With the Presidential election one week away, it’s worth reviewing how Obamacare will impact the residents of key swing states. A new survey of physicians has found that 30 percent of doctors in Florida intend to place new or additional limits on accepting Medicare patients, with 27 percent altogether refusing to accept new Medicare patients, because of Obamacare’s impact on the fees that Medicare pays to providers of health-care services. In addition, Obamacare will deeply cut Medicare Advantage for 1.2 million Florida seniors who are enrolled in the program, and drive up the cost of private health coverage, especially for those who buy insurance on their own. Read on for more details.
Obamacare to cut Medicare by $12,584 per Florida retiree
Obamacare cuts Medicare by $716 billion between 2013 and 2022 in order to pay for part of the law’s $1.9 trillion in new health-care spending for younger people over the same time frame. My co-blogger Robert Book and Michael Ramlet have published a paper for the University of Minnesota showing that Florida’s share of those Medicare cuts is $44.4 billion. This year, Florida has 3,527,830 Medicare enrollees, which means that these cuts amount to $12,584 for every senior in the state.
Robert Book published another paper, this time with former White House budget official James Capretta, detailing Obamacare’s cuts to Medicare Advantage on a state-by-state basis. Robert and Jim found that, in 2017, Obamacare will cut $3,203 in Medicare Advantage services for every Floridian enrolled in the program: a 21 percent cut. 34 percent of Florida’s seniors—1,198,943—are enrolled in Medicare Advantage.
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