Kathy Castor Against Medicare Privatization

Rep. Kathy Castor comes out against Paul Ryan's plan to privatize Medicare. Ryan proposed repealing the Affordable Care Act.

The Congressional Budget Office scored the House Republicans bill Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act. CBO estimated repealing health care reform would add $145 billion to the deficit by 2019. The federal budget would lose the $130 reduction that the Affordable Care Act legislation created. Repealing Obama's signature legislation will not increase access to health care.

Under H.R. 2, about 32 million fewer nonelderly people would have health insurance in 2019, leaving a total of about 54 million nonelderly residents with insurance coverage would be about 83 percent, compared with a projected share of 94 percent under current law...

The CBO scored that Ryan's budget would increase the deficit and health care premiums for seniors.

Under the proposal, most elderly people who would be entitled to premium support payments would pay more for their health care than they would pay under the current Medicare system. For a typical 65-year-old with average health spending enrolled in a plan with benefits similar to those currently provided by Medicare, CBO estimated the beneficiary's spending on premiums and out-of-pocket expenditures as a share of a benchmark amount: what total health care spending would be if a private insurer covered the beneficiary. By 2030, the beneficiary's share would be 68 percent of that benchmark under the proposal, 25 percent under the extended-baseline scenario, and 30 percent under the alternative fiscal scenario.

Federal payments for Medicaid under the proposal would be substantially smaller than currently projected amounts. States would have additional flexibility to design and manage their Medicaid programs, and they might achieve greater efficiencies in the delivery of care than under current law. Even with additional flexibility, however, the large projected reduction in payments would probably require states to decrease payments to Medicaid providers, reduce eligibility for Medicaid, provide less extensive coverage to beneficiaries, or pay more themselves than would be the case under current law.

This is about Republicans destroying the Great Society programs. This has nothing to do with lowering the deficit or improving health care.