« Town Hells and Medicare | Main | Sick to death of Medicare “Death Panel” Propaganda »
Facts Matter
By NCPSSM | August 10, 2009
Why does that even have to be said?
But, as town hall disrupters continue to shout down any attempt at real debate about health care reform, it’s clear the truth is being drowned out by the drama. We’ve already written about what the actual legislation could mean for seniors but of course, that’s not nearly as interesting as town halls gone wild. So as our grandmother used to say: if at first, you don’t succeed…
The Washington Post has a concise breakdown of what the House health care reform proposal includes for Medicare beneficiaries:
Comprehensive health-care legislation approved by three House committees include changes to the Medicare program for 45 million elderly and disabled people. The bills:
– Extend the life of the Medicare Trust Fund by five years.
– Waive all co-payments on preventive services.
– Provide 50 percent discounts on brand-name prescriptions in the coverage gap known as the “doughnut hole.” Eliminate the gap entirely within 12 years.
– Eliminate 14 percent in “overpayments” to Medicare Advantage plans over 10-year period; pay $10 billion in bonuses to high-quality plans.
– Increase reimbursements to primary-care doctors, general practitioners and psychiatrists by 5 percent.
– Reduce payments to skilled-nursing homes and rehabilitation centers by $15 billion over the next decade.
– Pay medical professionals for counseling patients about end-of-life options.
– Reduce payments to providers that have patients with high hospital readmission rates.
– Grant biologic therapies 12 to 14 years of market protection before a generic version can seek Food and Drug Administration approval.
– Cancel a proposed 21 percent cut in physician reimbursements, estimated to cost $228 billion over 10 years.
SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office, House Ways and Means Committee, Kaiser Family Foundation
The Senate Special Committee on Aging has prepared a two-page Fact and Fiction analysis, which should be mandatory reading for Town Hall questioners. Some of the issues it addresses include:
The House health care reform bill would require doctors to give seniors “suicide counseling.”This is FICTION. The House proposal does not tell seniors how to die, nor urge doctors to do so. The proposal empowers seniors to voluntarily make their own decisions on end‐of‐life care in advance, in consultation with a trusted physician. Part of planning for the future could be creating a living will that includes your wishes for the end of life, so that your instructions are followed to the letter. No matter what your wishes are, the health reform proposal will not take any of those choices away from you. In fact, it helps to make sure that your choices are respected.
Health care reform will lead to rationing. This is FICTION. There’s no bill or proposal in Congress that would ration health care. We do need to reexamine the way that we pay for health care in this country. Thus far, the proposals are focused on paying for value and quality of care over volume of services. Under our current system, some providers are incentivized to run duplicative tests and over‐order expensive treatment, though these procedures might not be what the patient needs to et better. An improved health care system will lead to smarter health care choices, but that does not mean it will limit your options. If you have private insurance now, your care is already limited when your insurance company decides what procedures to pay for and which doctors to cover. Insurance companies can deny you coverage if you have a pre‐existing condition. And they can make payments and premiums prohibitively high for American families. Congress is working to minimize these denials and barriers to quality health care.
You can see the full Senate Aging Fact or Fiction document here.
Topics: Medicare, healthcare | 3 Comments »
August 11th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
HEALTH CARE AND CIVILITY
By Ted Meyerson
Last evening I tried to attend a town hall meeting being held by Senator Cardin. Because the crowd far outnumbered the auditorium capacity, I never got in. But, the crowd outside was interesting, indeed illuminating.
I would guess the thousand or so people were against the proposed health care reform by 3 to 1. There was a group of 40 or 50 people chanting in favor of reform, but by far the majority of people carrying signs and yelling were against. Many carried signs, and some waved American flags, some had “Don’t tread on me” flags. There were posters of Obama in white face, and posters of Obama with a Hitler moustache. There were signs that said keep government out of health care. There were signs that called Mikulski a liar and Pelosi a nazi.
Whether for or against, there was one commonality, everyone was adamant. There was no chance that any minds were being changed.
I tried to encage several people in conversation. One man carried a large American flag and was wearing a poster that said that Government shouldn’t tell people how to die. I asked him did he know that many people did not know about what options they might have at the end of life and that the plan was to enable physicians to bill for the time they spend counseling patients, not for the government to tell anyone anything. For instance did he know the parameters for receiving hospice care? A man to his left yelled that if someone didn’t know what options they had, they didn’t deserve to know. A man to his right, in a most agitated voice said he had two wives that went into hospice and they both died. DUH!
Aside from this encounter, the people I sought out to speak with were well dressed, calm, and articulate. The last thing I wanted to do was get into a heated debate with people who looked like they were ready to fight. But, the shouters and the talkers all seemed to have the same message.
The things I heard people say were mostly variations of the following:
I don’t want government to run my health plan, they always get it messed up – Government is incompetent.
I don’t want illegal aliens to get free health care that I pay for. I’ll lose benefits to pay for people who don’t have a plan now.
Health care will be rationed and/or denied – euthanasia will be encouraged for the frail or disabled.
A government option would doom free enterprise medicine and limit my choices.
We are losing America – becoming socialist. We need to recapture our Constitution.
Although some disagree with me, I do not believe that anyone I spoke with, and probably no one in the crowd, was sent there by the Republican Party to agitate. I do believe that there were organizations, pro and con, that had encouraged their followers to be there and make themselves heard. Clearly the cons did a better job at it.
Still, everyone was debating something that doesn’t exist. As of this time, there is no bill in Congress that has been passed by both Houses and gone to conference. There are at least four different ideas being considered. But, as yet, there is no one bill to be debated! It’s like everyone is arguing about how many angels are on the head of a pin.
Where does that leave us?
Are we seeing a loud, vocal minority making lots of noise, or do they, as they claim represent America and speak to American ideals? Are we bound to fail to ensure that everyone has access to health care? Are we tied to a system that will end up servicing no one because America the current system is unsustainable? Are we so unwilling to find solutions that we will watch the Ship of State sink under the weight of unsustainable financial outflows. Are we so fragmented and ideologically frozen that real, meaningful, and courteous dialogue has become impossible? I don’t know, but it’s scary as hell.
Whether you are for health care reform or not, each of us can play a significant role by learning the facts, by being civil, by listening as well as by talking, and by praying that, ultimately, everyone will put country above politics and self interest.
August 23rd, 2009 at 10:58 pm
washingtons track record stinks, when it comes to running the government. look at ss, medicare, medicade, deficit, they took borrow money gave it out to pet projects, give money to dead beats for cars. they think its working, it is for the foreigners. it will catch up to us. so much for foreign trade. how about the bank bailout. yes some went to foreign banks. how about the jobs we lost over seas, yes they have us at there best interest. anyone that thinks its only about health care is crazy.
August 28th, 2009 at 8:22 am
Is this org supporting the “GOP medicare health care bill of rights to insure we seniors on medicare get the health care we need, for example imaging, tests/procedures and operations.?” We don’t want UK or Canadian style health care in our senior years. We earned this medicare entitlement.