Medicare's Future - 2012 Election Results

Now that President Obama has been given a second chance and another 4 years in the white house we will take a look at how the Affordable Care Act will affect Medicare's future. Before we get started it was noted in the New York Times, the Washington Post and several other main newspaper sources that Obama Care is here to stay and the 2012 election was the final straw to see if the healthcare law could be shut down. We agree with this factor and believe that there are no other huge hurdles for the Obama administration.

Most people in their fifties 50 or older are wanting to know how is the new healthcare law going to affect Medicare. Truth be told prior to today we did not want to write about Medicare's future because of the possibilities Romney would get elected and strike down the healthcare law. However, now that it is moving forward with more steam here is what you can expect with the new healthcare law.

• The annual free wellness exam will continue to be free as well as the welcome to Medicare physical.
• Affordable Care Act (ACA) took away some of the deductibles, co-pays that were required with other preventative services.
• The ACA allows the donut hole closing of Medicare Part D to continue
• There is 132 billion in cuts to Medicare Advantage Plans which are private insurance plans that a lot of seniors choose to enroll in because of additional benefits over Original Medicare.
• A total of $716 billion in cuts according to different reports released. These would be cuts to Medicare's Future expenses is what the Obama administration claims.
• The Medicaid disagreement between both parties is understandable. There is another blog article dealing with Medicaid's funding by the Federal Government and the states role which is much more detailed. Just know the Feds are picking up the huge tab for 4 years, after that the states don't know what is happening which makes states very hesitant to jump in.

Medicare's future in our humble opinion has some tough roads ahead. There are too many expenses and they are only getting bigger with over 1 trillion dollars required per year to fund the program in 2022, with still 10,000 new people coming on to Medicare each day. We have approximately 20-25 billion in fraud each year as well through this program that the tax payers have to pick up.

Medicare may still be around in 10 years; however, we will be paying an arm and a leg for it if nothing has changed and the gridlock continues in congress.