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Subject: Tom Coburn, M.D. & John Barrasso, M.D. - Medicare in 2012
CJH    11/18/2011 9:49:58 PM
Medicare & You (This is a doctors’ opinion on the Medicare program with important information about the following:)

"The controversial health care law cut more than half a trillion dollars from the Medicare program to create brand new government programs for someone else. The Medicare program already faces severe financing challenges and the program is not a piggyback for wasteful spending on new programs.

Unfortunately, some Congressional Democrats have been trumpeting that these cuts appear to increase Medicare’s solvency. However, in a letter in 2009 the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said that the appearance of Medicare savings from the cuts was only because the Medicare trust fund is “essentially an accounting mechanism.”

In reality, the cuts to Medicare were double-counted, giving the illusion of extending Medicare’s solvency – even though the dollars are really being spent on new government bureaucracies. CBO reiterated this conclusion when the Director of the office explained that the cuts to Medicare cannot “pay for future Medicare spending [and therefore increase its solvency] and, at the same time, pay for current spending on other parts of the legislation…” The Chief Actuary of the Medicare program agreed, saying significant Medicare cuts in the health care law, “cannot be simultaneously used to finance other Federal outlays (such as coverage expansions) and to extend the trust fund.”"

 
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