If you like your current health plan, you can keep it...maybe

[Guest]

I understand that there are about 10 million seniors enrolled in a Medicare Advantage insurance plan. Even AARP is offering one of these plans.

However, President Obama says he wants to kill this program.

Anybody enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan. Do you think you will get to keep it?

[Guest]

...about 10 million seniors enrolled in a Medicare Advantage insurance plan....President Obama says he wants to kill this program....As long as you mentioned it, just where did you read or hear that? Please don't tell me that Rush said it on the radio.

[Guest]

Sorry to disappoint, but I don't listen to Rush.

Here (http://www.kff.org/medicare/upload/2052-12.pdf) is a fact sheet put out by Kaiser. It popped up with simple google search.

Ironically, it shows a distribution chart of Medicare Advantage by state. It looks to me like the high percentage participation states tend to be the blue states, while the low participation states tend to be the red states. Go figure.

[Guest]

I understand that there are about 10 million seniors enrolled in a Medicare Advantage insurance plan. Even AARP is offering one of these plans.

However, President Obama says he wants to kill this program.
OK, I read the report published by Kaiser. Lots of good statistics. But where in the report does it say that "President Obama wants to kill this program"?

What the report does say in it's concluding section is..."many policymakers have expressed concern about the current payment system in light of Medicare’s overall fiscal challenges, as well as equity concerns, with only a subset of beneficiaries receiving extra benefits through Medicare Advantage plans. Achieving areasonable balance among multiple goals for the Medicare program—including keeping Medicare fiscally strong, setting adequate payments to private plans, and meeting beneficiaries’ health care needs—will be critical issues for policymakers in the future."

Sounds like a suggestion for how Congress should manage the program with greater participant equity and fiscal responsibility. I guess I don't quite see how those words at the end of the Kaiser Foundation report lead to the conclusion that President Obama, or even the entire 111th Congress, was going to do much of anything regarding the Medicare Advantage portion of Medicare. The report says that the Congress probably should take some action, but how the POTUS can accomplish that with no Constitutional legislative authority kind of escapes me.

By the way, there's some excellent information on the Henry Kaiser Family Foundation website. Here's an interactive history of healthcare developments over the last century http://healthreform.kff.org/flash/health-reform-new.html

They also present an interactive comparison of the various healthcare proposals currently being considered and debated http://www.kff.org/healthreform/sidebyside.cfm

There's a lot of information in these two links as well as on the rest of the website. Well worth spending some time reading and learning from a source with some obvious expertise.

[Guest]

Listen to his speeches. He says it in almost every Town Hall appearance. He claims that Medicare Advantage is a rip off by the insurance companies, and he can save $177 billion over ten years by cutting this program. Town Hall

I don't know if that is true (a rip off) or not. But if it is going to be cut, that is 10 million seniors that will have to give up their current plan and go back to regular Medicare.

I don't know anybody that is on Medicare Advantage, but there must be some people here in The Villages that are.

What do Medicare Advantage people have to say. Is Medicare Advantage a good program. Are you worried about losing it.

[Guest]

Medicare is socialism. So is social security. So is having public schools, fire departments, police departments, military, NASA, FHA, VA, FAA, etc. We need to do away with this and depend on militias for our protection. The government trying to force health insurance on us is like saying we have to have insurance on our automobiles and houses. How crazy is that?

[Guest]

Medicare is socialism. So is social security. So is having public schools, fire departments, police departments, military, NASA, FHA, VA, FAA, etc. We need to do away with this and depend on militias for our protection. The government trying to force health insurance on us is like saying we have to have insurance on our automobiles and houses. How crazy is that?

It's only "socialism" or, "The big-bad-government" when the benefits we receive through the common good don't directly line our own pockets.

[Guest]

Come on, stick to the topic. Medicare Advantage.