White House Reassures Medicare Beneficiaries

Reducing Medicare and Medicaid spending by an additional $300 billion over the next 10 years will not affect coverage or quality

Following are excerpts from an article by Barbara Basler in AARPBulletinToday, June 9, 2009:

President Obama’s call to reduce Medicare and Medicaid spending by an additional $200 billion to $300 billion over the next 10 years to help finance health care reforms will “absolutely not” affect coverage, benefits or quality of care for Medicare beneficiaries, says Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform.

Older Americans “can rest assured these are proposals that will help strengthen the Medicare Trust Fund and strengthen the Medicare program for beneficiaries,” DeParle said yesterday in an interview with the AARP Bulletin.

Obama originally had called for cost savings in Medicare and Medicaid totaling $309 billion over 10 years.

But in a letter last week to the heads of two Senate committees working on health care legislation, the president suggested squeezing an additional $200 billion to $300 billion from the programs, for total savings of up to about $600 billion. The new savings, Obama said, would come through such measures as better management of chronic diseases, elimination of duplicate tests and providing more preventive care.

The full article can be seen at:

http://bulletin.aarp.org/yourhealth/medicare/articles/medicare_beneficiaries.html?cmp=NLC-RSS-DAILY-BULLETIN

Sounds like good news, although none of us really know what's going to happen, regardless what is said!!

So let's hope for the best!!!

Have a great day.

Tom Binder
Seniors Real Estate Specialist