Posts filed under 'Medicare'
Extend the Life of Medicare: Pass Health Care Reform Now
If you have Medicare and want to keep it, you should be in favor of health care reform.
On Monday, the non-partisan Medicare Advisory Payment Commission (MedPAC) released its biannual report to Congress, which for the fifth consecutive year advised Congress to equalize reimbursements to Medicare Advantage plans with the traditional Medicare fee-for-service program.
According to non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates, equalizing payments between Medicare Advantage programs and the traditional Medicare programs will generate $170 billion in savings over the next ten years.
MedPAC’s report concluded that the “Commission has consistently supported the concept of financial neutrality between payment rates for the fee-for-service program and private plans.” Under the current reimbursement system, Medicare Advantage plans are reimbursed on average 14 percent more than traditional Medicare plans. These extra costs are born by beneficiaries in the traditional Medicare program and all taxpayers.
The health care reform bills passed by both the House and the Senate, and the proposals by President Obama, would reduce wasteful Medicare Advantage spending – saving money for Medicare beneficiaries and taxpayers alike, and extending the solvency of the Medicare program.
Add comment March 3, 2010
A Note to Republicans about Medicare and Health Care Reform
We at the Center for Medicare Advocacy listened to the concerns you expressed about Medicare at the Health Care Summit on February 25. Unfortunately, your descriptions of what happens to Medicare in the House, Senate, and President’s proposals does not accord with what the proposals actually do.
We want to remind you of some facts about Medicare and the healthcare bills that were passed by the Senate and the House and that are proposed by President Obama.
- None of the proposals cuts Medicare benefits.
- What Medicare covers today will be covered after legislation is enacted.
- Coverage is actually enhanced adding coverage of an annual exam.
- Costs to Medicare beneficiaries are reduced by:
- Eliminating cost-sharing for preventive services,
- Reducing the Part D donut hole,
- Limiting the cost-sharing Medicare Advantage plans may charge.
- Quality of care received by Medicare beneficiaries is improved through:
- The addition of new delivery systems to coordinate care,
- The reduction of unnecessary hospital readmissions.
- Cuts to Medicare Advantage plans reduce waste in the Medicare program by cutting unnecessary overpayments to private insurance companies.
- Medicare Advantage plans are paid, on average 14% more that Medicare would spend if the beneficiary were in the traditional Medicare program.
- Overall, the savings to Medicare extend the life of the Part A Trust fund by 9 years.
Please, when you talk about Medicare to your constituents, get the facts straight and stop scaring Medicare beneficiaries. On the whole, Medicare beneficiaries stand to benefit if health reform as proposed is enacted.
Republicans express concern about cuts to Medicare, but their actions don’t always follow their concerns. Republican Senator Jim Bunning from Kentucky is currently filibustering a bill that would delay the 21% cut in Medicare payments to physicians that is to take effect on Monday, March 1, 2010. If the payment cut is not addressed, many doctors indicate that they will stop accepting new Medicare payments in their practice. Instead of protecting Medicare, Senator Bunning’s actions will reduce access to doctors for the 44 million people who rely on the Medicare program.
Add comment February 26, 2010
Fool Me Once…
Newt Gingrich, staunch supporter of Medicare? That’s why he’s opposed to health care reform? If you read just the opening paragraph of Paul Krugman’s February 12, 2010 Op-Ed article, you might believe this. Well, you might believe it if you haven’t been paying attention to anything Gingrich and his fellow conservatives have been doing for the last couple of decades.
Gingrich himself is the man who enthusiastically declared in 1995, as Republicans pushed for Draconian cuts to the Medicare program, that Medicare would thus “wither on the vine.”
Yet, here we are 15 years later, and Mr. Gingrich is crying, according to Krugman, that “the reform bills passed by the House and Senate cut Medicare by approximately $500 billion. This is wrong.”
No, Mr. Gingrich, what’s wrong is the gall of hypocrites who will grasp any tactic to frighten people and fight the real health care reform our country so desperately needs.
Add comment February 19, 2010
It Takes 2 To Tango: Senator Baucus Tells The Truth About (Not)Bipartisan Health Care Reform
Senate Floor Remarks of Senator Max Baucus December 22, 2009
“Mr. President, it has been more than a month since the Majority Leader moved to proceed to the health care reform bill before us today. At long last, the Senate is now in the final throes of passing this historic legislation.
From the beginning, this Senator has sought out what Abraham Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.” That’s the way that this Senator has always sought to legislate.
A year and a half ago, I convened a bipartisan retreat at the Library of Congress. Half a year ago, I convened three bipartisan roundtables with health care experts. Half a year ago, the Finance Committee conducted three bipartisan walk-throughs of the major concepts behind the bill before us today.
