Mitt Romney’s campaign moved to dismiss the relevance of a new Kaiser Family Foundation study on Monday that found most seniors would pay higher costs under a Medicare voucher system modeled on the Romney-Ryan reforms.
“As the authors stress, this is not a study of the Romney-Ryan plan,” spokeswoman Andrea Saul told TPM. “Our plan would always provide future beneficiaries guaranteed coverage options with no increase in out-of-pocket costs from today’s Medicare.”
Although the study sought to explore the implications of much of what the Romney-Ryan plan specifies, Saul pointed to a section of the Kaiser report that decreed it an imperfect reflection:
This study should not, however, be interpreted as an analysis of any particular proposal, including the Romney-Ryan proposal, because such an analysis would require additional, more detailed policy specifications than are currently available, and would also require assumptions about future shifts in demographics, spending, and enrollment, nationally and by local markets, which would occur regardless of policy changes. Additionally, this analysis assumes full implementation of a premium support system in 2010, whereas other proposals would gradually phase-in a premium support system over time, and apply the premium support system to new enrollees rather than all beneficiaries (e.g., current seniors).
