Health Care Gift That Just Keeps On Giving
“I’m confident – I’m hopeful that we will have a bill as a Christmas present to the American people.”
– House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
Be careful about what’s in your letter to Santa.
As analyses of proposed health care legislation are made public, it looks more and more like Pelosi’s Christmas present involves someone breaking into your home; stealing your credit cards and using them to buy presents for a bunch of folks you don’t know; and then figuring out ways for you to spend less to make up the loss.
According to a new report by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which administers the two public health care programs, proposed cuts of more than $500 billion from future Medicare spending in the health care bill approved by the House on Nov. 7 could cause hospitals and nursing homes to stop taking Medicare patients. The report also questions whether America’s doctors and hospitals could handle an expected 30 million new patients, many of whom would qualify for Medicaid – the nation’s health plan for poor and disabled people.
Although the report was requested by House Republicans, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services serves the administration and the entire Congress. Its reports can be given similar weight to those by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. And the CBO has also expressed concerns.
The most recent CBO analysis found Medicare spending per beneficiary would have to grow at half the rate it has over the past two decades to meet House savings goals. Not likely, the budget and health policy experts say.
It is true there are some gifts in this package supported by Reps. Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Lujan: The Obama administration has cut deals with the American Medical Association and big drug companies to make sure doctors and Big Pharma are taken care of. Big labor gets a gift because so-called “Cadillac” health plans few of us can afford won’t be taxed; and trial lawyers don’t have to worry about any kind of meaningful tort reform. That provides cover for health care providers who can go on ordering billions of dollars of unnecessary medical tests in the name of defensive medicine. Insurance companies also are guaranteed millions of new customers.
The number of people without health insurance is a serious problem. But there were better ways to correct it than a bill unlikely to lower costs and likely to hurt Medicare recipients and raise the premiums for people who already have insurance.
The Senate this week is expected to consider its own health plan, part of which also would be paid for with hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicare cuts.
So unless you’re on that special interest gift list, this Christmas present is looking a lot more like Aunt Edna’s fruitcake than a diamond bracelet.
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