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Even in Lame Duck Days, Bush Attacks Health Care |
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The issue of health care is a key part of the 2008 elections, and nearly 15,000 of you have taken part in the AFL-CIO Health Care for America Survey, including more than 4,200 of you who shared your personal experiences.
The overwhelming response shows how worried people are about the serious flaws in our health care system. Sharon, in Lansing, Mich., is among those whose family has been affected by the crisis.
My mother-in-law was employed in a low-wage job that did not provide health care coverage. She became ill and could not afford to go to doctors on her own. My husband and I urged her to go, stating we would pay for the visit. By the time she got to the doctors, she had pneumonia and required hospitalization. The pneumonia placed so much stress on her system that she ended up dying. If she had had health care coverage and been able to go to the doctor’s for treatment earlier, she likely would not have died.
Unfortunately, the Bush administration is putting even the most basic protections at risk by cutting funding for Medicare and Medicaid. These programs, which provide the safety net for millions of older and low-income Americans, are the last resort for those who end up on the wrong side of our health care system. Bush’s proposed cuts of $91 billion to Medicare and $14 billion to Medicaid would endanger lives.
Last month, experts and advocates gathered in Washington, D.C., to discuss these and other issues at the 13th annual Health Action Conference of Families USA, a national nonprofit, non-partisan organization that advocates for high-quality coverage for everyone.
At a standing-room-only session, “While We Weren’t Looking: Devious Attempts to Harm Vulnerable Populations,” health care scholars discussed the flood of Bush administration rule changes making it harder for states to provide even basic Medicaid and Medicare services. The highly technical rule changes are undermining the intended effects of health care law passed by Congress.
Sarina Fogel-Gerson of Families USA said that the rule changes illuminated the attitudes of the Bush administration toward a functional health care system and highlighted the need to pay attention to health care as the country chooses a new president.
The administration snuck up behind Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries. It’s a coordinated attack on vulnerable populations.
Fogel-Gerson said state-level health officials are as frustrated with the rule changes as health care advocates.
Presentations at the session concerned coverage for developmentally disabled children and the spouses of senior citizens receiving home-based long-term care. Gene Coffey of the National Senior Citizens Law Center and Jeff Crowley of Georgetown University said that the next year would require sustained action against further rule changes imposed by the administration in its last year. As Crowley puts it:
The worst thing about it is that we haven’t seen it all yet. The last year of an administration sees a lot of rulemaking.
Coffey said the best weapon against the Bush administration’s attempt to limit coverage is the upcoming presidential election and warned that the Bush administration’s last minute efforts would result in rules that were “horrible in their composite, and individually as well.”
Families USA presented a special “Health Care Heroes” award to the Frost family of Baltimore—a family that serves as an example of the failures of our health care system and the attack on heath care coverage at the highest levels of government. The Frost family’s son, Graeme, was hospitalized for months after a devastating car accident, and the family turned to the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) for health care coverage.
Graeme Frost delivered the weekly Democratic radio address in September 2007 in support of a bipartisan bill renewing and expanding SCHIP—an effort Bush has vetoed multiple times. The Frosts were then attacked through a smear campaign spearheaded by conservative bloggers and media outlets—a campaign abetted by the staff of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
As the fall elections approach, it’s important to ask whether our candidates are looking to protect those who need our help the most—or to leave everyone on their own in a system that doesn’t cover them.
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