Immigrants for years have paid far more into Medicare’s coffers than they have pulled out, effectively subsidizing rising healthcare payments to the aging U.S. population, a study released on Wednesday showed.
The analysis from Harvard Medical School showed immigrants generated a $13.8 billion surplus for the U.S. government healthcare program for the elderly in 2009, the most recent figures available.
From 2002 through 2009 immigrants posted a Medicare surplus of $115 billion, while the American-born population logged a deficit of $28 billion in contributions.
The Harvard study was posted in the June issue of the medical journal “Health Affairs.” It counters impressions that immigrants put a strain on healthcare resources.
House Democrats came away from a closed-door meeting with President Obama on Thursday expressing openness to his proposed cuts to Social Security and Medicare, after he assured them he would never cut entitlement benefits unless Republicans yield on tax increases.
After the meeting with Obama, several key Democrats expressed an openness to entitlement benefit cuts as part of a broader budget bill that includes higher taxes. Their statements run counter to the hoary conventional wisdom in Washington that Democrats are just as stubbornly opposed to cutting safety net spending as Republicans are to higher taxes.
In an important indication of where Democrats stand, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told reporters after the meeting Thursday that as long as “Chained CPI does not hurt the poor or the very old, then it is something to put on the table.
The poor are getting poorer thanks to House Democrats’ apostasy. Grandma will now be eating catfood AND have to choose to pay rent or buy medications.
Cut the plane that ate the budget!
The F-35 program is the most expensive and least effective weapons system in history. The total lifetime cost of the F-35 program is $1.5 trillion—making it equal to the entire 10 years of cuts mandated by the sequester.
The F-35 program has been grounded twice and has a history of being overdue and over-budget. Why should we continue to throw money at outdated and ineffective weapons systems like the F-35 while cutting vital social programs instead?
Email your members of Congress today—remind them that there are some easy ways to eliminate waste without cutting programs that create real security.
Paul Ryan could have been jeered worse by the AARP
![underthemountainbunker:
When Mitt Romney and Bain Capital profited from Medicare fraud
This comes from blue aardvark at Daily Kos, who summarizes:
“Bain invests in a company. Mitt gets personally involved with managing said company. Company profits are significantly based upon Medicare Fraud. Bain & Romney never uncover the fraud in 4 years, Corning uncovers it immediately upon buying Damon. Despite the fraud, Bain triples its investment, and Romney’s share of that profit is a cool half a million.
“Damon laid off workers despite Mitt Romney serving on the board and the strategic planning committee. Despite the failure of the business model to generate new jobs, Bain Capital tripled its investment, and Romney himself made nearly half a million dollars. Rampant fraud was supporting earnings, yet Romney was not able to notice.”
Where did the information come from? “From the delightful gift that is John McCain’s opposition research on Mitt (courtesy of namelessgenxer).”
[…]
Why is this important? For several reasons, primarily that which is the “business experience” Mitt Romney would like to say he has in “creating jobs” and successfully running businesses. Except that when we scratch the surface, his actual hands-on experience with businesses, via Bain Capital, usually results in stories of laid-off workers, companies shuttered, and Mitt and his buddies at Bain walking away from the flaming wreckage with millions of dollars for themselves.
ABLC reminds us that it’s also important for this very reason:
Mitt Romney keeps saying that President Obama “robbed” Medicare of $716 billion in order to pay for Obamacare.
He also keeps saying that the $716 billion are cuts to Medicare services and benefits.
Both statements are flat-out lies.
As I’ve explained over and over and over, the “cuts” to Medicare come from savings, reductions in waste and fraud, and ending taxpayer subsidies to insurance companies.
So who actually “robbed” Medicare here?](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m90af9ypO71qf10tro1_500.jpg)
When Mitt Romney and Bain Capital profited from Medicare fraud
This comes from blue aardvark at Daily Kos, who summarizes:
“Bain invests in a company. Mitt gets personally involved with managing said company. Company profits are significantly based upon Medicare Fraud. Bain & Romney never uncover the fraud in 4 years, Corning uncovers it immediately upon buying Damon. Despite the fraud, Bain triples its investment, and Romney’s share of that profit is a cool half a million.
