Medicare's doctor is Congress
Another example of factual reporting by Jerry Heaster, strangely a sensible, logical and intellectually honest member of the Kansas City Star staff:
Officials shirk solutions: The irony of Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's lamentations about the daunting challenge of keeping Social Security viable is that he has been a key contributor to the problem. Friday, September 17, 2004
Health-care system has no cure-all: A recent criticism of the consumer-directed health-care insurance concept gets at the heart of why medical economics poses such intractable public policy challenges. Wednesday, September 15, 2004
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This is Heaster's third column this week. You may find the others also interestingly factual, logical and sensible:Those Medicare beneficiaries wishing to make next year's premium increase a political issue should at least be informed about what they're talking about.
A good example of the misuse of the issue by misguided partisans was a recent statement from the Alliance for Retired Americans, an organization purporting to represent 3 million retirees and their families.
Its reaction called the 17 percent Part B premium increase, to $78.20 a month, “further evidence of the Bush administration's callous disregard for the well-being … of older Americans.”
Those who agree, however, should understand one thing: Medicare premium increases are set in accordance with a formula legislated by Congress several years before George W. Bush took office. It was the result of a bipartisan effort to rein in budget deficits and was approved by 85 senators — including Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, according to a New York Times report.
Therefore, anyone who views this turn of events as a political problem to be solved should turn their attentions to Capitol Hill. Why not make the issue a litmus test for this year's congressional candidates? If they don't promise to change the law to your liking, don't vote for them.
This isn't to downplay the problem. For many older Americans a Medicare premium rise of this magnitude is a huge challenge because it will eat up much of next year's Social Security cost-of-living raise.
Before any Medicare beneficiary gets too upset over paying more for health insurance, though, there is another reality to bear in mind. What Medicare's seniors are confronting is essentially the same problem bedeviling many younger workers with employer-provided health care coverage. Over the past several years, many workers have gotten pay increases only to find their take-home pay unchanged because their share of their health care premium has expanded to the point of wiping out their pay raise. In some cases they're taking home even less because their raise wasn't enough to cover the higher insurance premium co-pay.
In other words, we're all in this together, and it's not a matter of government or employers getting rich off these increases. The Medicare program is inexorably sliding into insolvency, and private employers are finding health care benefits a debilitating drain on their bottom lines despite substantially higher employee contributions to the plans.
Medicare participants no doubt are feeling ill-used, but in fact they are merely coping with the same sort of squeeze as their younger working counterparts – many of whom are having a tougher time dealing with health care costs than retirees.
As for the Medicare beneficiaries who see this is as intolerable, it isn't. When 2006 dawns, they'll face another drain on their pocketbooks when Medicare's prescription drug benefit takes effect. The individual premium for this benefit can be expected to add about $35 a month to each enrollee's monthly lug if they decide to sign up for the coverage.
Anyone who wants to change the system should look to Congress, not the White House. Problem is, any move to lessen the burden for beneficiaries only ensures a quicker demise for Medicare.
Officials shirk solutions: The irony of Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's lamentations about the daunting challenge of keeping Social Security viable is that he has been a key contributor to the problem. Friday, September 17, 2004
Health-care system has no cure-all: A recent criticism of the consumer-directed health-care insurance concept gets at the heart of why medical economics poses such intractable public policy challenges. Wednesday, September 15, 2004
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