Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

Medicare: The Next Golden Goose, Pt.6 – The voters need some detail, before voting.

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According to the Center for American Progress, Mr. McCain is planning to withdraw $882 billion from the Medicare coffers, causing drastic cuts in Medicare health insurance/care benefits. This would cause serious repercussions in our nation’s health insurance/care relief fund. The McCain camp claims this to be a intentional mischaracterization of their health insurance/care plan. They charge that this huge figure is way off and was derived from an organization closely linked to Obama's campaign.

Mr. McCain's senior policy adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, asserts that their plan does not intend to cut health insurance/care services provided under Medicare and Medicaid. He stated that: "The spin is inappropriate, the distortion is outrageous." He adds that their plan "could reach as much as $700 billion” in savings over 10 years. The two mechanisms to raise the $700 billion for McCain’s health insurance/care plan would be: Eliminating fraud in both Medicare and Medicaid; and Expediting the time it takes to approve generic drugs.

So, on goes the debate. Obama still charges that, "time and again" Mr. McCain has opposed Medicare and has dodged the important issue of funding his health insurance/care plan. He likened McCain’s proposals as to ads for prescription drugs with their glossed-over cautions about side effects. McCain calls his proposal ‘budget-neutral’. He plans for it not to cost taxpayers anything. Most well-known experts highly disagree.

The general consensus is close to that of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Centers. This organization estimates Mr. McCain's plan to cost about $1.3 trillion over 10 years. They estimate Mr. Obama's plan to cost about $1.6 trillion. Mr. Obama has stepped out early on by providing an abundance of details and projected figures concerning his plan for the community to analyze and assess. Of course, this makes him a target, but it also shows sincerity. Mr. McCain should follow this lead and provide enough detail for our community to analyze and assess his plan as well. The voters need to be informed before they vote, not afterward.

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