We went the extra mile. I reached out to my good friend, the Ranking Republican Member of the Finance Committee. I reached out to the ranking Republican Member of the Health Committee. We sought to craft a bill that would appeal to the broad middle. We sought to craft a bill that could win the support of Republicans and Democrats alike.
We met, a group of six of us, three Democrats and three Republicans. We met more than 30 times. We met for months. No, we did not reach a formal agreement. The Leadership on the other side of the aisle went to great lengths to stop us from doing so.
But even though we did not reach a formal agreement, we came very close to doing so. The principles that we discussed are very much the principles upon which the Finance Committee built its bill. The principles that we discussed are very much the principles reflected in the bill before us today.
From the debate that the Senate has conducted this past month, you would not know it. During this debate, some on the other side of the aisle have mischaracterized the bill before us. Some on the other side of the aisle have set about a systematic campaign to demonize this bill. Through bare assertion alone, with the thinnest connection to fact, they have sought to vilify our work. If one listened to their assertions alone, one would not recognize the bill before us.
And so, let me, quite simply, state the facts.
Some on the other side of the aisle assert that this bill is a Government takeover of health care. The fact is that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says that this bill would reduce the Government’s fiscal role in health care. Just 3 days ago, CBO wrote, and I quote:“CBO expects that the proposal would generate a reduction in the federal budgetary commitment to health care during the decade following the 10-year budget window.”
Some on the other side of the aisle assert that this bill would add to our Nation’s burden of debt. The fact is that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says that this bill would reduce the deficit by $132 billion in the first 10 years and by between $650 billion and $1.3 trillion in the second 10 years. The fact is that this is the most serious deficit reduction effort in more than a decade.
Some on the other side of the aisle assert that this bill would harm Medicare. The fact is that Medicare’s independent Actuary says that this bill would extend the life of Medicare by 9 years. The fact is that this is the most responsible effort to shore up Medicare in more than a decade.
Some on the other side of the aisle assert that this bill does not do enough to ensure the uninsured. The fact is that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says that this bill would extend access to health care to 31 million Americans who otherwise would have to go without. The fact is that CBO says, and I quote: “the share of legal nonelderly residents with insurance coverage would rise from about 83 percent currently to about 94 percent.”
Nothing that Senators on the other side of the aisle have proposed would come close. CBO estimated that the Republican substitute offered in the House of Representatives would have extended coverage to just 3 million people. The fact is that CBO says of that plan, and I quote: “The share of legal nonelderly residents with insurance coverage in 2019 would be about 83 percent, roughly in line with the current share.”
I would cite the facts about the Republican substitute in the Senate. But the fact is that there is no Republican substitute.
Some on the other side of the aisle assert that they simply prefer a more modest reform of health care. The fact is that the Republicans controlled the Senate from 1995 to 2001 and from 2003 to 2006. The fact is that before they took control, in 1994, 36 million Americans, 15.8 percent of non-elderly Americans were without health insurance coverage. In the last year of their control, in 2006, nearly 47 million Americans, 17.8 percent of non-elderly Americans were without health insurance coverage. The legacy of Republican control was 10 million more Americans uninsured.
Some on the other side of the aisle say that we are moving too fast. The fact is that it was 1912 when former President Theodore Roosevelt first made national health insurance part of the Progressive Party’s campaign platform. The fact is that people of good will have been working at this for nearly a century.
The fact is, health care reform for America is now within reach. The fact is, the most serious effort to control health care costs is now within reach. The fact is, life-saving health care coverage for 31 million Americans is now within reach.
Let us, at long last, grasp that result. Let us, this time, not let this good thing slip through our hands. And let us, at long last, enact health care reform for all.”
Add comment December 22, 2009
The Connecticut-Based, Center for Medicare Advocacy, Joins the Washington Post in Applauding our Senior Senator, Chris Dodd, and Apologizes for the Actions of Joe Lieberman, our Junior Senator, to Bar Real Health Reform.
The essay below is from the 12/15/2009 Washington Post:
The heroes of health-care reform
Right on the heels of Joe Lieberman trying to kill the bill because it had a Medicare buy-in proposal, Howard Dean is exhorting Democrats to kill the bill because it doesn’t have a Medicare buy-in proposal. Sigh.
So let this serve as an encomium to Ron Wyden, Tom Harkin, Chuck Schumer, Sherrod Brown, Chris Dodd and Jay Rockefeller, among many others. All of these senators could have been the 60th vote. All of them had issues they believe in and worked for. Chris Dodd built and passed a bill. Sherrod Brown whipped up liberal support for the public option. Chuck Schumer spent countless hours devising compromises and searching for new paths forward. Ron Wyden spent years crafting the Healthy Americans Act, getting a CBO score, pulling together co-sponsors, speaking to activists and industry groups and other legislators. Jay Rockefeller has spent decades on this issue and wasn’t even invited into the Gang of Six process.
