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Rejected on Social Security, Bush Stealthily Tries to Privatize Medicare |
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Two years after the American people rejected the Bush administration’s plan to privatize Social Security, the White House now is trying quietly to privatize Medicare.
Here’s how: The Republican Congress gave big insurance companies that provide Medicare insurance what amounts to a huge subsidy under the so-called “Medicare Advantage” program. These private insurers were supposed to introduce competition into the Medicare system and reduce costs.
But after the private insurers got their hands into the cookie jar, they began taking more than their share. Instead of reducing costs, the new plan means the federal government, on average, is paying private plans 12 percent more than it costs to treat people on traditional Medicare, according to the Congressional Budget Office and the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission.
This year alone, according to the Alliance for Retired Americans, the federal government will overpay the insurance industry $7.5 billion this year and an estimated $160 billion over the next 10 years.
Today, Americans United for Change, along with health care and senior advocates, called on Congress to change the Medicare rules so that Medicare Advantage insurers are paid the same rate as other Medicare providers. Otherwise, they warn, the system could run out of money.
As Edward Coyle, executive director of the Alliance, which represents 3 million retirees and seniors, told a Capitol Hill press conference:
Medicare Advantage threatens the solvency of the Medicare Trust Fund. As the Bush administration continues to sound alarms bells about the Trust Fund, they ought to start by ending these egregious subsidies to the insurance industry.
The outrageous waste and abuse in the Medicare Advantage program is part of our larger, misguided privatization of Medicare. We’ve turned too much of Medicare over to Wall Street at the expense of the people who need help on Main Street.
The $160 billion that Medicare can save by equalizing payments would go a long way toward eliminating the donut hole, which requires Medicare prescription drug patients to pay large out-of-pocket expenses, Coyle says.
And by reining in the cost of Medicare Advantage payments, the federal government could improve benefits for lower-income families and provide coverage to millions of uninsured low-income children, according to a study by the nonpartisan research group, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Reducing overpayments to private insurers also will help end a disturbing practice of misleading and abusive marketing tactics by some private insurers to entice seniors into joining Medicare Advantage plans rather than traditional Medicare. The New York Times last month reported that enrollment brokers were:
- Signing up Medicare beneficiaries for private plans without their permission.
- Failing to disclose that beneficiaries may be required to make larger co-payments under some private plans.
- Targeting low-income Medicare beneficiaries who also are on Medicaid, many of whom live alone or have limited English skills.
All in all, it is clear, Coyle says, that changes in Medicare are long overdue:
Something is very wrong with our Medicare program—the big drug and insurance companies keep getting more, and retirees keep getting less. It is time to change this. It is time to end the corporate welfare subsidies in the Medicare Advantage program.
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Bush never saw a privatization plan he disliked. He would privitize the air we breath and allow his Corporate buddies sell it for profit if he could get away with it.
Just more proof why we need a Single Payer Universal Health Care System.
Bush and the Republicans offer nothing but more privatization scams.
All the Democratic Presidential Candidates at the very least have some sort of Universal Health Care proposals. Any of them would be better than what we currently have . IMO, Kucinich plan the best. Medicare for all.
It appears to me and more than likely most Americans ,whatever the taxpayers think is best for the country,,,,the Bush administration is the exact opposite,,,,whether it is Social Security,,,Medicare, immigration,,,the Iraq war,,,,,global warming and on and on. If America is not in another war before Bush is done i will be amazed. Bush has alienated America more than any other president. Thank God, America does have elections,,,,,,even as flawed as they are.
The issue is Health care for all not insurance company profits,or Drug company profits.
The whole delivery system for health care must be changed to take the profit out. Only Denis Kucinich has the plan for single payer health care on a National Level. I look forward to seeing Mikael Moores new film “Sicko” and to hear him testify in support of California’s SB 840 Single Payer health care bill by Shela Kuehl next week.
Universal Health Care
A poem by David G. Hurlburt© 2004
CWA Local 9410
Health care is our basic human right.
Now is the time to stand up and fight.
Put our money and our vote up on the line.
Get up on our feet and walk a picket line.
Dial a phone or write a letter,
Do it so every one will feel better.
Why should only rich have medical care?
And the poor should die don’t you care?
Get out of your chair and in to the street.
It is time for us all to vote with our feet.
Show and tell politicians, turn up the heat.
If we all fight together we can not be beat.
The Iraqis get universal health care,
The rules of war require that its there.
Prisoners in prison get medical care.
But not all Americans that’s just not fair?
What about the hard working poor?
They need medical care for sure?
The system is broken it profits the greedy.
Let us fix the system to serve the needy.
If Medicare is privatized there will be a lot more people turned away from a physician’s office. There are quite a few doctors now that will not accept medicare patients. It is a no win situation for both the doctor and the patient. Why can’t this president get it through his head that we do not want either social security or medicare privatized? Has his man ever ever succeeded in any venture? No, and he certainly has failed this American people miserably.
This adminstration has tried everything in its power to demish the benefits to that the workers of this country paid for. Both Social Security and Medicare are paid for out of taxes, and this government and governments before it have used these funds to balance the budget, pay for a war and whatever else they needed money for. It is time that our government paid back to these funds so that those that paid for them and are now needing to collect these benefits can do so.
No privatization of these funds, this system can work and has worked just leave the damn money alone so that the benefits can be paid.
As governor of Texas bush and his cronies pushed and acomplished privitization of State mental health care facilitys including mental retardation facilitys of which I was an employee at the time.They are still trying to privatize every other municipal and non corporate entity they can. We need to vote these anti-union,corporate barons out of office. A warning from Texas. We are still fighting the remains of the bush dynasty in Texas because this is where the cool- aid was diluted with the political demise of the American people to include the diobolical Tom Delay,the religious right, gerrymandering,which helped to turn Texas red(if you believe the red and blue bullshit)Privatization is the end of your small business,your state or city,or government job.Wake up in America! Thanks F. LEE Tennison Sr.
Kucinich 2008
For the Workers, Health Insurance for all, and out of Iraq
His voting record on Labor Issues is unimpeachable.
Go Dennis!
Thats why I think getting the Goverment’s hands out of ALL of these things is key… Every goverment program has failed… Social Security, Medicare, even our Education system… All filled with corruption, and just poor handling of money. I’m not in anyway agreeing with Bush, but I would MUCH rather have control over my own retirement, my own health coverage, and have more control over what my child learns. But like I said with the goverments hands COMPLETLY out of it all…