Huh?
News at 11.
-- Dennis Byron
UPDATE: OK, it took a little sleuthing this morning to run this statement from Vice President Biden to the ground but the best any one I talk to can figure is that Biden was referring to the Ryan proposal to begin increasing the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67 beginning in 2023. The idea is to make the Medicare age align with the so called "full-retirement" age of Social Security.
So of course it is not to correct to say that Ryan would kick 19 million seniors off of Medicare (in fact, no one I talked to could figure out where Biden got the 19,000,000 number itself). Apparently Biden made so many other larger errors and uttered so many half truths in the debate (I did not see it) -- most of which were not related to Medicare -- that this one is below the fact checker's radar.
As for the idea of increasing the Medicare eligibility age, I have a problem with it:
- I don't think it really saves anything. Unfortunately the simple fact is that the largest Medicare costs come at end of life and it doesn't matter what age that occurs at.
- However, if the wonks were to come up with some concept such as "full Medicare age" like "full retirement age," under which people over 55 or 60 could buy insurance through the Medicare exchange (assuming that happens) at some discounted price relative to how close they are to "full Medicare age," well let's talk.
-- Dennis Byron
