US Senate committee set for vote on health care plan

[IndianaGreen]

US Senate committee set for vote on health care plan

By Kate Randall
5 October 2009

When the major features of the Baucus plan are analyzed, it is clear that far from overcoming the inequities in the present for-profit system, it will instead intensify them. While serving as a boondoggle for the insurance companies—with millions of Americans forced to purchase coverage—it will leave tens of millions with cut-rate care and will be financed primarily through deep cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.

The bill’s cost is an estimated $900 billion over 10 years. In keeping with Obama’s proposals, the Baucus plan pledges to be “deficit neutral.” If the CBO determines this not to be the case, the Finance Committee will further trim costs before taking a final vote on the legislation.

In an ominous sign of what America’s financial aristocracy expects from health care “reform,” Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, commented on the Baucus plan in an interview on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, “I would say revenue neutral is not adequate. In other words, we have to not only have a revenue neutral reform program, but simultaneously recognize that we have to address the longer term.”

The Baucus plan proposes $377 billion in cuts to Medicare, or about 5 percent over 10 years (2010-2019). It would cut $200 billion by lowering payments to hospitals, nursing homes and other providers. It would also cut $113 billion from Medicare Advantage (MA) programs through which more than 10 million seniors receive Medicare benefits via private health insurance plans.

The Finance Committee members—like the authors of other Congressional health care legislation—cynically claim that such drastic cuts can be achieved while improving health care for the elderly, poor and disabled.

Further cuts will be made through the use of “comparative effectiveness research” (CER) to ration care. Among other mechanisms, the plan would require the secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to set up an Innovation Center with the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services to test health-care models “that transition primary care practices away from fee-for-service based reimbursement and toward comprehensive payment.”

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/oct2009/bauc-o05.shtml

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