Public rightfully skeptical of this Medicare `fix’

By The Des Moines Register

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To hear Mitt Romney tell it, President Barack Obama is a thief. The Republican presidential candidate says Obama “robbed” $700 billion from Medicare. This campaign rhetoric is a reference to changes made in the health reform law. Before Romney calls the cops, he should do a little more research. Then he might actually commend Obama.

That's because the president did exactly what needs to be done: take steps to address Medicare's fiscal problems. Everyone knows spending in the program is unsustainable. There are two ways to tackle that reality: spend less money or find more money to spend. The reform law does both.

It will lower reimbursements to hospitals and nursing homes. It creates an independent advisory board, a panel of health experts, charged with making recommendations to slow spending in the huge program. What the panel proposes will be enacted unless Congress intervenes. That is exactly what was needed, since Congress has proven itself unable to stand up to special interests and make necessary reductions by itself.

The law also raises taxes on wealthy Americans to help shore up the hospital insurance funded by payroll taxes. The government has estimated “Part A” of Medicare will be depleted within a decade. Yet as the cost of care has grown and more people signed up for coverage, Congress has refused to increase the payroll tax rate to cover the expense.

Our elected officials have starved Medicare. They add costly benefits, such as prescription coverage, without increasing the revenue to pay for such changes. People like Romney insist the program is structurally and fundamentally flawed. It's not. But in choosing Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate, it's clear how Romney wants to “fix” Medicare.

It doesn't get much worse than the congressman's plan.

In a nutshell, Ryan proposes providing subsidies so seniors can sign up for commercial insurance. Instead of Medicare directly paying your doctor, the government would send a check to the private insurer who is supposed to be managing your care. Such an arrangement has been a proven fiscal failure in “Medicare+Choice” plans in the 1990s and in Medicare Advantage plans today. It costs taxpayer more than basic Medicare, and it creates confusion for seniors. Some health providers would not accept these plans.

But some politicians just keep pushing the idea. They keep saying that the private sector is better than the government at delivering health care. They keep hoping Americans will believe it's true. Fortunately, Americans didn't just fall off the turnip truck.

Who owns the most luxurious buildings in town, pays sky-high CEO salaries and spends a fortune on “administrative expenses”? Private insurance companies. Where do they get their money? From the increasingly expensive premiums their customers pay. That money spent on board member salaries and country club memberships for executives is money not spent on health care.

The American public is supposed to believe that if we hand these same companies billions of dollars from citizens and tell them to take over the care of millions of seniors, they are going to make better use of the money than the government-run Medicare program?

Romney and Ryan want Americans to think government can't be trusted. Instead, we are supposed to trust - and give more tax money - to private insurers. Miraculously, that will cure what ails Medicare. It should be hard for seniors, or any American who plans on growing old, to get excited about that idea.

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