Medicare & Healthcare Reform...H.R. 3962 A report requested by Republicans and released on Saturday by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services drew attention from health reform critics this week. The report questioned the expected savings from the House-approved health care overhaul. However, CMS's analysis is not an apples-to-apples comparison to the cost estimate conducted by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), because CMS did not review tax provisions, which help offset the price tag of the Democrats' measure. It is certain that the House health care reform bill will extend the life of the Medicare Trust Fund by five years, significantly longer than any other recent proposal. The legislation will also cut out-of-pocket spending by more than $200 billion by 2019. "We must separate fact from fiction to avoid being alarmed unnecessarily," said Ruben Burks, Secretary-Treasurer of the Alliance. "Overall, national spending on health care would increase by less than 1.3% over the next decade with the House bill, even though millions of additional people will gain coverage. Without health care reform, health care costs are expected to rise at rates double that of inflation, growing every year as a larger share of the Gross National Product." To learn more facts about the financial benefits of H.R. 3962 to retirees, go to http://bit.ly/jV9Ml.
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Rising Drug Costs in Face of Health Reform The New York Times reported early this week that the drug industry has been raising its prices at the fastest rate in years - this year by 9%. The rise has caused speculation about price increases in advance of health reform legislation. Those increases will add more than $10 billion to the nation's $300 billion drug bill this year, and led Democrats in Congress to request two investigations of drug industry pricing http://bit.ly/1NcGtz on Wednesday.
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