Medicare
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Medicare serves the health care needs of 35 million seniors by providing access to quality health care providers and benefits – regardless of their health or welfare. Unfortunately, Medicare is facing a looming financial crisis. As soon as 2017 or as late as 2024, the Medicare Trustees predict that the program will be bankrupt. In the coming decades, Medicare faces trillions in costs it will not have the money to cover. All of this means that unless we take steps to shore up Medicare today, millions of seniors in the program today will be forced to watch their Medicare benefits cut and their out of pocket costs increased by unelected bureaucrats in Washington. I fear that those seniors with chronic illnesses and use the most Medicare services will be hardest hit. If we decide to ignore these growing problems, the harm will not be limited to those seniors on Medicare today. For our children, and their children, Medicare and Social Security may not be available at all. Quite simply, our failure to address the problems of today will mean that the safety and security of our future generations will be irreparably harmed. I believe that it is absolutely irresponsible to turn a blind eye to these challenges. That is precisely why House Republicans – with the leadership of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) – have passed a budget resolution for Fiscal Year 2013 called the Path to Prosperity. This proposal is a good starting point to discuss the ways in which commonsense reforms to Medicare will ensure its solvency for future generations. The Path to Prosperity would not change the Medicare programs for individuals who are 55 or older. However, for those younger than 55, it would provide a premium support system for beneficiaries, allowing them – as current beneficiaries do in Medicare Advantage – to make the health care choices that are best for these individuals and their families. Even more important, the Path to Prosperity ensures that current and Medicare beneficiaries have a program that supports them in their health choices. Absent reforms like the Path to Prosperity, seniors may lose that benefit in the next decade. I will never support a proposal that intends to gut Medicare as Obamacare did when the bill – which I strongly opposed – cut billions from the program and spent those funds on a new entitlement that will not benefit seniors. Additionally, Obamacare created an unelected panel of bureaucrats called the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) to find further cuts in Medicare. This will result in rationed care and is the centerpiece of President Obama's Medicare reform plan. As a physician, a father, and grandfather, I wholeheartedly believe that it is time that we protect seniors currently in the program and the next generation from the threat of bankruptcy and higher costs. I am committed to working toward Medicare reform that achieves these goals. |
