By Jack E. Lohman
HR6331 passed in the U.S. House but failed in the U.S. Senate, thanks to the financial contributions from the insurance industry to our esteemed politicians.
Isn’t democracy great?
Although the House voted 355 to 59 to preserve Medicare payments to physicians, Republicans Jim Sensenbrenner and Paul Ryan voted with the insurance interests and against Medicare. It gives a warm and fuzzy feeling to know that they (a) voted against Wisconsin seniors, present and future, and (b) voted against an efficient health care system that not only works well, but should become our national standard. Good guys these.
Senators Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold voted correctly, in favor of saving physician payments and eliminating the subsidies to private insurers.
There were two aspects to the defeated HR6331…..
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It would have retained the payments to
physicians treating “traditional” Medicare
patients. George Bush and his
followers want to eliminate public Medicare
altogether, because “private” Medicare can
give campaign contributions and public
Medicare can’t. By reducing payments to
physicians by 10.6%, which becomes effective
July 1st, fewer physicians will accept
traditional Medicare patients, and those
patients will have to seek out “private”
Medicare companies instead.
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We will now continue the
taxpayer-paid subsidies to private insurers.
In 2003 Bush signed a law allowing private
insurers to “compete” with public Medicare.
Roughly 20% of Medicare beneficiaries have
chosen the private systems and 80% have
remained with traditional Medicare. Problem
is, private Medicare companies are paid (by
taxpayers) up to 17% more than
it costs for traditional Medicare!
So much for private being less costly than public.
So here we have it. Politicians on the take are making decisions in the best interest of their contributors. It is puzzling that conservatives who oppose high taxes tolerate this corrupt system, but that’s the way it is.
The best, simplest, least costly, most efficient thing we could do is expand what has been working so well for years, Medicare. You get sick, you get care, and the caregiver gets paid. Nothing could be simpler.
Every individual in America is paying for our health care system already, either through cost shifting, bankruptcy costs, or when employers add their costs to their product and we reimburse them at the cash register. We ought to simply extend Medicare to everyone and eliminate the 31% insurance bureaucracy waste. This would be a boon to U.S. businesses and would keep jobs in the country. But admittedly, the insurance industry that is enjoying the 31% waste wouldn’t like it a bit, and they are helping to fund the politicians’ campaigns. Political corruption at its finest!
Coincidentally, Sensenbrenner has investments in Merck, Pfizer, Medco Health, and Ryan has investments in Baxter, Medtronic, Tenet Healthcare, Pfizer. Both receive significant campaign contributions from the health care industry.
Since Sensenbrenner’s republican opponent, Jim Burkee, follows the health care ideology of Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), it is assumed that he would have voted the same way as Coburn and Sensenbrenner.
