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