Our neighbors at Think Progress published a beautiful pie chart this afternoon, breaking down the sources of Medicare savings in President Obama’s recently announced deficit reduction package.
While the plan spreads the pain among all groups, it finds its greatest savings in drug rebates and modernizing provider payments to achieve greater efficiency.
It can be tricky though to figure out exactly where all of the savings are coming from and what impact they may have on Medicare. That’s where TNR’s Jonathan Cohn steps in and dissects the chart in a blog post today, here.
The plan does call for wealthier seniors to pay higher premiums for Part B, which is the portion of Medicare that covers physician services. That means that 25 percent of all Medicare beneficiaries would eventually be paying higher premiums than the rest. That 25 percent would include some seniors who are more middle class than wealthy.
The new Obama plan would also take $3.5 billion away from the Prevention and Public Health Care Fund, which will fund everything from campaigns to promote vaccination to modernization of public health departments.
Expect this breakdown to be talked about a lot more frequently in the coming days, as the details of President Obama’s deficit reduction package continue to roll out.
Courtesy of the Think Progress
