Realism is an Act of Kindness

My husband and I travel each summer in a large motor home.  It has a 127 gallon tank that needs to be filled with diesel fuel that is running close to $4/gallon.  The price we pay for the fuel is the price we pay for the fun.  But with numbers that big, smart people have a budget.  We have a budget.  Next year we were planning on going to Newfoundland.  But the same budget that got us from Texas to the Olympic Peninsula won’t get us to Newfoundland.  So, if we cut Newfoundland from the plans, but use the same money we used this year for a trip around the Great Lakes, have we cut money from the budget?  Or saved money?  Or just made a smart and necessary decision?

            For the intelligent among you, here endeth the lesson.   Of course, I am talking about the current crop of equally offensive and misleading statements being made by both sides about Medicare.

I offer a quote from an educated and informed man:  “With an aging population and rising health care costs, we are spending too fast to sustain the program. And if we don’t gradually reform the system while protecting current beneficiaries, it won’t be there when future retirees need it. We have to reform Medicare to strengthen it.”

Nope, it isn’t Paul Ryan or Mitt Romney.  It isn’t even Sen. Ron Wyden, Democrat from Oregon, who co-sponsored Paul Ryan’s reform plan.  It is a quote from President Barack Obama, delivered to a joint session of Congress last year.  There is no question from either side that we have, for all the best reasons in the world, created a monster that is bleeding us dry.  Listen carefully to the speeches and pronouncements given by the President and his spokesmen just this last week.  They repeatedly refer to what they have done to preserve Medicare for the next decade.  They are not talking about saving Medicare or fixing Medicare.  They are talking about keeping it from collapsing on top of us long enough to win the next election.

The Affordable Health Care Act (Obamacare if you will, though I contend it is much better described as Democratcare), does remove $716 billion from future Medicare spending.  The amount is roughly divided between reimbursements to hospitals, Medicare Advantage, and miscellaneous expenses.  Medicare Advantage was designed to allow seniors to choose among competing insurance plans, so removing 30% of this funding directly attacks individual choice, but it is described as, “reducing funding for insurance companies” so it sounds like more of the populist, “them versus us” mentality favored by the current Democratic Party.   For the record, Paul Ryan’s original plan also implements these reductions. 

Both sides will say that these cuts don’t take money away from Medicare patients, just the health care providers.  They are only superficially correct.  Does either side think that cutting money to hospitals and home health care providers won’t impact the patient?  Do they think we are that naïve?  The point is, none of this solves the larger problem.  We are going to have to reduce the cost of Medicare.  When Ryan proposes a plan that keeps the current coverage for everyone now on Medicare, and for all of those who will go on Medicare in the next decade in place, he keeps faith with all Americans.   When he proposes changes for those who come on board after 2023 he is being a realist.  In my opinion, realism in the face of danger is an act of kindness.

Accept reality and keep the faith.