Obama: Healthcare law gave Medicare ‘sounder financial footing’

President Obama used his weekly radio address Saturday to tout the
findings of a Medicare Trustees report that concluded the program will
remain solvent through 2029, largely as a result of cost-cutting
provisions included in the recently enacted healthcare law.

The president said the report clearly demonstrated that the passage of
healthcare reform has put Medicare on “a sounder financial footing.”

{mosads}”Reform has actually added at least a dozen years to the solvency of
Medicare — the single longest extension in history — while helping to
preserve Medicare for generations to come,” Obama said.

“We’ve made Medicare more solvent by going after waste, fraud and
abuse — not by changing seniors’ guaranteed benefits,” the president
said. “In fact, seniors are starting to see that because of health
reform, their benefits are getting better all the time.”

The president also touted a $250 rebate meant to aid senior citizens
who fall into the so-called “doughnut hole” in Medicare prescription
drug coverage. He noted that by next year seniors who fall into that
coverage gap will be eligible for a 50 percent discount on needed
medication.

“Already, we have put insurance companies on notice that we have the
authority to review and reject unreasonable rate increases for
Medicare Advantage plans,” Obama said. “And we’ve made it clear to the
insurers that we won’t hesitate to use this authority to protect
seniors.”

Still, the Trustees report hailed by Obama was filled with caveats,
the biggest of which is that the projected cost savings are dependent
on future cuts that even Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen
Sebelius suggested are doubtful.

The report’s conclusion hinges on Congress agreeing to a 30 percent
cut in Medicare payments to doctors over the next few years, as well
as cuts in funding to hospitals and other providers.

Without those cuts — both of which are politically unpalatable options
and ones lawmakers are unlikely to embrace when the time comes — the
financial projections are not so rosy.

What Democrats and the president hailed as “cost-saving measures,”
Republicans panned as “accounting gimmicks” last week.

“Simple logic says that you can’t spend and save the same dollar,”
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Thursday. “The
trustees’ report confirms that Medicare’s future now rests on
Washington Democrats’ accounting gimmicks and tricks, a risk America’s
seniors are by no means eager to take.”

Meanwhile, the president’s radio address made no mention of the more
dour projection the report made on Social Security. It concluded the
program’s fiscal outlook has dimmed, in large part due to the high
unemployment rate.

With more money being paid out through the program than coming in,
both this year and next, the Social Security trust fund is expected to
run dry by 2037.