medicare

Cross posted from The Progressive Pulse

Congress will resume debate today over the bill to prevent a 10.6% pay cut to doctors who provide care to Medicare patients. Details here. The pay cut took effect last week, July 1, but processing of claims has been delayed for two weeks in hopes of a solution. Military families, who receive coverage under the federal program Tricare, are similarly threatened.

(cross-posted from The Progessive Pulse)

Question: If you are conservative, what do you call your government's future obligations?

Answer: Unfunded Liabilities.


Frontpaged by A.

But, if you would rather READ the thousand words.

Cross posted from The Progressive Pulse.
Ever since the ascendancy of conservatism and the election of Ronald Reagan we have been told that government is the problem and the free-market is the solution. If nothing else, the Bush Administration has turned that paradigm on it’s head. Bush campaigned for small government, but what he delivered was bad governance. I suppose it was inevitable that if you hold the idea of governing in contempt, you will govern poorly.

This “government bad, free-market good” mindset must change if we are to make any progress regarding the woeful state of healthcare. Two stories in the news last week perfectly illustrated the perils inherent in our free-market healthcare system.

In March of 2006, Continental Tire of North America carried through its plans to slash its payments for health care benefits for its retirees. For months, the company had been threatening to impose a $3,000 cap on payments for retiree health care. With the annual cost of family health care coverage costing retirees as much as $15,000, the implementation of this cap could be financially devastating.

Buried in everything else going on today was the GOP blocking of a senate bill allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. The Bushco plan passed a few years ago was sold using deceitful cost estimates and also contained a specific prohibition against the negotiation of drug prices. Today's cloture vote was 55-42, falling short of the 60 votes needed to bring it to the floor.

I have written several times on Healthcare, or more specifically Medicare and Medicaid, so my views are pretty well known by any who read my blog. I am opposed to Universal Healthcare. I am also vehemently opposed to the universal healthcare we now have for anyone 65 years old or older which we know as Medicare.

A need for government involvement in insuring medical care for the poor was seen to be necessary in the early 1960’s and so in 1965 Congress *“enacted as Title XVIII and Title XIX of the Social Security Act, extending health coverage to almost all Americans age 65 or over (e.g., those receiving retirement benefits from Social Security or the Railroad Retirement Board), and providing health care services to low-income children deprived of parental support, their caretaker relatives, the elderly, the blind, and individuals with disabilities."

I have a dear friend in Fuquay-Varina. She is the youngest child and six years ago brought her aging but still very active parents up from Florida to live with her. In those six years her parents (75 & 80) have had medical emergencies and issues like anyone who's reached such an admirable age would have. Along with those medical challenges has come frustration upon frustration with a system that seems to be getting more and more difficult for her folks to navigate, year on year.

My friend is like I used to be. For her, fun is sitting around on the weekend anywhere -- fishing, watching football, reading the paper -- and bitching about politics. But voting is as far as the need to do anything ever went for her. She's never written her Congressman or gone to a Democratic meeting or joined a political group or donated money to a campaign. (Full disclosure: I got her to come to the John Edwards homecoming in CH.) She is, however, very sincere about her voting, does her research and votes whenever they give her the chance. She and her folks really like their Congressman -- couldn't be happier with him. Still, a big boil-over for her and for so many truly average, solidly middle of the road Americans like her and her parents and her sisters is in process as I write. They are tired of hearing talk. They're ready for action. They will cheer when they finally get it. Loudly.

Ahhh, now we see what the reason for all those exorbitant profits were really for -- bad weather.

“Business Mobilizes to Defend Turf; Firms Plot Campaigns to Counter Effects of Democrats' Agenda,” by John D. McKinnon and John J. Fialka, Wall Street Journal. 1/4/07.

The industries that expect to take the biggest hits from the new Democratic Congress are scrambling their marketing, public-relations and advertising forces to shore up their defenses.

Eager to demonstrate a sharp contrast with Republicans who dominated Capitol Hill for 12 years, new Democratic leaders are vowing to raise the federal minimum wage; reduce oil-company subsidies; give the government bargaining authority in purchasing Medicare prescription drugs; shrink student-loan fees; and impose mandatory controls on emissions of carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.