The truth is, Medicare isn't broken, our healthcare system nationwide is. Medicare suffers from the same problems impacting our entire system, not just seniors in Medicare. Rapidly rising health care costs are eroding family resources, undermining our ability to compete in the global economy and creating fiscal burdens that crowd out other important investments of social capital. That's not a Medicare problem, that's a healthcare problem.
Yet, many Republicans in Congress, including Sen. Barrasso want to repeal the only attempt to reform our system in a generation in favor of "reforms" that shift the burden to seniors rather than address the real issues of cost-containment. Rep. Barrasso also incorrectly claims 57% of doctors don't want Medicare patients. Try 17%. The reason some doctors restrict their Medicare patients is because they're threatened each year with double-digit reimbursement cuts thanks to a flawed formulacreated by the GOP Congress in 2002. The AMA has asked Congress to permanently fix that formula. Those efforts were defeated by GOP members of Congress during the healthcare reform debate.Improving Practitioner Reimbursement Under Medicare, NCPSSM