Romney and V-P candidate Paul Ryan have proposed changing Medicare to a "premium support" system dominated by private plans that are paid a fixed amount by the government.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's plans of privatising the US health care system under his 'Medicare' programme would actually result in 59% of the recipients paying higher premiums, a new study has revealed
Romney and V-P candidate Paul Ryan have proposed changing Medicare to a "premium support" system dominated by private plans that are paid a fixed amount by the government.
Under their plan, government health insurance payments for individual seniors would be tied to the cost of the second-lowest private insurance plan in their geographical area, or traditional Medicare, whichever is less expensive. Seniors could pick a private plan or a new public program modeled on traditional Medicare. But if their pick costs more than the government payment, they would have to pay the difference themselves, CBS News reports.
According to the report, the study done by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation outlined that changing Medicare from an open-ended programme that covers the same benefits across the country will have profound local implications, since Medicare spending per person varies dramatically around the US, and therefore, privatising the program would create big regional disparities.
Because the government's contribution would be limited under the new system, seniors in areas with high medical costs would see an increase in their premiums for traditional Medicare unless they switch to a low-cost private plan, while in low-cost areas, the reverse would be true with seniors in private plans paying higher premiums unless they switched to traditional Medicare, the study noted
Overall, the study found that 59% of all Medicare recipients would face higher premiums if they stick with their current coverage, including about half of those in the traditional program, while in five states, California, Connecticut, Florida, New Jersey and Nevada, more than 45% of beneficiaries would have to pay at least $100 a month more in premiums, the study said.
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