Health Care Reform, Medicare | featured news

House and Senate Republican leaders told President Barack Obama Thursday that they will refuse to nominate candidates to serve on an advisory board that is to play a role in holding down Medicare costs under the new health care act.

Here's one program candidates aren't likely to mess with: The Medicare prescription drug plan. A new poll sponsored by a health care group shows that 90% of seniors are satisfied with the program known as Medicare Part D, and approval has constantly risen since the plan came on line in 2006.

New polling by Reuters/Ipsos indicates that during the past two weeks - since just after the Democratic National Convention - support for Romney among Americans age 60 and older has crumbled, from a 20-point lead over Democratic President Barack Obama to less than 4 points.

...So Massachusetts used not just federal Medicaid money but federal dollars above and beyond that Medicaid money to finance their health reforms. It is difficult to see how Romney’s proposal to cut Medicaid spending and hand that reduced share over to the states would allow other states to follow Massachusetts’ example. It might not even permit Massachusetts to continue following Massachusetts’ example.

It has been a central campaign promise from Mitt Romney: His Medicare overhaul plan would not touch benefits for anyone older than 55. That may not, however, be the case with the Republican presidential nominee’s other health-care proposals. A growing body of research suggests that his plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act and cut Medicaid funding would have a direct impact on the health care that seniors receive.

More Americans got health insurance coverage in 2011, as young adults jumped onto their parent’s health insurance plans, the U.S. government said Wednesday. More also got public health insurance under the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

The Republican Party's platform calls for a ban on all abortions, reshaping Medicare and deep cuts to Medicaid if Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are elected in November. The New York Times: Platform's Sharp Turn To Right Has Conservatives Cheering
The new platform — with its call to reshape Medicare to give fixed amounts of money to future beneficiaries so they can buy their own coverage, its tough stance on illegal immigration and its many calls to shrink the size and scope of government — shows just how far rightward the party has shifted in both tone and substance in the decades since it adopted the 1980 platform, which was considered a triumph for conservatives at the time (Cooper, 8/28).

Escalating the campaign fight over Medicare, Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan warned an audience of Florida seniors Saturday that changes to the program made by President Obama's healthcare plan will lead to rationing of care for the elderly.

As campaign debate over Medicare intensifies, former Gov. Mitt Romney and President Obama have been accusing one another of threatening the future of the government health insurance program for the elderly and disabled.