Medicare is going broke. The Democrats say this chart proves Medicare is solvent. Kind of hard to think we'll ever get agreement, isn't it?
-- Dennis Byron
