Acme Medicare (12/15/03 Progressive Populist)

THE PROGRESSIVE POPULIST:
A JOURNAL FROM THE HEARTLAND
December 15, 2003 -- Volume 9, Number 22

http://www.populist.com/03.22.edit.html

EDITORIAL
Acme Medicare

It9s always hard to watch your side take a dive. That9s what happened 
when the Democrats buckled Nov. 24 to allow passage of Republican 
Medicare 3reform2 in the Senate.
        The Medicare bill is expected to spend nearly $400 billion 
over the next decade, but much of that money will go to the private 
health industry, the first step in the process of privatizing the 
government health care program. The bill was supposed to help seniors 
obtain prescription drugs, but Republican congressional leaders made 
sure that the drug programs will run through private insurance 
companies  and seniors won9t get much help until 2006 at the 
earliest.
        The bill was so corrupted that it prohibits the government 
from negotiating lower drug prices for 40 million elderly and 
disabled Medicare recipients. Instead it protects pharmaceutical 
profits. It continues the ban on buying lower-priced but identical 
drugs from Canadian pharmacists. (The ban is much-flouted but it9s 
probably only a matter of time before John Ashcroft sics the DEA on 
senior scofflaws). As the Austin American-Statesman noted Nov. 25, 
3Americans already pay the highest prices in the world for 
prescription drugs, and this bill ensures that they will continue to 
do so.2
        A professor at George Washington University estimates that in 
2006 the government will pay private plans 25% more than what it 
costs to cover a senior in traditional Medicare fee-for-service, the 
Des Moines Register noted. The bill earmarks $12 billion as an 
incentive to insurance companies that offer Medicare to seniors or 
maintain existing plans. Another $86 billion is set aside to pay 
employers to continue providing health benefits to retirees. 3Not 
only will companies be paid extra to take over the health care of 
seniors, they can get millions more just be threatening to abandon 
the seniors. Companies will ask for extra dollars as an incentive9 
to offer care. More than one-fourth of a $400 billion Medicare price 
tag is money earmarked for bribing private industry.2
        Yet what seniors get out of the bill is still not entirely 
clear. The Register concluded, 3If the country is going to add 
another $400 billion to the national debt, it should be spent 
directly to pay for health care, not to subsidize industry.2 We agree.
        Even a $25 billion nugget that is supposed to increase 
reimbursements for doctors and hospitals in rural areas was jiggered 
to benefit states that already rank near the top of the reimbursement 
lists, the Register noted. Louisiana, which already ranks No. 1 in 
the nation for money per Medicare beneficiary, with $8,099 per senior 
on Medicare in 2001, would get $9,014 under the 3equity measure2 
while Iowa would see an increase from the current $3,414 per senior 
to only $3,997.
        The 681-page bill was worked out behind closed doors among 
Republican House and Senate negotiators  nominal Democratic Sens. 
John Breaux of Louisiana and Max Baucus of Montana were given 
honorary GOP status to seal the deal. House Democrats were entirely 
excluded from the negotiations. The final 3conference report2 had 
such an odor that it had to be rushed to the House on Friday, Nov. 
21, for debate. Still, a combination of principled Republicans and 
the bulk of Democrats joined to defeat it  or so they thought  
early Saturday morning, Nov. 22. But the GOP leadership would not 
accept defeat. They rigged the process to keep the voting open for 
three hours while the errant R9s were browbeaten into changing their 
votes to pull out a 220-215 win for the Bush White House shortly 
before dawn.
        As Sam Uretsky writes on page 16, the bill is not better than 
nothing. It is a trap for the foolish and the Democrats once again 
played the part of Wiley Coyote, buying the Acme Medicare plan.
        Sen. Ted Kennedy had urged colleagues to pass an earlier 
version of the drug bill in the belief that Republicans would agree 
to an acceptable compromise. When he got back Medicare privatization 
experiments, HMO subsidies and medical savings accounts, he tried to 
filibuster but it was too late. Majority Leader Tom Daschle opposed 
the filibuster, although he joined the opponents on a procedural vote 
that failed 61-39 and the final vote as the bill was approved 54-44.
        What Democrats failed to understand, Sen. Hillary Rodham 
Clinton told the Washington Post9s E.J. Dionne Nov. 24, is that 
Republicans 3are on an ideological march. They have no intention of 
playing fair. They want what they want when they want it.2 And they 
get it.
        Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., told Dionne there is no more 
legislative give-and-take. 3The Republican Party in the House is the 
most ideologically cohesive and disciplined party in the democratic 
world,2 Frank said.
        Daschle is an easy target for criticism. One columnist wished 
the minority leader would show his 3inner Lyndon2 in the Medicare 
fight but Lyndon has left the building  or Majority Leader Bill 
Frist is channeling his ghost. But Breaux and Baucus sold out the 
party and there9s not much Daschle can do to punish those whose 
allegiance to insurance and pharmaceutical companies is stronger than 
their loyalty to constituents.
        AARP, the retiree group, also outraged many of its members 
when it not only signed onto the bill but put $7 million into an 
advertising campaign to support it. 3Finally, a bill is about to be 
voted on,2 an AARP TV commercial said. 3While not perfect, we know 
there are millions of Americans who can9t afford to wait for 
perfect.2 Well, those millions will still have to wait until 2006 and 
then they9ll find that they have to spend $3,600 out of their own 
pocket before the insurance picks up 95% of costs. Republicans hope 
that Bush will be on the downward glide of his second term by then.
        AARP has a conflict of interest because of its revenues from 
insurance-related ventures, such as Medigap supplemental drug 
insurance policies and prescription drug discount cards. According to 
Public Citizen, AARP9s royalty income from health insurance policies 
amounted to $107.8 million in 2002. AARP9s investment income from 
insurance products totaled $26.7 million in 2002. AARP also derives 
income from a prescription drug discount card marketed to its 
members, which is a program that would be offered in 2004 and 2005 
before the prescription drug benefit becomes available. (See the full 
analysis at www.citizen.org.)
        Constituents who are displeased with this travesty should let 
their representatives and senators know when those pols come home for 
the holidays. Money is often a more potent motivator than doing what 
is right  and the GOP has the money  but pols fear an informed and 
angry electorate most of all.

