Public Health Wars: No, Virginia, the GOP is NOT Trying to Save Medicare
Quite the opposite. Almost a decade ago, war was declared on the most popular public health insurance plan in the country. For years, private health insurers have lived with the fear that some politician would have the guts to say “Hey, why not just put everyone on Medicare and solve our uninsured problem overnight?”
For this reason, the Bush administration started pouring money into so called “Advantage” plans---privately run Medicare plans that cherry picked healthy seniors who would not require any actual medical care. Meanwhile, they did everything within their power to drive providers off traditional Medicare. The biggest gun in their arsenal----that pesky automatic Medicare provider fee cut that Congress keeps kicking down the road. Every time that one comes up for a vote, the nations physicians go into a panic as they imagine themselves treating Medicare patients at a loss. For a doctor with a sizable geriatric practice, that would mean being driven out of business. So, every time that automatic fee cut comes up for a vote, a few more providers stop accepting Medicare. And as Medicare recipients find it increasingly difficult to get in to see a doctor, word spreads. “Hey, Medicare isn’t so good after all.”
Or that is the way it was supposed to be. In fact, Medicare continues to be massively popular. It is a pact which America made with its seniors under the LBJ administration. Decades ago, we said, in effect “You no longer have to be worried about being shipped off to the glue farm once your days as a work horse are over. We value your years of service to this country. You matter. You matter a lot.”
Except, we don’t matter---not to the handful of businessmen who are pouring hundreds of millions into the fall election via Super Pacs. In their eyes, we exist for one reason---so that they can make a profit from our labor. When we can no longer work, we are a liability. Corporate welfare queens like the Koch Brothers begrudge any public money that is spent on anything other than lining their own pockets. And we are talking about public money—tax money that you and I have paid, not Welfare. Our labor belongs to the Kochs, our taxes belong to the Kochs---and now, our lives are in the hands of the Kochs.
Ask yourself, would you trust anyone in the Koch family to look after your mother?
The stakes could not be higher this fall. The Republican Party’s official platform calls for the abolishment of Medicare. In exchange for all our years of work, we will be given vouchers---vouchers that will be woefully inadequate to cover the costs of health insurance for any American with any chronic disease.
I work in a public health clinic. A huge part of my practice is made up of folks in their fifties and early sixties. People who were forced out of their jobs and who lost health insurance after paying into private plans for decades—lost it just as they began to need it, often because of medical problems. Up until now, their biggest fear has been that they will die of their chronic disease before they reach the age of 65. Now, they have something else to be afraid of. If the GOP plan to eliminate Medicare and replace it with vouchers goes through, millions of Americans will face the prospect of never being able to see a doctor again. They will die prematurely of treatable disease. Life expectancy in this country will plunge---for the working class. The rich will be able to pay the exorbitant sums that private insurers will demand from any senior with any type of chronic medical condition.
What’s in it for Aetna, Blue Cross and the rest? As I have posted before (see my journal for links), the majority of Americans on Medicare at any particular moment are quite healthy. Most Medicare spending goes towards a relatively small number of extremely elderly, sick people, with diseases like stroke, renal failure and heart failure. The premiums collected from all seniors go towards the care of the sickest. Since every one of us will get sick and die eventually, everybody gets their fair share. It is a safety net, one we have all built together.
The GOP plans to steal that safety net from us and give it to some wealthy Super Pac donor. Under Romney/Ryan, the government will pay billions to private plans to insure the healthiest seniors---the ones who do not need much health care at this moment. At the same time, the sickest Americans will either be enrolled in Medicaid---which means the public will have to pay for their dialysis out of public funds---or treated at public clinics, like the one I work at which is also publicly funded---or they will die from lack of health care, if they do not run out of money before they run out of breath.
Who benefits from the above plan? Private health insurers, who will join the Koch Brothers as welfare queens extraordinaire. Imagine the windfall! Thousands of dollars of public money a year for each healthy senior---and then, once illness strikes, the elderly will be switched back to another cash strapped, resource poor publicly financed plan. Or, if they own their own home or have a little money saved, they will be told “Sorry, you are not poor enough. Come back when your savings are depleted.” At which point, they are likely to be dead.