But you know what? They’re all still there. Because in the end, this isn’t about them, and though their states and their pet issues might benefit if they tried to make it about them, the process, and thus the result, would be endangered. I’ve said before that the remarkable thing isn’t that Joe Lieberman acts the way he does but that so few join him. The legislative process is given a bad name by the showboats and grandstanders, but the only reason it functions at all is because the vast majority of the participants keep their role in perspective.
If this bill passes, it will not be because Lieberman was pacified. It will be because senators such as Rockefeller, Wyden, Schumer, Harkin, Brown and Dodd swallowed their pride and their passion and allowed him to be pacified. They are the heroes here, and beneath it all, their quiet determination made them the key players.
Photo credit: By Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press
Add comment December 16, 2009
ANSWER to Pop Quiz! Who Said This? About What?
As a spokesman for the AMA, Ronald Reagan said this about the dangers of passing Medicare: “… behind it will come other federal programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country. Until one day, as Norman Thomas said, we will awake to find that we have socialism. And if you don’t do this and if I don’t do it, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free.”
Ronald Reagan, our beloved Republican president, said this as a spokesman against Medicare. Now Republicans laud Medicare, say they are its champion, but say that health care reform must not pass as it will lead to socialism and the demise of Medicare. There is little new under the sun!
Tell your senators to vote for health care reform – with a public option. Like Medicare it is desperately needed and, if passed, it too will become a beloved institution.
Someone, someday, will thank you for fighting for it and will praise your senators’ votes.
Add comment November 30, 2009
Connecticut’s Senators, Health Care Reform, and Lessons From Medicare
The Center for Medicare Advocacy is incorporated and headquartered in Connecticut. People from this state can be proud of the courage our senior senator, Chris Dodd, has shown in leading health care reform. As a leader of the Senate’s efforts, Senator Dodd is once again speaking and fighting for real reform, to include a public option. We urge our other Senator, Joe Lieberman, to review the true costs and principles involved in this historic opportunity to insure all Americans, and to vote along with Senator Dodd for real health care reform.
The Center has been representing people with Medicare since 1986. We know what we’re talking about when we talk about the benefits and costs of public health insurance.
Medicare is public health insurance. It brought basic health coverage to older people in 1965, when 50% of people over 65 had NO insurance because the private market didn’t want to insure them. All the arguments being made now against health care reform and a “public option,” were also made against Medicare before it passed. Medicare was hardly bi-partisan legislation; it barely passed.
Now most everyone appreciates Medicare and the health and economic security it brings to older people and their families. We can only hope Congress, and both of our Connecticut senators, will vote courageously again, as those before them did to enact Medicare. This time we call upon Congress to bring health and economic security to younger Americans by voting for health reform – with a public option.
Add comment November 20, 2009
Private Medicare Costs Too Much – THAT’S Why The Payments Should Be Cut
If Republicans and “conservative” Democrats really want to save money, help taxpayers, and serve Medicare beneficiaries, they will cut the wasteful subsidies to private Medicare plans. Private Medicare plans cost taxpayers about 14% more than would be needed to cover the same services in the traditional, public Medicare program. Private plans should be paid the same rate as original Medicare; we simply can’t afford otherwise. The subsidies to private “Medicare Advantage” plans cost taxpayers about $10 billion a year!
6 comments November 18, 2009
Congratulations America: Healthcare Reform is Moving Forward
The Center for Medicare Advocacy is grateful to those who courageously voted for the Affordable Health Care for America Act, H.R. 3962. This legislation goes a long way towards ensuring for all Americans the peace of mind that was brought to older people and their families with the passage of Medicare in 1965.
Medicare itself is based on the notion of a shared a public/private undertaking and of pooling resources for the common good. In Medicare’s case, the common good is that of older people, people with disabilities and their families. The Affordable Health Care for America Act advances the common good to all Americans by expanding access to health care to America’s uninsured and by implementing private market insurance reforms.
Among other things, the legislation passed by the House of Representatives will:
- Provide affordable health insurance options for those currently without coverage;
- Provide a Public Insurance option to provide competition with private insurance and keep costs down for individuals and taxpayers;
- Prevent insurance companies from denying coverage to those with pre-existing conditions;
- Prevent insurance companies from dropping the coverage of those who get sick;
- Prohibit insurance companies from having life-time limits on benefits;
- Ensure that insurance companies offer real value for premiums paid;
- Strengthen Medicare for the more than 44 million older people and people with disabilities who currently use the program and for future generations of beneficiaries;
- Improve Medicare’s payment to doctors and thus ensure that Medicare beneficiaries can continue, as they do now, to see the doctor of their choice or find a doctor if they need one;
- Require Medicare, as well as private insurance, to provide preventive benefits without application of cost-sharing;
- Promote care coordination in Medicare – especially for those with multiple chronic conditions – through various pilot projects;
- Improve access to Medicare-covered services for low-income beneficiaries by strengthening the programs that serve these individuals;
- Lower drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries by closing the Medicare Part D “Donut Hole” coverage gap
- Lower drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries by allowing the government to negotiate for lower drug prices with pharmaceutical companies;
- Provide benefits to help older people and people with disabilities live in their own homes and communities by establishing the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) program.