Leave it to the Senate Democrats to crater on Medicare just a few 
days after they stood up to block the execrable GOP energy bill. So 
much for celebration. It appears that the D9s don9t want to use their 
spines any more than necessary.
        Among other things, the energy bill, which originated with 
Vice President Dick Cheney9s secret meetings with corporate 
lobbyists, would repeal the 70-year-old Public Utility Holding 
Company Act, which prevents anti-consumer business practices by 
energy companies. That9s reason enough to oppose the bill, but it 
also would remove many environmental regulations, it would shield 
makers of the gasoline additive MTBE from liability lawsuits arising 
from contamination of underground water supplies, it would provide 
$25 billion in tax giveaways to energy producers.
        The GOP was just two votes shy of the 60 votes needed to cut 
off the filibuster Nov. 21 after House Republicans pushed through the 
bill earlier in the week. Daschle also voted against the Democrats in 
favor of the energy bill, which would boost farmers by expanding the 
use of corn-based ethanol. The bill appears stricken for now but R9s 
have not given up on passing it, so stiffen your senators9 spines 
while they are home. Lord knows, we can9t taken anything for granted.
     JMC

TABLE OF CONTENTS, Progressive Populist, December 15, 2003
(Articles marked with * are available through our web site, 
http://www.populist.com.)

COVER/Frosty Troy *
States fall for corporate blackmail
EDITORIAL *
Acme Medicare
JIM HIGHTOWER
Bush betrays POWs; Hiding the pain of war; Monsanto goes nuts; 
Safeway tries greed way; Thanks for rebellious spirit; Truly amazing 
deals!
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
RURAL ROUTES/Margot McMillen *
Don9t forget the rest of us
DISPATCHES *
California requires e-vote paper trail
FRANCIS THICKE *
Corporate colonialism
BEN LONG
Cheer for runaway bison
CHARLES FRANCIS
What happened to conservation ethic?
CALAMITY HOWLER/A.V. Krebs *
New morality needed
TED RALL
In 2004, anyone but Bush
RANDOLPH HOLHUT
Wal-Marting the economy
MOKHIBER & WEISSMAN
Howard Clinton?
LABOR TALK/Harry Kelber
Labor needs freedom to join a union
PAPER CUTS/Judith Gorman
Forced perspective
MARK ENGLER
Against the god of free trade
LORI WALLACH
NAFTA on steroids stumbles in Miami
WAYNE O9LEARY *
Left9s trade quandary
JESSE JACKSON
Time to abandon sinking NAFTA ship
VICTORIA SAMSON
Congress rattles nuclear saber
JOHN BUELL *
Lessons across the pond
BOB BOROSAGE
At the kitchen table
HYPOCRISY WATCH
W9s trip to Britain fact-checked
CHELLIE PINGREE
Halliburton hangover
DEDRICK MUHAMMAD
The conning of black America
GENE LYONS
New American Century9 ends prematurely
HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas
Christmas care
GRIST/Amanda Griscom
Wetland9s end
BILL O9NEILL *
The neocon ant colony
SAM SMITH
Handling the bullies
GRASSROOTS/Hank Kalet
Defending filibuster
SAM URETSKY *
GOP Congress lights Medicare fuse
OUCH!/Public Campaign
The big Medicare fix
STEVEN HILL & ROB RICHIE *
Democracy on the cheap
MEDIA BEAT/Norman Solomon
Media clash in Brazil: Distant mirror
AMERICAS/Gonzales & Rodriguez
The New American project
ALEXANDER COCKBURN
London trip of a global tyrant
MITCHELL KAIDY
Arab Americans search for voice
PUBLIC INTEREST/Ralph Nader
Energy bill fuels corporate profits
FUTURE HOPE/Ted Glick
Purism vs. pragmatism
ROB PATTERSON
Living in my USA
JACK MILLER
Tax-free wonderland
DAVE ZWEIFEL
Amtrak funding still on wrong track
CHARLES LEVENDOSKY
Bush makes protesters disappear
BOOKS/Alvena Bieri
Raising a stink
MOLLY IVINS
Smells like rotting fish; Real cynical; Bills come due
DONALD KAUL
GOP leaders deserve smiting

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