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Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Health Care Reform Articles - August 23, 2012

Turning Medicare into vouchers won't work

By THEODORE R. MARMOR


Before Medicare began in 1965, many American senior citizens — and their children — struggled to pay for their doctor bills. Ever since, Medicare's been an American success story.
Why, then, do so many Beltway pundits and members of Congress — including Mitt Romney's new running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. — go after it?
Some of its critics claim that slashing Medicare is the only way to control the deficit. Like most attacks on Medicare, this one is based on ideology, not evidence. Medicare's critics often claim that rising federal health care spending is America's biggest fiscal challenge. In fact, the federal deficit is bloated today primarily due to the Bush administration's irresponsible tax cuts, economic mismanagement, costly wars and increased defense spending.
Of course large numbers of retiring boomers mean Medicare will need more revenue. But Medicare costs won't need to spiral out of control. The new Affordable Care Act includes steps to limit per-person health care price hikes. It's already saving Medicare money. Yet Romney and Ryan promise they would work to repeal it.
What's their alternative? The Ryan Budget Plan calls for extremely deep cuts to Medicare, while promising more and longer-lasting tax cuts for a few very wealthy Americans. Most House Republicans have already voted for that. It would end Medicare as we know it, and instead force seniors to buy private insurance with vouchers that would cover less of their healthcare costs each year.
These vouchers would reduce seniors' choices, not their costs. Why? Republican voucher plans assume that if government ends Medicare, private insurance companies will start to deliver cheaper, more efficient plans. But what's their evidence?
http://www2.tbo.com/member-center/share-this/print/?content=ar467518


In Poll, Obama Is Given Trust Over Medicare




The Romney-Ryan proposal to reshape Medicare by giving future beneficiaries fixed amounts of money to buy health coverage is deeply unpopular in Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin, according to new polls that found that more likely voters in each state trust President Obama to handle Medicare.
The Medicare debate was catapulted to the forefront of the presidential campaign this month when Mitt Romney announced that his running mate would be Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, who is perhaps best known for proposing a budget plan, supported by Mr. Romney, to overhaul Medicare to rein in its costs.
After more than a week of frenzied campaigning on the issue, Medicare ranks as the third-most crucial issue to likely voters in Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin — behind the economy and health care, according to new Quinnipiac University/New York Times/CBS News polls of the three swing states. The Republican proposal to retool the program a decade from now is widely disliked.
Roughly 6 in 10 likely voters in each state want Medicare to continue providing health insurance to older Americans the way it does today; fewer than a third of those polled said Medicare should be changed in the future to a system in which the government gives the elderly fixed amounts of money to buy health insurance or Medicare insurance, as Mr. Romney has proposed. And Medicare is widely seen as a good value: about three-quarters of the likely voters in each state said the benefits of Medicare are worth the cost to taxpayers.
“On Medicare, I don’t like the Paul Ryan plan,” said Beverly McLaren, 72, an independent from St. Petersburg, Fla., who said in a follow-up interview that Medicare worked well for her and that she planned to vote to re-elect Mr. Obama. “I can’t see how it will help at all, and we’ll have more out-of-pocket expenses, and I’m not really clear how it will work.”

The politics of health care

Posted Aug. 22, 2012, at 6:47 p.m.
To write about health care and politics is to write about the sacred and the profane.
Our word “health” has the same etymological root as our words “whole” and “holy.” It reflects ancient awareness that we are designed and guided by forces — sacred forces — that, although beyond human comprehension, we know to be greater than ourselves and to be good. “Health” has “the Sacred” at its very root.
“Politics,” on the other hand, refers to activities related to governance. Our present political realities foster the greatest disparity of wealth between rich and poor that our country has ever known. One in five Mainers do not seek medical care because they cannot afford it. Many have health insurance but, with high monthly payments and high deductibles, they see doctors only in emergencies. At the same time Maine is hemorrhaging health care dollars to out-of-state insurance profiteers. In 2002, between 38 cents and 50 cents of every dollar spent on health insurance left Maine, never to return. It’s only gotten worse. Working people pay for everybody’s health care. That’s the reality. In a single-payer health insurance system those monies would go into a single “pot” directly paying all healthcare costs: minimal overhead, no insurance company profiteers, direct purchase of medications for the cheapest negotiated price. Our Veterans receive health care through a single-payer system. Minus the prescription-drug nonsense, Medicare, too, is a single-payer system.
In 2001, Maine was the first state to be standing within a hair’s breadth of legislatively passing a single-payer health insurance system. By a vote of 76-54, “single-payer” passed with strong bipartisan support in the House. With the Senate set to vote in favor along party lines (18-16) then-Gov. Angus King vowed to veto the bill. The final senate vote of 15-17 precluded the governor’s veto but in no way changed the fact of his position.

Romney/Ryan would nuke $4.1 billion (and counting) in Medicare prescription drug savings





For patients or for profits?

By Helen Redmond
Socialist Worker, Aug. 22, 2012
Helen Redmond reports on a series of scandals hitting for-profit health care giant HCA--and looks at how the quality of care patients receive has suffered, with sometimes deadly results.
In the last 20 years, as the health care crisis has accelerated and the number of uninsured has soared to over 50 million, publicly funded, not-for-profit hospitals have been transformed into ruthless, investor-owned, profit-generating businesses. Corporations have bought up not only hospitals, but dialysis clinics, outpatient surgical centers, home care agencies and physician practices with the singular goal of making money.
Hospitals are the nexus of profit-making for medical equipment and supply companies, the pharmaceutical industry, medical device makers, doctors who charge exorbitant fees and, increasingly, private investors. The health care sector has grown exponentially and now comprises one-sixth of the national economy.
No single company has been more successful in the hijacking of health care resources to Wall Street than the Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), which is currently facing a series of scandals. The industry giant's insatiable greed for profits has resulted in numerous, ongoing federal and state investigations and hefty fines.
Over the years, nurses and doctors at HCA facilities have consistently blown the whistle on unethical medical practices that have maimed and killed patients.
http://www.pnhp.org/print/news/2012/august/for-patients-or-for-profits




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