Gregg Pushes Bush’s Medicare Plan to Congress
MEDICARE
Union Leader
Matt Negrin
Boston University Washington News Service
26 February 2008
WASHINGTON — Republican Sen. Judd Gregg Tuesday urged Congress to pass President Bush’s plan to assure adequate long-term financing for Medicare, the federal health insurance program for seniors that some predict could run out of money in the relatively near future.
A need for additional Medicare funds has been recognized in recent years as hundreds of thousands of baby boomers reach retirement age and will no longer be paying into the program, but instead will become beneficiaries.
Bush in mid-February proposed raising the cost to participate in Medicare’s prescription drug coverage for seniors with incomes greater than $82,000 (or $164,000 for couples). Bush’s fiscal 2009 budget estimates the change would save $3.2 billion over five years.
That would be enough to secure Medicare funding, at least in the short term, according to the plan’s supporters.
In fewer than 10 years, total health care spending will average $13,101 per person, or more than $4 trillion a year, almost double its current amount, according to a new government report.
In introducing the legislation at a press conference, Gregg called Medicare financing the “single-biggest issue outside of terrorism” facing the nation. The legislation was introduced in the House by Paul Ryan, R-Wis.
“This is not a gimmick,” Gregg said. “It is a very serious exercise.”
Other components of the plan include limiting punitive damages in what Gregg Tuesday called “frivolous” medical lawsuits. The claims would be capped at $250,000 or twice the amount of “economic damages” — dollar amounts tagged to hospital fees and other expenses.
Gregg, the senior Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, said he was open to any alternative plans from Sen. Max Baucus, the Democratic chairman of the Finance Committee.
However, Gregg and Ryan blasted the Democratic Congress for not previously acting to protect Medicare funding. Gregg said the Democratic leadership was “unwilling” to take on the issue; Ryan said they were practicing “fiscal negligence” by ignoring it.
Their proposal also includes measures to encourage the use of electronic medical records and would make it easier for seniors to compare the costs and quality of different health care plans.
Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., said Tuesday he supports the bill’s suggestion to limit punitive damages, digitize medical records and allow seniors to compare different plans. But he was silent on the proposed premium boost.
“Taking steps to ensure the solvency of Medicare is perhaps one of the most important financial challenges facing the country right now,” he said.
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., has called Bush’s proposal “dead on arrival,” a statement that Gregg ridiculed, saying it showed Democrats’ lack of seriousness.
In a statement, Kennedy, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said the Bush administration has “trumped up a phony crisis in Medicare to justify proposing deep cuts in quality health care for seniors while giving massive subsidies to HMOs and other insurance companies.”
Other Democrats have strong objections to the bill.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., in a statement, called it “a lousy idea to cut Medicare funding for America’s seniors. We need to get serious about strengthening Medicare, not dismantling it.”
Stephen Krupin, a deputy press secretary for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., called the bill “chock-full of poison pills that have nothing to do with Medicare” and said the Democrats will wait for Baucus’s office to respond to the legislation.
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