to so many millions and millions of seniors who are watching us right now. and they re they re wondering i don t know if we have a good answer as much as fraud and abuse there might be in terms of how much money is being wasted in medicare, if you re going to take $500 billion in and reduce that in the projected growth of medicare over the next ten years, won t that affect seniors? logically speaking, are you taking half a trillion dollars away from medicare, that s going to have an impact. i was gone on the white house.gov website. because an excellent fact sheet on how this impacts people who are currently on medicare. the bottom line is the system as it currently exists is broken. what the white house and the congress and cbo scored basically shows that this bill will not only reduce the fraud and inefficiencies in the system, will streamline the process so that long term, we have a strong adequate health care system that will provide
Detailed text transcripts for TV channel - CNN - 20100322:01:02:00
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say it in the bill remember early on, we had all of the graphics and you show, you know, a patient in medicare and mcallen, texas and so much in the costs are so much higher than a patient that goes to the cleveland clinic here or out in colorado and there was talk of wellness and preventive care and trying to bring it not equal but bring the coverage in line. did that go by the wayside? i don t know if they broke it down by states like that. they invested more in the things that will cut down on medicare costs across the board. but you re right, for the same outcome, better outcomes in hawaii, for example, $5,000 per medicare patient as opposed to $16,000 per medicare patient in florida. that s disparities. part of that is demographics. the patients are going to be sicker or not take as good care of themselves in certain places. that s significant. you looked to this because medicare is critically important
seniors with the coverage they need. it also in the short run in the short term, will close the so-called doughnut hole, this you know, when seniors go out there and buy their prescription medicine? right now they if they reach a certain point, they don t have a they don t have the money to cover it. it will give them an immediate $250 to cover their prescription medicine. and to john s point about the so-called physician s reimbursement, the $200 million correction that s needed, what speaker pelosi and others have said is, yes, we ve got to address this. we don t want the doctors to stop treating medicare and medicaid patients is they found a way to pay for it. everything that we proposed, it s paid for. i want david gergen to weigh in on this as well. the plan calls for cutting $500 billion in the projected rate of growth in medicare in the next ten years? what s going to be the practical impact of that on seniors.