It seems like just yesterday that I was congratulating the New York Times political columnist Krugman for an enlightening column specifically outlining both the how and why regarding Obama's screwing of me and other of today's seniors already on Medicare. But his next post is all wrong about how Medicare will work for my children and grandchildren if real reform is accepted, and assuming Medicare has not gone bankrupt by the time they need it.
On August 27, Krugman wrote:
"...instead of Medicare as we know it, which pays your medical bills, you’d get a lump sum which you can apply to private insurance — they’ll yell when we call it a voucher, but that’s what it is."
Websters says a voucher is "a form or check indicating a credit against future purchases or expenditures" or "a coupon issued by government..."
Does Princeton or the Times pay a portion of Krugman's health care insurance? Does it provide him a "lump sum of money" or a certificate of some sort or a food-stamp-like credit card at the beginning of each year and let him take it to a local insurance agent to buy health-care insurance?
If Princeton or the Times does one of those things, then I would say Krugman gets a healthcare- insurance voucher. I seriously doubt that it works that way but who knows.
Whatever, no one that I know of is proposing a similar process for Medicare. Instead, at least per the Wyden-Ryan proposal for Medicare Reform, the government will negotiate with some insurers to provide some insurance plans for seniors. That's probably what Princeton or the Times does for Krugman.
The plans will provide at a minimum whatever the Congress says "traditional Medicare" (Medicare Parts A and B) should cover. The plans might (and most likely will because Traditional Medicare is terrible insurance) provide additional healthcare services. But they must provide the Congressional-established minimum.
As for how the plans get paid for:
- The second least expensive plan in your county will be "free." (It is unclear but there might be some kind of Monthly Medicare Membership fee to make up for the lack of Part B premium income to the government. At least that's what The Three Amigos of Harvard seem to think.)
- The least expensive plan will actually give you money back.
- But you will have to pay more if you want one of the plans that are better than the second least expensive, which -- to be honest -- since 84% of seniors say the hell with Traditional Medicare today (94% if you count the people on Medicaid), it is most likely that you will do the same in 2022 when this all starts.
In other words, it ain't a fuckin' voucher, Professor.
(Krugman also says
("It would be far more cost-effective, not to say humane, to make actual choices — to decide that Medicare won’t pay for procedures of little or no medical value."
