040916 H2H Medical costs eat at Social Security checks.

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http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-09-13-medicare-costs_x.htm

 

Medical costs eat at Social Security

By William M. Welch, USA TODAY

 

WASHINGTON - With a new Medicare drug benefit set to begin in 2006,

Americans 65 and older can expect to spend a large and growing share

of their Social Security checks on Medicare premiums and expenses,

previously undisclosed federal data show.

 

Information the Bush administration excluded from its 2004 report on

the Medicare program shows that a typical 65-year-old can expect to

spend 37% of his or her Social Security income on Medicare premiums,

co-payments and out-of-pocket expenses in 2006. That share is

projected to grow to almost 40% in 2011 and nearly 50% by 2021.

 

Unless Congress does something to hold down costs confronting seniors,

the official projections suggest that health spending will consume

virtually the entire amount of Social Security benefits when children

born today reach retirement age.

 

The table was provided by the Department of Health and Human Services

at the request of Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif. Stark, who opposed the

drug benefit enacted last year at President Bush's urging, sought the

data after noticing that a chart included in previous annual reports

was not in the 2004 version.

 

Stark charged that the administration threw out the chart because it

shows future Medicare costs under the new law will erode Social

Security checks.

 

" It doesn't look good to lie to grandma, so the Bush administration

has withheld information and come up with other creative ways to mask

the damage they have done to Medicare, " Stark said.

 

Lauren Burke, AP

Richard Foster

 

Richard Foster, Medicare's chief actuary, said the program's trustees

- administration officials and appointees - replaced the chart with a

graph that lacks specific numbers in an effort to show that the

increased costs come with a new benefit.

 

" The table makes it look like beneficiaries are worse off than ever,

and that's not the case, " Foster said.

 

Bill Pierce, a spokesman for Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy

Thompson, said the administration wasn't trying to hide anything. " We

have a new program, and it's got to be reflected with new

information, " he said.

 

The drug benefit is voluntary. It requires a premium, estimated at

$420 a year initially, and substantial co-payments. The administration

estimates participants will save about 50% on their drug bills.

 

Critics of the law say the new figures show it does little to restrain

drug costs. The law prohibits the government from negotiating lower

drug prices.

 

The data " ironically are the clearest proof of the new Medicare law's

failures and the resulting squeeze on seniors' pocketbooks, " said Ron

Pollack, head of Families USA, a health advocacy group.

 

The disclosure comes just days after the administration announced

Medicare premiums will rise by 17% next year due to rising health costs.

 

Foster is at the center of another dispute over missing data. He says

he withheld from Congress higher cost estimates for the Medicare law

last year, at the direction of a Bush appointee who headed the Centers

for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Congress approved the law based on

a 10-year, $400 billion estimated price tag. Foster's estimate was

$540 billion.

 

 

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http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-09-13-medicare-costs_x.htm