Report -- more than 100,000 local seniors would be hurt by Paul Ryan plan

In case you missed it …

A new district-by-district analysis of the Ryan Medicare plan released last week by Congressman Sander Levin came up with a laundry list of extra costs that would hit seniors if Mitt Romney is elected and the plan put forward by his running mate, Congressman Paul Ryan, is put into effect.
The district-by-district reports were created by the Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and followed up on the Kaiser Family Foundation report released earlier this month. The nonprofit found that, on a nationwide basis the proposal would have raised costs for about 60 percent of had it been in effect in 2010. Levin said the findings illustrate that no one – not even current seniors – are held harmless by the Ryan Medicare plan.
“Nearly a fifth of Michiganders rely on Medicare for their health care and I will fight at every turn the Republican effort to turn it into a voucher program,” said Levin, a Royal Oak Democrat who represents most of Macomb County. “The ill effects of the plan are plain to see: higher costs for health care and, ultimately, a death spiral for traditional Medicare.”
The full analysis is available here. According to Levin, here’s how his 12^th District, which also includes southeast Oakland County, would be affected by the Ryan plan:

*  Increase prescription drug costs for 6,900 Medicare beneficiaries in the district who enter the Part D donut hole, forcing them to pay an extra $63 million for drugs over the next decade.

*  Eliminate new preventive care benefits for 113,000 seniors on Medicare.

*  Force 113,000 beneficiaries who choose the option of staying in the traditional Medicare plan, rather than the voucher alternative, to pay thousands of dollars more in premiums.

*   Reduce coverage for 14,700 low-income beneficiaries who rely on Medicaid to supplement their Medicare coverage, potentially denying them over $510 million in health benefits.

*   Jeopardize nursing home care for 1,900 district residents whose expenses are paid by Medicaid.

The Democratic report also delved into social programs that seniors rely upon which Ryan hopes to cut, asserting that the Wisconsin Republican’s agenda would: raise food costs for 13,500 district households with seniors who rely on food stamps by as much as $1,100 per year; eliminate food assistance for many of these households entirely; threaten subsidized housing programs that provide rental support for 3,200 district seniors; and place 99,000 district seniors at increased risk of fraud, scams, and elder abuse by cutting as much as $6 billion in funding for federal consumer protection and law enforcement.