As the baby boomer generation ages, the financial pressure on Medicare increases. While Democrats and Republicans agree that a solution is necessary, the parties and their presidential candidates, President Barack Obama and former Governor Mitt Romney, provide very different solutions.
Both campaigns released new ads on Thursday, touting their respective approaches to fixing the assistance program.
The Romney campaign used Sen. Marco Rubio in its piece, titled “Least We Can Do,” promoting the Romney-Ryan plan fix. “Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan get it,” the senator says in the ad. “Medicare’s going broke. That’s not politics, it’s math.”
The Obama campaign released “Preserving,” aimed at swing states like Florida and Colorado. The ad goes after the Romney-Ryan plan, and distinguishes itself from the voucher-private insurer plan of Republicans, describing the president’s approach as “A difference that matters.”
President Obama aims to tackle the Medicare problem by reducing payments to private insurance providers, financially rewarding hospitals that have better outcomes—especially lower rates of readmission—and by increasing health care fraud prosecutions by 75 percent.
Health care fraud has cost taxpayers billions. In May, the federal government’s Medicare Fraud Strike Force charged 107 people for bilking taxpayers out of $452 million in fraudulent billings.
According to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Justice Department has recovered $4 billion of taxpayer money stolen via Medicare fraud.
Romney proposes to add more variety and choice and make Medicare optional, offering premium support in the form of vouchers to pay for either private insurance or Medicare. The Republican platform is depending on free markets and competition for vouchers to keep health care costs in line.
“With insurers competing against each other to provide the best value to customers, efficiency and quality will improve and costs will decline,” states a description on MittRomney.com. “Seniors will be allowed to keep the savings from less expensive options or choose to pay more for costlier plans.”
