Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon is probably best known for proposing Medicare reform (see visual) in 2011 along with the most hated Congressman in America, Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. The Oregonian newspaper recently noted that Senator Wyden of Oregon (who apparently lives in New York according to people from Oregon just like Massachusetts Senator Markey lives in Maryland) celebrated his 65th birthday.
The newspaper says:
"Wyden says he... will stay on his Senate health plan instead of moving to Medicare."
Being the expert that he is, Senator Wyden knows that Original Medicare is terrible insurance and bad social policy.
- On the insurance side, it has no annual out of pocket spending limit, no integral drug coverage for most prescriptions, lifetime limits on key benefits such as hospitalization, high co-pays and deductibles, and many other problems. Because Original Medicare is so bad, almost everyone on Original Medicare makes other arrangements including the private Medigap plan program he reformed 20 years ago and private insurance from former employers (but both types of senior insurance are decreasing in popularity) and public Part C Medicare Advantage health plans (which are becoming more popular because they fix all the problems with Original Medicare noted above without having to buy an additional and private plan).
- On the social policy side, thousands of people like Wyden turning 65 are continuing to work because the so called full SS retirement age has been raised to 66 and is still heading up and they cannot afford to retire (probably not Wyden's problem but... 6-year-old twins... maybe...). This has all kinds of bad effects on the economy as a whole as it removes employment and promotion opportunities for younger people. It also has a bad effect on Medicare because the Medicare trust fund does not get premiums from people in their mid to late 60s when they are healthier... relatively. When they finally do join in their 70s, the Medicare system has to pay out for their expensive health care needs much sooner (all on average of course).
But you can't blame Wyden for these problems. When he proposed common sense changes to Medicare in 2011 and -- as with his earlier support for Part D -- he was called a traitor by the Democratic Party.
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