Republicans picking up the Blunt line: Medicare is bad, so no public option
Posted on July 30th, 2009 by Jason Rosenbaum in Profits Before People
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Birther Roy Blunt has been on a rampage against Medicare, saying the other day the patent lie that "Medicare has never done anything to make people more healthy," despite the millions of healthy seniors on Medicare.
The anti-Medicare argument has been taking hold in other corners, with Rep. Tom Price, chairman of the Republican Study Committee, authoring an op-ed that mostly attacks Medicare as a reason the new Republican tax health care plan is a good idea:
Going down the path of more government will only compound the problem. While the stated goal remains noble, as a physician, I can attest that nothing has had a greater negative effect on the delivery of health care than the federal government’s intrusion into medicine through Medicare. Because of Washington’s one-size-fits-all approach, its flawed coverage rules and broken financing mechanisms, seniors are increasingly having care rationed while federal health spending spirals out of control.
This is, as we say in Washington, bull. Medicare covers virtually the entirety of our senior population, and does it at lower cost and higher quality.
And, that bull is just about the entirety of the Republican argument against health reform it seems: No health reform, because Medicare is awful.
Of course, the plan Price is pushing isn't so much of a plan and more of a John McCain retread, with lots of talk about taxes and no new ideas for how to lower our health care costs or provide more coverage at an affordable price.
But it's good to know Price hates Medicare. That puts him at odds with 86% of seniors, people who are actually on Medicare.
Update:
A friend reminds me it's Medicare and Medicaid's birthday today, too! On July 30, 1965, President Johnson signed Medicare and Medicaid into law, providing a lifeline to millions of elderly Americans and low-income families who would otherwise not have been able to afford health care.
I'm sure Blunt isn't celebrating, but millions or seniors and low-income Americans are.
Yay! Medicare is the second-most-popular government program *ever* (the most popular? Social Security, of course). I encourage ALL Republicans to run against LBJ's socialist government medicine as part of their opposition to health care reform. Permanent Democratic majority, woot!
- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
What we are witnessing my liberal friends, is the long slow Death Rattle of a party that believed its own press. I say sit back, relax, have a beer and enjoy!
Badtux, you have touched on the reason that Republicans oppose any form of public option or a single payer/Medicare For All system: they know that it works, and they know if Democrats deliver it to the people, Republicans are finished as a national party for at least a generation. It happened after the New Deal, and they know it will happen again.
I see from the responses that none of you have ever been on Medicare or Medicaid. While I agree either option can be better than no health coverage at all, they are not the solution to this health care crisis. You think you won't be denied services on Medicare/Medicaid? Think again.
All those wonderful seniors who have been covered by Medicare are only covered if they are destitute. Same with Medicaid. Your nice new hybrid car will have to be sold (you can't own a vehicle worth over $5,000) and I'm not sure how they deal with real estate.
And coverage on Medicaid? It's all or nothing (or was when I was on it 20 years ago). Let's say you need new glasses. You are allowed X amount for the frames and lenses. If you want those frames that are $10 more, you can't pay the difference. Need a root canal? Tough, get the tooth pulled. Pregnant? You can go to this obstetrician (can't stand the doctor there? You can drive to the next town).
How many of you have had to turn over your entire life to the government for them to scrutinize? You want to send copies of you bank statements every month to Health and Human Services so they can ensure you are still poor enough to qualify for coverage? It is degrading and demoralizing and I, for one, will do everything within my power to NOT be on the receiving end of any government health care option again.
It's hard to gibe this with the great satisfaction rate that Medicare receives from its customers, much higher than private insurance: http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/mp_20090629_2600.php
Public health plans are humiliating and degrading because, to date, they have been designed to be humiliating and degrading. Harvard Prof. Elizabeth Warren recently wrote in The New York Times how hard-working, middle class people who never thought they'd need public help are shocked to learn that applying for any form of public assistance is like being arrested and booked for a crime.
It doesn't have to be this way. We can have public plans that people can utilize without stigma. They can have premium, deductible, and co-insurance requirements that private plans do.
If critics of health care think public palns are so bad, why are they afraid of a public option?
Compared to good union insurance a decade or go ago, Medicare is not the best insurance. Too high a deductable, too complex for many, confusing and more. Better than nothing, but lacking in many areas.
Time for the nation to start think about nationalizing the entire healthcare industry. If meaningful healthcare cannot be passed, then it is high time to take the entire mess over and sort it out. Representatives and senators opposing such changes should face recall elections (let them spend the bribes from big healthcare/pharma on just staying in position of power)
I am a supporter of single payer (HR676) and since "single-payer" is becoming an censored word in the media, how-about nationalization; another option not on the table.
By the way, most of the Medicare Birthday rally/demonstrations were not covered by the media. In fact, there seems to be a censorship by the media of most of the healthcare debate and rally/demostrations across the nation.
The person who wrote about how bad Medicare is and how you must be destitute to use it is terribly misinformed. Medicaid is for poor people while Medicare is THE health insurance plan for people over 65 who paid taxes into the system over many years.
I am an insurance agent working mostly with Medicare Supplements and Medicare Advantage plans. I also work some with individual insurance, usually for people in the 50's and early 60's who have lost coverage or never had insurance coverage. Unless these people are perfectly healthy they will not get insurance coverage. And I have had people who are 60 years old and haven't been to a doctor in 20 years - but are healthy. They can't get insurance because they don't have a medical history! So they have to go to a doctor and get all kinds of tests (and pay for it without insurance) so they can create a medical record for themselves.
Medicare covers everyone over 65, no matter what their health. Medicare is a "fee-for-service" plan with no network, which means seniors can go to any doctor anywhere who accepts Medicare - and about 95% of doctors accept it.
Private insurance plans for people under 65 (whether for groups or individuals) all have networks and thus restrict doctor choice. Private insurance will reject requests for tests or treatment if they deem it unnecessary. Private plans jerk people around by refusing parts of bills which then require the patient to try to figure out how to get the bill paid.
Medicare covers more procedures than private insurance plans and it rejects bill mostly due to processing or coding errors on the part of doctors' offices.
In summary, Medicare is excellent insurance. In fact it is probably too generous and too big to catch all the fraud that is committed in the system. Medicare needs to be tweeked to make it more efficient, but it is a good system and seniors are very happy with it.
When the writer, who said Medicare is for poor people, reaches 65 he will learn that it is for rich people, poor people and middle class people - in short, everyone (who has paid their taxes into the system). It is unfortunate that so many American citizens, young AND old, do not understand Medicare and how well it has worked for our senior citizens (as well as those who are disabled).
Interesting debate. I think Medicare is a good government program. I think it could work, if congress would extinguish the fraud and waste. It would also help if they would put into law TORT reform. This would help the massive inflation of health care.
There is a strong correlation between Medicare and increasingly longer life spans. Medicare allows most seniors to access the latest and greatest medical innovations that allow them to lead longer, healthier lives. Without Medicare most seniors wouldn't be able to afford modern medical treatment and die a few years after retirement like in the days before Medicare. Sure, Medicare isn't the smoothest operation and is costing the tax payers dearly, but the same could be said of just about any government program.