The recently passed 2012 budget resolution passed by the House Majority raises costs on seniors under Medicare and proceeds to give millionaires another trillion dollar tax cut. Details are below:

• The Republican budget ends the Medicare guarantee and replaces it with a voucher system where seniors go out into the private market to buy their own health insurance.
• The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office states that, under the GOP plan, seniors “would bear a much larger share of their health care costs than they would under the traditional program.”
• According to CBO, the GOP plan would more than double the typical senior’s out-of-pocket health care spending in 2022, compared to what their costs would be under traditional Medicare – increasing their out-of-pocket costs by more than $6,000.  In addition, according to CBO, by 2030, the GOP plan would nearly triple the typical senior’s out-of-pocket spending.
• Under the GOP plan, everyone currently under age 55 would not receive Medicare but would be enrolled in the GOP voucher system.
• Seniors’ health costs would skyrocket for two reasons under the GOP plan:  a private health insurance plan covering the standardized benefit would be more expensive than traditional Medicare; and 2) as CBO points out, “the government’s contribution would grow more slowly than health care costs, leaving more for beneficiaries to pay.”
• Seniors would face much more uncertainty under the GOP plan; private insurers would have flexibility -- to limit benefits, change co-payment arrangements, change which doctors are in their network, and manage utilization – that does not exist in traditional Medicare. 
• Under the GOP plan, the Medicare payroll taxes a senior paid throughout their working life would go to a private insurance company, rather than to a guaranteed benefit.
• The GOP plan also raises prescription drug costs for millions of seniors – getting rid of health reform’s provisions providing a 50% discount for brand-name drugs for seniors in in the ‘donut hole’ and completely closing the ‘donut hole’ by 2020. 
• In addition, the GOP plan also raises costs for seniors by getting rid of the new free preventive care benefit under Medicare, which went into effect on January 1^st.
• Finally, the GOP plan phases in an increase in the age at which seniors are eligible for the new voucher program that replaces Medicare from 65 to 67, beginning in 2022.