Instead of Solutions, Health Reform Opponents Offer FearWhat campfires are to spooky ghost stories, Congressional Republicans have become to frightening, fabricated urban legends about health care reform. Death panels! Rationing! Medicare cuts! It's like Halloween in December. "Don't cut Grandma's Medicare," Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., implored the other day. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., fumed about "Draconian" Medicare cuts in the Senate health care reform bill — though he proposed even bigger ones while running for president last year. And then there's the Stephen King of elderscare: Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. Health care reform, a hysterical Dr. Coburn recently warned elderly Medicare recipients, means "you're going to die sooner." Does it? Is health care reform premised on inter-generational theft? In a word, no. All that heat arises from a tiny ember of truth: Bills in the House and Senate rely on savings from Medicare to partially pay for health care reform. But neither bill would cut Medicare benefits, deny health care to the elderly or lead to otherwise preventable deaths. In fact, despite the rhetoric, both the House and Senate health reform bills actually would increase Medicare benefits. The savings come from cutting waste in the program. The bills also would eliminate the so-called donut hole in Medicare drug benefits. That's a bizarre gap in drug coverage built into Medicare. About a quarter of elderly people with prescription drug expenses fell into the donut hole in 2007. That coverage gap is large — $3,610 in 2009. And without reform, it's projected to grow to $6,000 in 2019, which makes it a significant burden for elderly people on fixed incomes. The health care reform bills also would eliminate co-payments and deductibles on most preventive care and, for the first time, add coverage for vaccines. You'd think that politicians from a party that fumes about "wasteful government spending" would support cutting waste.
Of course they know it. They'd rather play politics by scaring and misleading older Americans. So where are those massive cuts that opponents of health care reform are warning Grandma about? They mostly affect private health insurance companies that offer what are called Medicare Advantage plans. Those are all-in-one insurance options that combine drug coverage and health care traditionally provided directly by Medicare. The plans often offer additional services that aren't available with traditional Medicare, such as gym memberships, reduced premiums and reduced co-payments. Medicare Advantage plans often are less expensive for elderly enrollees, but they're substantially more expensive for taxpayers. Payments for private Medicare Advantage plans average 14 percent more than traditional Medicare. Excess payments to private health insurance companies would be reduced by $192 billion over 10 years. Some companies might respond by increasing premiums to enrollees or reducing the extras they offer. This might be an inconvenience. But in every case, basic Medicare would still be available for all people who are eligible. Reform bills would reduce automatic price increases for hospitals. And they would place stricter oversight on home health agencies. Recent government audits have found widespread abuse and fraud in those programs. It's hard to square those relatively modest changes with the dire predictions of doom. But that's the way all good ghost stories work. Mysterious scratching sounds in the attic — like overblown rhetoric in the halls of Congress — can be a little frightening. But Halloween is over. When you turn on the lights, you find it's just a bunch of blowhards inventing scary stories. REPRINTED FROM THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH. DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM
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