".....a backdoor effort to privatize a popular government program and throw millions of elderly Americans "onto the tender mercies of the H.M.O.'s," in the words of Representative John D. Dingell, Democrat of Michigan and a member of the commission. And, they say, their fears were justified by the last few years, as H.M.O.'s dropped hundreds of thousands of elderly Americans, saying they could not make a profit under the current Medicare rules".
posted on February 11, 2001 08:55:50 PM new
to support the privatization of Medicare and then allow them to drop large numbers of the elderly would create an incredible uproar and an irreparable rift with the Dems in Congress. despite Bush's ties to the HMOs, i have a feeling that there is going to be a reasonable bipartisan overhaul of the healthcare system particularly the prescription problem.
posted on February 11, 2001 09:34:24 PM new
Maybe, though it looks as though he's not altogether sincere about bipartisanship. Even though he seems to have given up his voucher plan in education in order to obtain democratic support, he often reads like he's saying 'I'll do bipartisan as long as everyone agrees with me'.
posted on February 11, 2001 10:04:42 PM new
Actually the Bush plan mirrors most of the proposed changes that the National Bipartisan Commission introduced last year. I haven’t seen a complete comparision yet but I did hear Democrat John Breaux on a recent talk show saying that he believed that there were very strong similarities and that he was hopeful it wouldn’t be vetoed again. Clinton stopped it last time. He didn't elaborate as to why. Anyway, as I understand it, this plan would keep Medicare as it is but would give the seniors more of a choice in their care by allowing them to choose HMO care over medicare or to use a combination of both. The Bush plan also covers drug cost with immediate grants to pay for seniors drug purchases.
I believe the Bush plan uses a sliding scale and pays reimbursement on drug cost according to income with the poorest receiving the highest benefit. I’m not sure what the differences were as compared to the plan that the Breaux team introduced. Breaux didn’t seem worried about it but I’ve noticed that all politicians (including Bush) "say" that they’re sure they can get support even when they must know they can’t... so we’ll see.
Another point is in quite a few areas, HMOs are the only game in town.In 2 of the Texas cities I worked in, the locally funded city / county hospitals were absorbed by other health care systems that do not have to provide as large a percentage of indigent care.
posted on February 12, 2001 07:07:50 AM new
The Bush plan will lead to one private system for the healthy and wealthy and
a government run welfare program for the sick and poor.
He has left the Texas health care in shambles after his "tax cut".
In the state of Texas today,there are
1.5 million uninsured children
and an estimated 600,000 eligible for
medicaid but not enrolled.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/12/politics/12TEXA.html
Helen
[ edited by HJW on Feb 12, 2001 07:09 AM ]
[ edited by HJW on Feb 12, 2001 07:15 AM ]
