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Why the Medicare Fight Matters to Americans Over 55

By bgamall4   Follow   Mon, 20 Aug 2012, 1:30pm   298 views   1 comment
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http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/why-medicare-fight-matter-americans-over-55-170303762.html

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1. CaptainShuddup Follow Befriend (1) 247 threads 4,713 comments

   1   6:21am Tue 21 Aug 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike (1)   Health reform closes in the infamous "donut hole" in Medicare drug coverage—the gap of thousands of dollars of drug costs that the original drug benefit left open. If health reform is repealed, that benefit vanishes. Gone also would be health reform's coverage of cost sharing for prevention services. Gone would be the subsidies that will eventually cover 75 percent of the cost of generic drugs. Gone would be Medicaid benefits for millions of older Americans, working and retired, who would be newly covered by Medicaid expansions under the Affordable Care Act. Until enactment of the Affordable Care Act, a 60-year-old who did not work for an employer that offered group health coverage had to pay high or unaffordable premiums for individual coverage or go uninsured. If health reform is repealed, they will return to that intolerable predicament. The savings that are to be achieved under health reform would vanish. As a result, the Hospital Insurance Trust Fund would be exhausted in 2016 rather than in 2024, as projected under current law. Oh NO! So one convoluted kluge is in danger of being replaced with another cluster fuck.