About that 10-year Romney Plan ...

Question: Not that the resident sorcerers at the Romney-Ryan coven could answer this (or would answer it honestly), but wouldn't 65-year-olds in 2013 (let's dismiss for now all that 55-and-older stuff) be subject to a President Romney's Medicare voucherization when they turn 75 in 2023?

The presiding fantasy harrumphed by the Romney camp is that nothing changes for current seniors. Everything stays the same, although, as the Center for American Progress points out, it doesn't. But let's assume that's true. Let's assume that seniors on Medicare continue enjoying Medicare precisely as it's configured today. What happens in 10 years, though, when Medicare is voucherized? Would not the 75-year-old, who once thought he or she had a remaining lifetime of pristinely preserved Medicare, be subject to the newcomers' voucherization?

I have read nothing, seen nothing, heard nothing from the Romney-Ryan campaign that suggests that seniors in 2013 would receive a privileged carve-out from Medicare's ghettoization 10 years later. As a result (although under a Romney administration there would be less odds of this) some seniors reaching the age of 75 in 2023 could be looking at another 10 or 20 years not of traditional Medicare but of voucherized and thus far costlier Medicare.

Right? Or am I wrong? Did I somehow miss Romney's promise of a carve-out? Would not long-living seniors be subject to more years under voucherization than under presently structured Medicare? Romney and Ryan promise current seniors that they can stay on "traditional Medicare" if they like; but in 10 years, wouldn't all "traditional Medicare" perforce be voucherized? I've read nothing about a two-tier Medicare program in 2023: one virtually guaranteed, as is, by government, and the other, voucherized.

In other words, today's 65-year-old who lives to 95 would spend roughly 10 years on traditional Medicare and 20 years on its increasingly costlier voucherized form. Right? I stand ready to be corrected. 

Comments

[Robert Lipscomb]

If your question is simply, "Are the Republicans using deception to screw working people?", I am guessing, "Yes."

[Steve Lichtman]

"Ryan, R-Wis., said he wants to "protect" people who are currently 55 or older by giving them Medicare exactly as it exists today. "We don’t want to pull the rug out from people on their way to retirement," he said." http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/stories/2011/march/03/ryan-medicare-vouchers.aspx

Presumably so long as there was one person alive who was 55 at the time Ryan's plan went into effect, there would be at least one person still receiving current, full Medicare benefits. Weird, huh?

[Robert Pierce]

If Rmoney's new & improved Medicare "plan" is so freakin' awesome, why exempt today's Medicare beneficiaries.

[Jim Milstein]

Let's assume that the GOP plan to grandfather current Medicare is sincere. How long do you think younger voters will stand for this when they have to pay for it, but they are excluded when they come of age?

I think, not very long.