{"id":6398,"date":"2017-03-01T20:04:14","date_gmt":"2017-03-01T20:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=6398"},"modified":"2017-03-10T20:05:21","modified_gmt":"2017-03-10T20:05:21","slug":"aarp-working-to-counter-gop-plans-to-change-medicare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=6398","title":{"rendered":"AARP Working to Counter GOP Plans to Change Medicare"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"AARP<\/a>

AARP is pushing Congress to keep Medicare as it is for millions of American retirees. Photo: iStockphoto<\/p><\/div>\n

AUSTIN, Texas<\/strong> \u2013 The Republican majority in Congress is considering major changes to Medicare<\/a> that could bring financial hardships for many seniors. However, AARP Texas is planning a full-court press to make sure America\u2019s health plan for retirees remains the same and is not replaced by a system that could drain seniors\u2019 pocketbooks.<\/p>\n

Bob Jackson, director of AARP Texas, says the plan being proposed could change Medicare from a single-payer system to a market-based insurance subsidy.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome folks want to turn the whole Medicare system, instead of the system that it is, into a voucher system, or what they want to call \u2018premium supports,’\u201d he said. \u201cEssentially, the government would provide a fixed amount and people 65 and older would have to buy insurance on the market.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jackson says the GOP plan for Medicare would turn the 50-year-old program into a money maker for insurance companies and a money loser for retirees. About half of Texans who are age 65 and older have a median annual income of less than $20,000. He says the plan would shift much of the cost to people who can\u2019t afford to pay for it.<\/p>\n

Another concern, according to Jackson, is that the GOP plan would allow insurance companies to cover older Americans at significantly higher rates, something AARP is calling an \u201cage tax.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s going to cost older folks at least $3,000 a year,\u201d he added. \u201cIn Texas, almost 5 million people are 50 to 64 years old. You\u2019re immediately going to raise the health-care costs by about $3,000.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jackson says Medicare has always been a pay-as-you-go plan that Americans fund through payroll deductions, and does not spend any taxpayer money.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s worked since 1965,\u201d continued Jackson. \u201cIf you look at independents, Republicans and Democrats \u2013 anybody in the world \u2013 and you ask about Medicare, you get extremely high positives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jackson says the proposed changes will affect everyone who plans to eventually retire. He says AARP is encouraging everyone 50 or older to let their representatives and senators know about how changes to Medicare would affect them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AUSTIN, Texas \u2013 The Republican majority in Congress is considering major changes to Medicare that could bring financial hardships for many seniors. However, AARP Texas is planning a full-court press to make sure America\u2019s health plan for retirees remains the same and is not replaced by a system that could drain seniors\u2019 pocketbooks. Bob Jackson, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6398"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6402,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6398\/revisions\/6402"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}