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Romney, Ryan and Medicare Rights

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The Medicare Rights Center, a national, nonprofit consumer service organization, sent out their e-newsletter this week with some troubling news about the Romney-Ryan plan for Medicare. The Center from what I can see gets its funding from a variety of sources and does not appear to be partisan. If it is, please let me know because that's not what this is about. It's about Medicare.What the newsletter said was this: The Romney-Ryan plan will increase Medicare costs now and in the future. The Center based the comments on a report by the Center for American Progress (CAP), which also professes to be bipartisan. And it gives the web page so you can read the whole report for yourself. But here are the high points. 1. The RR budget proposal increases Medicare premiums and drug costs for current seniors and increases Medicare costs during retirement for those who qualify for Medicare after 2011.2. Specifically the plan converts the traditional Medicare program into a voucher system, repeals the Affordable Care Act(ACA),and turns Medicaid into a block grant.3. CAP says these changes would significantly increase health care costs for both current and future Medicare recipients. 4. Younger people would face the most cuts under the RR plan with increases of almost $60,000 for people who turn 65 in 2023. Each year the voucher would grow at a rate of .5 percent over the rate of gross domestic product (GDP).5. Because health care costs will increase much faster than the voucher, seniors will be forced to spend more of their own money.Go in and read the whole report "Increased Costs During Retirement Under the Romney-Ryan Medicare Plan." I know many of you support this ticket, so explain the other side that can't be seen. I really want to understand this, as do many of our readers, and we all know that Medicare has been a hot potato in this election. So explain what is not clear here.

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