The Center for Medicare Advocacy applauds President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and all members of the House of Representatives who have worked so hard to bring this legislation to life. We urge the Senate to follow suit soon!
Add comment November 9, 2009
Kaiser Family Foundation Ad Audit: Message Sacrifices Truth About Health Bills And Medicare
AD TITLE: “Greatest Generation“
SPONSOR: The 60 Plus Association
SUMMARY: A conservative advocacy group uses testimony from sympathetic older Americans to warn that a health care overhaul would impair Medicare, the government health care program for the elderly. The ad says older Americans should be shielded from spending cuts because of their great sacrifices for the country. But it’s truth that’s sacrificed here: the ad exaggerates the impact of proposed Medicare cuts and ignores some improvements in Medicare benefits included in the main Democratic bills before Congress.
BACKGROUND: The 60 Plus Association, a nonprofit advocacy group that bills itself as a conservative counterweight to AARP, favors lower taxes and less government. The group says it is has purchased $2 million in airtime in eight states that are homes to key senators: Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Louisiana, Maine, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. The ads come in 30-second and 60-second versions.
POLITICS: The ad is part of a broader effort to increase concerns among older Americans about pending health care legislation. The insurance industry’s main lobbying group, America’s Health Insurance Plans, made a similar argument in ads last month. Both AHIP and 60 Plus are upset about proposals to create government-run insurance that would compete with private companies in selling coverage to people under age 65. Since many surveys show substantial support for the public option, however, the opponents are focusing on something else: The bills’ potential impact on the popular Medicare program.
ACCURACY: The health bills would reduce Medicare spending, but it’s highly unlikely medical care for the elderly would suffer, many health analysts say. “This ad is clearly intended to frighten people with a great deal of misinformation,” says Judith Stein, executive director of the Center for Medicare Advocacy, a Connecticut-based nonprofit that helps people secure Medicare benefits.
Under the Senate Finance Committee bill, Medicare spending, on net, would be $379 billion less over a decade, or about 5 percent of program expenditures, than under current law. In both that bill and the House proposal, a big chunk of the cuts would involve Medicare Advantage plans that are run by private insurers and often provide additional benefits beyond what traditional fee-for-service Medicare offers. The Finance bill targets Medicare Advantage for $117 billion in cutbacks over a decade; the House bill, $170 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Congress is eyeing Medicare Advantage plans largely because they spend an average of about 14 percent more on their members than traditional Medicare spends on its beneficiaries. If the cuts are enacted, the number of Medicare Advantage plans might decline. In addition, those that survive might pare back some of the extra benefits they offer, such as low or zero monthly premiums, dental care and free gym memberships. But no one would be denied basic Medicare benefits.
On the other hand, not all the proposed reductions would be painless – especially for the providers who would bear the brunt of other Medicare cuts. Overall, though, the cuts would be substantially less than the reductions approved by Congress in 1997 to balance the federal budget deficit, according to Tricia Neuman, a Medicare expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation. (KHN is a part of the foundation.) Congress ended up restoring some of that money a few years later. Lawmakers were worried some of the reductions, including those for skilled nursing facilities, were too severe. “It’s hard to anticipate changes in the health care system,” Neuman says. “Ongoing tweaks may be necessary.”
The ad’s warning about the rationing of ”potentially life-saving drugs” lacks support. The 60 Plus Association tries to back up this claim by citing a few news stories about patients in England and Canada denied drugs by government insurers. But far from restricting access to drugs, “ironically, there are enhancements to the Medicare drug benefits” in the health overhaul bills, says Paul Ginsburg, president of the Center for Studying Health System Change, a Washington research group.
The bills being debated would eliminate co-payments for preventive services. In addition, the House bill would provide a 50 percent discount on brand-name drugs purchased when beneficiaries hit the coverage gap known as the “doughnut hole,” and it would gradually eliminate the gap. The Senate Finance bill would not close the doughnut hole, but it would provide the discount, which was negotiated with the Obama administration and the pharmaceutical lobby earlier this year. The House bill also would require Medicare to cover immunosuppressive drugs for as long as kidney transplant recipients need them, rather than for the current 36 months.
Overall the ad’s argument is built on a logical inconsistency: It raises the specter of “government-run health care” to increase concerns among both young and old. But at the same time it extols Medicare – which is government-run health care for people 65 and older.
Source: Kaiser Health News, Jordan Rau, KHN Staff Writer
Add comment November 5, 2009
