Medicare

Wednesday, Lt. Governor Peter Kinder tweeted his support for Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) "Roadmap for America's Future" as a superior alternative to Barack Obama's agenda for the country.

Among other things, the "Roadmap" endorsed by Kinder increases in the eligibility age for Social Security and moves citizens under under 55 into a private “Medicare certified plan” outside of the current Medicare system. The vice president for policy at AARP says Ryan's plan "would be a complete revolution and would fundamentally change the character of Medicare."

Also under the plan, federal deficit spending would continue until 2080. 

Six years ago yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a controversial and still-unfunded Medicare prescription-drug bill with an historic and extremely controversial early morning vote. At least three of Missouri's Representatives -- Roy Blunt, Jo Ann Emerson and Todd Akin -- played key roles in the drama.

Bruce Bartlett, a former policy advisor to Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, recalled the vote last week in a column about Republicans' deficit hypocrisy:

[W]hen the legislation came up for its final vote on Nov. 22, 2003, it was failing by 216 to 218 when the standard 15-minute time allowed for voting came to an end.

What followed was one of the most extraordinary events in congressional history. The vote was kept open for almost three hours while the House Republican leadership brought massive pressure to bear on the handful of principled Republicans who had the nerve to put country ahead of party. The leadership even froze the C-SPAN cameras so that no one outside the House chamber could see what was going on.

The Hill's Bob Cusack wrote an amazing article about the 'night the clocks and scoreboard stood still" two years after the vote. He recounts:

Lawmakers say it was the most intense environment on the [House] floor in decades...

Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY) posed an interesting challenge to Sen. Kit Bond and 54 GOP opponents of a public health insurance option yesterday: give up their Medicare, or give up their opposition to a public option.

I suppose it's possible that their opposition to a public option comes from first-hand experience with the horrors of "government-funded; government-administered single-payer health care - Medicare"... but I doubt it. 

The NY Times' Paul Krugman responds to the Washington Monthly post noted yesterday about Todd Akin's most recent absurd and embarrassing argument to scare seniors.

Steve Benen gets exercised over a new appearance of a zombie lie in the health care debate — the totally false claim that Canadian health care won’t pay for hip replacements for the elderly.

But the hip replacement scam is even worse than Steve realizes. Because who, you might ask, pays for hip replacements in America? The answer: Medicare pays 63.8% of the cost, Medicaid 6.8%. That’s right, the U.S. government pays for 70% of hip replacements in this country.

Aren’t you glad we don’t have evil, Canadian-style government-run health insurance?

The Beacon's Jo Mannies has a new story about a Chuck Purgason campaign stop in St. Louis County last night, at which Purgason argued that his true fiscal conservative credentials make him the better candidate to emerge from the GOP primary. Mannies:

Sporting his trademark bolo tie, silk vest and a flip chart, Purgason mesmerized about 50 fellow conservatives who showed up at the Midwest Music Conservatory in Clarkson Valley. It was among the first campaign forays to this side of the state by the GOP state senator from Caulfield, Mo. (He noted later that he was in town two weeks ago for some radio appearances.)

His message was dire. Purgason declared that -- nationally -- the Republican Party is "the last hope'' to turn around the nation's troubled economy and halt the federal government's rising debt.

But he also asserted that some Republicans in Congress have contributed to the country's current money problems -- notably his unnamed primary opponent, U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo.

 "My opponent was in (House) leadership when this occurred,'' Purgason said.

Yesterday, in an attempt to deflect attention from his failure to deliver on his guarantee for a GOP health care alternative, Roy Blunt echoed some of the rather pathetic attacks we've heard from Republicans about legislation this year being too long, and too hard for them to read. Blunt's excuse didn't make any sense -- it's completely irrelevant to the question of why he's chosen not to produce a bill. Plus, if he thinks bills don't have to be long or complicated, he should introduce a very short and simple bill to prove everyone wrong. 

