Posts tagged ‘Health Care Reform’
From the White House
Dear Friend,
As the first year of the Obama Administration concludes with the State of the Union, the White House is inviting Americans across the country to connect directly with some of the President’s senior advisors. Through WhiteHouse.gov, these leaders will report to you on their work and answer your questions on where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re heading. Stop by WhiteHouse.gov to read all of the posts, join the chats, and find any updates on times. As the President likes to say, this is the “People’s House,” so we want to open it up and make sure you know what we’re doing to bring the change America needs.
Sincerely,
Valerie Jarrett
Senior Advisor to the President
Further to Senators Who Live in Glass Houses …
As Center for Medicare Advocacy executive director Judith Stein writes in today’s Washington Post, consideration of the current health reform bills calls for some perspective, and some knowledge of very recent history.
Read the letter, here.
Thank you! 60 Senators Bring Us One Step Closer to Health Care Reform
True, the bill that passed the Senate is far from perfect. But, can you imagine what the opposition would be saying if the bill met our standards for true health care reform? As it is, the brave Senators who led this battle have endangered their political careers. This includes Senator Chris Dodd (CT), senior Senator from the Center for Medicare Advocacy’s home state.
So we thank Senator Dodd and everyone who worked to get this good bill passed. Here are some highlight’s from Families USA: Manager’s amendment: Providing more competition and affordable choices for Americans ; Manager’s amendment: Improving quality and controlling costs ; Manager’s amendment: Enhancing affordable choices for small businesses .
Get some rest, all! Another big push to provide health care equity awaits us after we ring in 2010.
Senators Who Live In Glass Houses …
Reporting about health reform agreements among Senators ought to include a look into some recent history, which few know about, acknowledge, or care to remember. Hint: look at the “process” and deals involved in the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003.
Yes, We Still Support Health Care Reform
We’ve decided, we can’t afford to let the perfect interfere with the possibility of good health reform. There are millions of Americans waiting for insurance coverage and an economy waiting for businesses to be relieved of health care’s extraordinary costs. At best the Senate is likely to pass a bill that disappoints but, as of today, we support it.
As economist Paul Krugman says in today’s New York Times, “Pass the Bill, the current health care bill falls a long way short of ideal, but it is better than anything that seemed possible just a few years ago.”
So – today the Center for Medicare Advocacy sent the following letter to Senate health reform leaders:
Dear Senators Reid, Durbin, Dodd, and Baucus:
The Center for Medicare Advocacy, Inc. is a national, non-profit organization that advocates on behalf of older people and people with disabilities to ensure access to health care. We thank you for your efforts to enact health insurance reform.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will provide access to health insurance for millions of Americans, provide subsidies to those with limited incomes and resources, improve access to preventive services, and limit discrimination in the offering of health insurance. Additionally, the bill protects the integrity of the Medicare program by reducing overpayments to Medicare Advantage plans and by promoting delivery system reforms to encourage high quality, coordinated health care. The bill further assists people with limited means by extending eligibility for Medicaid for the under 65 population.
Overall, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will move this country towards the goal of achieving universal access to health care. We are pleased to support this legislation.
Center for Medicare Advocacy, Inc.
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
Private Medicare Plans Are Taking You to the Cleaners. Cut the Subsidies Now! And Don’t Repeat This Windfall in Health Care Reform.
| New Report Highlights Medicare Advantage Insurers’ Higher Administrative Spending | |
| Publications | |
| Wednesday, 09 December 2009 11:51 | |
| Today Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Bart Stupak released a new report which found that 34 Medicare Advantage insurers expend significant sums on profits, marketing, and other corporate expenses. Last year, the insurers spent an average of $1,450 per beneficiary on profits, marketing, and other corporate expenses, nearly ten times as much as traditional Medicare spent on administrative expenses per beneficiary.On average, Medicare Advantage insurers spent over 15% of premium revenue on profits, marketing, and other corporate expenses. Two-thirds of the Medicare Advantage insurers surveyed by the Committee had a “medical loss ratio” – the percentage of premium revenues used to pay medical claims – below 85% during at least one of the four years examined. In contrast, traditional Medicare spends 98% of its money on medical care. If all Medicare Advantage plans had spent at least 85% of their premium dollars on medical care from 2005 to 2008, they would have spent an additional $3 billion on medical care for seniors.”Medicare plays a critically important role in insuring that millions of Americans receive the health care they need,” said Rep. Waxman. “But as this report shows, Medicare Advantage insurers are squandering billions of dollars on overhead costs – in fact, they spend ten times the amount per beneficiary as traditional Medicare. Our health care bill includes much needed reforms to the Medicare Advantage payment system. There is no reason for Medicare to pay private insurers more than traditional Medicare pays in any community in the country. That will insure that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely.””Medicare Advantage was never intended to be a program for insurance companies to pad their corporate expense accounts,” said Rep. Stupak. “Seniors pay Medicare Advantage premiums with the expectation that the money will be used to provide critical medical care – not pay for marketing campaigns and executive bonuses. The disparity between the percentage of premiums used to pay medical claims in traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage is unacceptable; our seniors deserve better. This report is just the latest example of private insurance companies exploiting the Medicare Advantage system for their own gain.”At the request of Chairman Waxman and Subcommittee Chairman Stupak, the majority Committee staff analyzed premium revenues, medical claim payments, marketing costs, profits, and other data from 34 major Medicare Advantage insurers.
