• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Donate Now
  • Sign Up

Center for Medicare Advocacy

Advancing Access to Medicare and Healthcare

  • Eligibility/Enrollment
  • Coverage/Appeals
    • Medicare Costs (2021)
    • Self Help Materials – Toolkits & More
  • Topics
    • Basic Introduction to Medicare
    • COVID-19 and Medicare
    • Medicare Costs (2021)
    • Home Health Care
    • Improvement Standard and Jimmo News
    • Nursing Home / Skilled Nursing Facility Care
    • Outpatient Observation Status
    • Part B
    • Part D / Prescription Drug Benefits
    • Medicare for People Under 65
    • Medicare “Reform”
    • All Other Topics
    • Resources
      • Infographics
  • Publications
    • CMA Alerts
    • Fact Sheets & Issue Briefs
    • Infographics
    • The Medicare Handbook
    • SNF Enforcement Newsletter
    • Elder Justice Newsletter
    • Medicare Facts & Fiction
    • Articles by Topic
  • Litigation
    • Litigation News
    • Cases
    • Litigation Archive
    • Amicus Curiae Activities
  • Newsroom
    • Press Releases
    • Editorials & Letters to the Editor
    • CMA Comments, Responses, and Letters
    • Medicare Facts & Fiction
    • CMA in the News
  • About Us
    • Mission Statement
    • CMA FAQs
    • Personnel & Boards
    • The Center for Medicare Advocacy Founder’s Circle
    • Connecticut Dually Eligible Appeals Project
    • Ossen Medicare Outreach, Education and Advocacy Project
    • National Medicare Advocates Alliance
    • National Voices of Medicare Summit
    • CMA Webinars
    • Products & Services
    • Testimonials
    • Career, Fellowship & Internship Opportunities
    • Contact Us
  • Support Our Work
    • Donate Now
    • Join the Center for Medicare Advocacy Founder’s Circle
    • Take Action
    • Share Your Health Care Story
    • Tell Congress to Protect Our Care
    • Listen to Medicare & Health Care Stories
    • Sign Up

How to Listen to Tonight’s State of the Union Address 

January 30, 2018

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Sometimes policymakers, including presidents, speak in code – they say one thing, but mean something else.

Here are some suggestions for how to listen to, and translate, key statements related to health care that may be in the State of the Union Address. 

For example, if you hear the following phrases, consider the following translations:

1. Add more choice in Medicare

Translation: Add more private plan options, and/or increase favoritism of private Medicare Advantage plans over traditional Medicare.

2. Modernize Medicare

Translation: Privatize Medicare, such as steering more people into private Medicare Advantage plans, or going as far as Speaker Ryan’s VoucherCare proposals – which would change Medicare from a defined benefit program into a set contribution toward the cost of private insurance.

3. Allow more flexibility for states

Translation: Cap spending for and/or block-grant Medicaid. Reduce the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Medicaid expansion and allow states to offer plans that don’t meet ACA coverage standards.  Allow requirements for “community engagement” for Medicaid recipients – meaning add work requirements designed to reduce the number of people who qualify for Medicaid.

4. Most anything about the Affordable Care Act

Translation: Work to sabotage the ACA in any way possible. (Note: The Affordable Care Act isn’t “imploding.” Although the president and Congress did all they could to wreck the program, record numbers signed up in the shortened enrollment period.)

5. Reduce costs, fraud, waste and abuse

Translation: Cut essential programs for people at risk. (Note: The recently passed Tax Bill added $1.5 billion to the federal deficit, setting up policy-makers to insist “we can’t afford” Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, food stamps, and other key programs that families rely on.)

6. Protect religious freedom and people of conscience

Translation: Let providers refuse to provide care (overall health care, abortions), or insist on providing care (end-of-life), and/or refuse care to groups of people they find offensive. This could lead to a form of legalized discrimination and could harm older and disabled people

7. Reduce paper work and burdens on providers

Translation: Roll back patient protections and rescind regulatory and other oversight of patient care and rights.

Let’s hope we don’t hear any of these phrases tonight. But if we do, you’ll know what they really mean.  

Filed Under: Article Tagged With: alert, The Fight, Weekly Alert

Primary Sidebar

Easy Access to Understanding Medicare

The Center for Medicare Advocacy produces a range of informative materials on Medicare-related topics. Check them out:

  • Medicare Basics
  • CMA Alerts
  • CMA Webinars
  • Connecticut Info & Projects
  • Health Care Stories
  • Se habla Español

Sign Up for CMA Alerts

Jimmo v. Sebelius

Medicare covers skilled care to maintain or slow decline as well as to improve.

Improvement Isn’t Required. It’s the law!

Read more.

Medicare: Build Back Better

By prioritizing Medicare beneficiaries and the health systems that serve them, we can avoid drastic national consequences. The Center for Medicare Advocacy proposes a five-part plan that will make Medicare a bulwark against the worsening health and economic challenges facing the American people.

learn more.

Latest Tweets

  • RT @johnahartford: Celebrate 35 Years of Medicare Advocacy and attend the 8th Annual National Voices of Medicare Summit & Sen. Jay Ro… https://t.co/OfBcjmtYo0, 13 hours ago
@CMAorg

Footer

Stay Connected:

  • Contact Us
  • Sitemap
  • Products & Services
  • Copyright/Privacy

© 2021 · Center for Medicare Advocacy