Moreover, Blunt's rhetoric ignores his own history of ramrodding complex and controversial pieces legislation through the House. For instance, in 2003, Blunt and House Republicans pushed through their still-not-paid-for Medicare prescription drug bill without letting people read it.  Here's what Roy Blunt told Congress Daily on November 19, 2003:

"We're going to be working hard with them to answer their questions. We don't expect any of them to have a chance to read a 1,100-page bill."

The last few weeks, Republican strategists have been attempting to position their party as the defender of Medicare, fighting back against made-up Democratic schemes to gut the program. The (minor) flaw in this new strategy is that the GOP has been on the wrong side of the Medicare debate for a long, long time.  In response to their change of heart, a new ad campaign from the DNC seeks to remind voters of Republicans' actual record about Medicare.

This morning, Politico published an "August recess casualty list" with seven members of Congress (from both parties) "who took significant flak and who need to proceed cautiously to minimize the damage done to their political fortunes."  Roy Blunt was one of those seven:

In Missouri, GOP Rep. Roy Blunt hasn’t helped his Senate campaign, either, with his suggestion that Americans would be better off without Medicare and Medicaid.

“You could certainly argue that government should have never gotten in the health care business, and that might have been the best argument of all,” Blunt told a local radio station.

The remark, quickly seized on by state and national Democrats, is sure to end up in a mailer or ad sometime soon.

Read More »

The NRCC announced a new ad campaign today targeting Rep. Ike Skelton, claiming that Skelton and Democratic leaders are "cutting Medicare by 500 billion dollars." If that sounds ridiculous, it's because it is.

FactCheck.org writes:  "The claim that Obama and Congress are cutting seniors’ Medicare benefits to pay for the health care overhaul is outright false, though that doesn’t keep it from being repeated ad infinitum."

AARP calls the line of attack a "myth."

Fact: None of the health care reform proposals being considered by Congress would cut Medicare benefits or increase your out-of-pocket costs for Medicare services.

Read More »

In a video interview posted by KY3's Dave Catanese last night, Roy Blunt pointed to the 2003 passage of an expanded Medicare drug benefit as an example of how Republicans attempted to address the nation's growing health care crisis. The plan, which Blunt described as "very costly," was the most expensive new federal program since the 1960s, until last fall's $700 billion financial bailout (which Blunt also supported). Watch it:

Today hasn't been all bad for Team Blunt.

In between strategy sessions about whether it might be okay to say that Barack Obama is a legitimate president and health care committee discussions, Americans United for Change delivered a "special birthday cake" to Roy Blunt's Capitol office.

Blunt's staff was reportedly very excited to learn that the cake -- celebrating Medicare's 44th Birthday -- was actually a real cake to enjoy.

It's unclear what studies Roy Blunt read to make him believe "Medicare has never done anything to make people more healthy," because everything I've seen shows that seniors are indeed more healthy because of Medicare.  In fact, Medicare covers nearly 45 million beneficiaries (about 15% of the population), including 38 million seniors and 7 million younger adults with permanent disabilities. Yes, it's expensive and needs some reforms to keep helping people in a sustainable manner, but that's a separate issue from whether or not it actually makes people healthier.

Medicare, as Blunt surely knows, has four parts:

• PART A, the Hospital Insurance (HI) program, which covers inpatient hospital services, skilled nursing facility, home health, and hospice care.
• PART B, the Supplementary Medical Insurance (SMI) program, which helps pay for physician, outpatient, home health, and preventive services.
• PART C, the Medicare Advantage program, which allows beneficiaries to enroll in a private plan, such as a health maintenance organization (HMO), preferred provider organization (PPO), or private fee-for-service (PFFS) plan.
• PART D, the outpatient prescription drug benefit.

The Missouri Democratic Party has posted video of comments from Roy Blunt made this past weekend, in which Blunt states: "We've had Medicare since 1965, and Medicare has never done anything to make people more healthy. If there's any opportunity for more healthy activity, it's going to be, again, a private, competitive..." 

It's an incredible claim, but consistent with his comments a few weeks ago that it would have been best if Medicare and Medicaid had never been created. This may be new information for Blunt, but a lot of his constituents are much healthier because of Medicare, and they like it very much.