“Damon laid off workers despite Mitt Romney serving on the board and the strategic planning committee. Despite the failure of the business model to generate new jobs, Bain Capital tripled its investment, and Romney himself made nearly half a million dollars. Rampant fraud was supporting earnings, yet Romney was not able to notice.”
Where did the information come from? “From the delightful gift that is John McCain’s opposition research on Mitt (courtesy of namelessgenxer).”
[…]
Why is this important? For several reasons, primarily that which is the “business experience” Mitt Romney would like to say he has in “creating jobs” and successfully running businesses. Except that when we scratch the surface, his actual hands-on experience with businesses, via Bain Capital, usually results in stories of laid-off workers, companies shuttered, and Mitt and his buddies at Bain walking away from the flaming wreckage with millions of dollars for themselves.
ABLC reminds us that it’s also important for this very reason:
He also keeps saying that the $716 billion are cuts to Medicare services and benefits.
Both statements are flat-out lies.
As I’ve explained over and over and over, the “cuts” to Medicare come from savings, reductions in waste and fraud, and ending taxpayer subsidies to insurance companies.
So who actually “robbed” Medicare here?
Medicare isn’t a Single Payer System because Medicare would be one insurer of many who would pay for supplies, medicine and services. There would still be Aetna, Anthem, Blue Shields and Crosses (and companies licensing that name) and many others with negotiated rates and prices that they’d pay on a list. The administrata would remain in place.
Physicians for a National Health Care Plan says…
Single-payer is a term used to describe a type of financing system. It refers to one entity acting as administrator, or “payer.” In the case of health care, a single-payer system would be setup such that one entity—a government run organization—would collect all health care fees, and pay out all health care costs. In the current US system, there are literally tens of thousands of different health care organizations—HMOs, billing agencies, etc. By having so many different payers of health care fees, there is an enormous amount of administrative waste generated in the system. (Just imagine how complex billing must be in a doctor’s office, when each insurance company requires a different form to be completed, has a different billing system, different billing contacts and phone numbers—it’s very confusing.) In a single-payer system, all hospitals, doctors, and other health care providers would bill one entity for their services. This alone reduces administrative waste greatly, and saves money, which can be used to provide care and insurance to those who currently don’t have it.
Medicare for All would be redeeming.
It’s still not single payer.
Why is Wyden supporting Ryan’s Medicare voucher proposal?
Why would Ron Wyden cooperate with Paul Ryan in this effort to defuse the Democrats’ strategy of using the premium support vote against the Republicans? It is because he is more supportive of his own previous proposal for health care reform than he is for the Democrats to prevail in the next election. His Healthy Americans Act that he pushed throughout the reform process called for an individual mandate to purchase private plans, shifting the tax benefit from employers to individuals (a concept included in this white paper). He has said that Democrats want universal coverage, Republicans want choice, and his plan, and now the Ryan-Wyden proposal, would enable both.
The problem for single payer supporters is that this is a digression that shoves the concept of an improved Medicare for all further into the background. The substance of the debate will be over converting the Medicare Advantage plan into a voucherized program competing on price. Single payer supporters will not be welcome participants in that debate, nor should we.
Does ACA’s “Basic Health Program” stabilize coverage?
Suppose the states decided against establishing basic health programs, what would happen under the baseline ACA structure with just Medicaid and the private exchange plans? Half of individuals would no longer be in their initial programs. This is only over a period of two years. Because of continual fluctuations in eligibility (changing income levels, etc.), stability over a decade or two would be virtually nonexistent.
This instability can be quite disruptive. Between Medicaid, basic health programs, and private exchange plans, there may be little or no overlap in provider networks. A change in coverage could also have a major impact on out-of-pocket expenses required of the insured individuals.
One intent of the basic health programs would be to save the government money by paying providers at levels close to those of Medicaid. Many physicians already reject Medicaid because of these low rates. Adding many more new patients to the Medicaid program, plus introducing an entirely new, under-funded, basic health program, would surely cause providers to flee both Medicaid and the basic health programs. The patients might have a basic health ticket, but nowhere to use it.
The entire ACA infrastructure is irreparably fragmented and dysfunctional. It needs to be replaced with… yes, an improved Medicare for all.
