New Health Care Law Shifts Funds Toward Younger Patients

July 30th, 2010

Costs from the health care overhaul are largely being covered by cuts to health care programs for the elderly.

  • Although the new health care law provides coverage for the uninsured, it will also result in cuts to Medicare. This marks a change in the state of affairs in this country: we are accustomed to a system in which the young support the old.
  • The elderly won’t lose any benefits that the law guarantees them, but many Medicare programs are hybrids of public and private insurers, and these will be adversely affected.
  • The change has some seniors worried about a decrease in their quality of life, even as the previously-uninsured are looking forward to an increase in theirs.

Facts & Figures

  • Medicare Advantage, a combination of public and private insurance for the elderly, currently supports 11.3 million people. Cuts to these plans will pay for 15% of the health care bill’s costs.
  • The bill will cost $938 billion over ten years. $455 billion of that money will come from cuts to Medicare and two other federal programs.
  • Medicare Advantage customers will have their benefits reduced by an average of $68 per month by 2019, the Congressional Budget Office says.

Best Quote

“I’m sure that some of those additional benefits have been nice. But I think what we have to look at here is what’s fair and what’s important for the strength of the Medicare program long term.” – Nancy-Ann DeParle, White House Office of Health Reform

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