The report found:
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Meeting With The First Lady About Health Reform
Like many of you, I am a mother, a wife, a daughter – and now, amazingly, a grandmother. I am also a lawyer and I run this small business, the Center for Medicare Advocacy. The Center is a non-profit organization founded in 1986. We represent older and disabled people with the focused mission to ensure fair access to Medicare and quality health care. So I know something about advocating for health coverage.
Michelle Obama is hosting a meeting about health care reform and women on November 13th. Wonderfully, the Center has been invited to participate. So tomorrow I’m going to Washington to tell my story to the First Lady.
I’m healthy. I tend not to catch the various viruses that run through my office and community. I exercise, eat a largely vegetarian diet, live an engaged life, and get the recommended medical and dental check ups.
So I was taken by surprise when I was diagnosed with Breast Cancer four years ago. I had a mammogram just a few months earlier. But the bottom line is, stuff happens. We’re all human, and human beings get sick, even if they do “all the right things,” and take care of themselves. From a person who rarely saw doctors, I became a full-time patient. Even now, four years later, I am involved with treatments and tests far more than I like.
It is silly to suggest that people over-utilize health care because they have health insurance. Yes, my insurance covered most of my care. But many of these tests and “procedures” are painful and many of the medications have dreadful side-effects. No one would choose this.
On the other hand, a lack of insurance authorization almost led me to skip important care. However, because I knew how to pursue an appeal, I obtained authorization and proceeded with the treatment – a good decision since I almost needed a transfusion even with them.
I continue to be faced with decisions about follow up treatment and insurance coverage obstacles. I have had to urge my doctors to make their best medical decisions and to leave the insurance battles to me. But if I were not a lawyer who has been fighting for proper health insurance for other people for 30 years, I might not be getting the treatments I need.
My story is only different from everyone else’s because I do have insurance and because I am a professional advocate. We all get sick, we all get injured. But we don’t all have insurance, and we aren’t all health care lawyers.
All women, all people, need health care and we all need help paying for it. This is particularly a woman’s issue because we live longer with more chronic conditions than men and because we are often primary caregivers – for our kids, our spouses, and our parents, all of whom get sick.
I’m telling my story because I’m told it may help. Tell yours too. We need quality health coverage – including a public option – for everyone. I know this as a woman, a patient, and an advocate. As the First Lady suggests, we need to make our voices heard now.
Urge Congress to seize this opportunity to provide health care security for everyone. Pass health care reform this year!
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!
Say It Ain’t So, Joe
We hear that Senator Lieberman is prepared to join Republicans to filibuster against health care reform if it includes a public option. We can’t understand our Senator’s position.
The Center for Medicare Advocacy is a Connecticut-based organization with over 30 Connecticut employees. We have worked for decades to advance fair access to health coverage and care for residents of Connecticut. We have seen the painful ramifications when Medicare private plans came and went from Connecticut – leaving tremendous financial and emotional costs in their wake. In one case, a Medicare beneficiary died at a forum about a private Medicare plan that was leaving Connecticut! We were there.
As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said when he announced Monday that the bill he will bring to the Senate floor will include a public option, “I’ve concluded … that the best way to move forward is to include a public option with the opt-out provision for states. .. The public option, with an opt-out, is the one that’s fair.” ( Read more here.)
The public option is necessary to provide fair access to quality health coverage at a price taxpayers can afford. We know that from Medicare. We know that in Connecticut. We urge our Senator to rethink his position.
CMA Health Policy Blog 