House Republicans have decided against using savings from war funding to offset a permanent “doc fix,” which means that Medicare doctors could see their reimbursement rates fall as much as 27% by the end of the month. In addition, this only extends the cost of a permanent doc fix over time, because the cost of [...]

Yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that raising the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67 would save the government $148 billion from 2012 to 2021. For context, letting the Bush tax cuts expire would save $3.6 trillion over the same ten-year window. So anyone who tells you that we must increase the Medicare age [...]

Politifact won the “Pompous Response to Criticism of the Year” award yesterday for their rebuttal to criticism about their awarding of the Lie of the Year to the correct claim by Democrats that Paul Ryan’s Path to Prosperity budget would end Medicare. Dave Weigel has a pretty thorough rundown, so I won’t bother. The short [...]

You buy a hamburger from me and I give you a piece of hard black leather on a bun. You protest and I say, no, I’m still calling it a hamburger, so you got what you asked for. You start running around telling everyone I sell leather as hamburgers, and I get my local fact-checking [...]

Now that Democratic politicians have taken their shot at Ryan-Wyden, liberal wonks are having their turn puncturing the Medicare/premium support hybrid plan. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is pretty unsparing in their analysis. Here’s a taste: Its sponsors say the proposal would avoid shifting health costs to beneficiaries, but that’s not so. It [...]

The news that Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Paul Ryan have joined forces on a premium support/Medicare hybrid has gone over like a lead balloon in the Democratic caucus, as well as the White House. First off, Democrats in the House showed little interest in the plan, which would allow private companies on a regulated [...]

In a surprise move, Paul Ryan found a Democratic partner to propose a new Medicare plan that does not fully privatize it, but instead keeps fee-for-service Medicare as an option alongside a premium support plan. This is the same proposal that the front-running Republican Presidential candidates have made. Here’s the plan in a nutshell, from [...]

One of the elements of the House GOP’s year-end bill is the “doc fix,” which would avoid the current reimbursement schedule for Medicare doctors. If nothing happens, doctors would see a 27% cut in their reimbursement rates, which would undoubtedly cause many to stop seeing Medicare patients. To avoid this, the House GOP bill spends [...]

The House released their version of a year-end bill to extend unemployment benefits, a payroll tax cut and a “doc fix” to avoid a 27% cut in Medicare reimbursement. A look at the various elements of the bill make clear that Republicans have little interest in passing anything through Congress. The bill, written by House [...]

This salvo from a Romney-linked Super PAC includes the charge that Newt Gingrich supported a health insurance mandate they call “the centerpiece of Obamacare.” The fact that it was also the centerpiece of Romneycare doesn’t appear in the advertisement. But Romney, now the underdog for the GOP nomination, has to scrap back by attacking Gingrich [...]

House Speaker John Boehner announced his party’s year-end legislation that would extend the payroll tax cut, unemployment insurance benefits and a patch to prevent a 27% cut in Medicare reimbursement to doctors. The legislation also includes poison pills which the President already vowed to reject, designed as sweeteners to get conservative members on board. One [...]