Medicare in Crisis: The Devastating Impacts of a Corporate Health Care Bill
Global Research E-Newsletter
Care Bill
By Shamus Cooke
URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16297
Global Research, November 27, 2009
Wading through the endless debate over health care has exhausted
the patience of most Americans the zigzags, obscure language, and
long-winded discussion is inherently repulsive.
But now the dust is starting to settle, and the Congressional vision
for health care in the U.S. is emerging. Instead of being progressive,
it will amount to a massive, corporate-inspired attack on American
workers, the elderly, and the poor.
After months of confusion and delay, Congress has shipwrecked the
popular energy over health care onto the jagged rock of corporate
interests. More spectacularly, health care reform is being used as
an opportunity to greatly advance corporate influence over social
spheres long-dedicated to the working-class seemingly harmless
provisions carry with them enormous implications.
These devils hide in the details of the competing health care bills
in Congress; both contain debilitating right-wing policies hidden
within a progressive shell. Obama is indeed acting as the agent of
change, to the great benefit of the U.S. corporate elite.
And although the final bill has yet to be crafted, there exists
general agreements as to what the end version will look like.
Americans will be forced to buy shoddy corporate insurance with no
limit to the cost, no guarantee of quality, with large premiums and
other tricks to further gouge consumers. If a public option emerges
in the final bill by no means a guarantee it will be shrunken
enough to insure very few people (2 percent of the U.S. population).
But it gets worse. How this health care reform will be paid for
has implications that dwarf the above atrocities.
For example, the Democrats were determined to pass a health care
bill that will not add one cent to the deficit. And they have
succeeded: the House and Senate health care bills both plan to
reduce the deficit by over $100 billion. But a second-grader could
do the math here: more service does not equal less cost a truism
that dominates the for-profit health care industry.
So how does the government plan to save billions of dollars as they
help millions of people?
The two biggest cost saving schemes are the most damaging. The
first is the enormous attack on Medicare. Since its inception, the
corporate elite wanted this program struck down. Now they have their
man for the job a Republican could never get away with such obvious
treachery.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Senate version
of health care would cut $404 billion from Medicare and Medicaid;
the house version would cut $570 billion. The final cut could be
much more. Obama made the ridiculous claim that only wasteful parts
of Medicare would be cut. The truth is far different.
One way that both Congressional health care bills will gut Medicare
is referred to as forced productivity gains cost saving measures
essentially;
trimming the fat.
What are these savings? The most mentioned device by politicians
and media alike is the reduction of wasteful tests and procedures
that doctors routinely perform, an idea that the health care
mega-corporations love. It will save them billions, while having
catastrophic effects on the health care of millions of people.
For example, the recent announcement that women will now be persuaded
to cut back on screenings for breast cancer and cervical cancer
have caused an uproar nationwide: people are correctly making the
connection behind Congress' forced productivity gains and the new
recommendations that will be used by insurance companies to justify
cutting these services, both of which will boost profits. The
general agreement behind rationing health care in this way will be
an attack on not only Medicare, but serve as the backbone of any
health care bill passed, negatively effecting everyone unable to
afford luxury health care.
Another piece of Medicare that's being trimmed is Medicare Advantage,
a favorite program of the elderly because of its comprehensive
services.
Premiums for this program are already rising drastically in
anticipation of the health care bill's passage, considered by
Congress to be wasteful.
Without this program, Medicare will be greatly devalued and be more
appropriately named: band-aides for seniors.
Finally, The Senate health care bill attacks Medicare by reducing
payments to doctors by 25 percent. If doctors receive such a drastic
reduction in pay, they will simply refuse to see Medicare or Medicaid
patients; people will thus be insured only on paper. The newly
insured Medicaid patients under any new congressional bill will be
sorely disappointed.
Once Medicare is undermined in the above ways, the corporate sponsored
right-wing will make a very convincing argument that Medicare doesn't
work, leading to future cuts that will further destroy the program.
The second hidden disaster in financing a congressional health care
bill is the tax on so-called gold-plated or Cadillac health insurance
policies that some employers offer their workers. This tax is
supposedly meant to apply to the health care policies that elite
employees receive.
And while there should exist no complaints about taxing corporations,
the motives behind this particular tax are intentionally deceiving.
As it turns out, many, if not most workers in unions will be included
in this tax, which, under the Senate version, will include any plan
worth more than $8,000 for individuals and $21,000 for families.
Hardly elite, considering the still-soaring costs for health care.
If this provision were to pass and it's very popular in Congress
the immediate reaction would be very predictable: employers would
immediately drop their health care plans, forcing workers into the
now-forced purchasing of inadequate health care. This is why unions
oppose such a plan. California Democrat Pete Stark agrees: Employers
and insurers will reduce their benefits to avoid paying the proposed
tax.
Workers fortunate to have union contracts will be heavily pressured
to concede their plans, which in the past they've sacrificed
wage-increases to keep.
Ultimately, employers will have a new excuse not to provide health
care to workers.
Obama again used his superb intelligence to totally obscure the
issue in support of the tax:
I do think that giving a disincentive to insurance companies to
offer Cadillac plans that don't make people healthier is part of
the way that we're going to bring down health care costs for everybody
over the long term.
Translation: he supports taxing the health care of union workers.
Overall, a compromise bill between the Senate and House versions
will create utter disaster for the working-class. It will not
signal a progressive step in the right direction, as many liberals
claim. At minimum, it will be a step backward, though more likely
such a bill will be an enormous regression, to a time where health
care was the exclusive privilege of the wealthy.
The right-wing attacks on Obamacare along with the media's lack
of questioning have shielded the Democrats from any serious debate
about the above questions, including many other concerns unmentioned
here.
The trash legislation that Congress is producing is the direct
consequence of the Democratic Party being dominated by giant
corporations in this case the health care industry. The two-party
system is the political system of the corporate elite, who switch
party affiliations when they find it convenient;
many of them throw equal money at both parties.
A crucial prop in this broken political system needs to be removed
and organized under its own strength. If the unions took their
support from the Democrats, organized their members and resources
into a new political party, and aggressively pushed reforms that
benefited the majority of working-class Americans, U.S. democracy
would be tremendously strengthened. Medicare could not only be
saved, but expanded to everyone from birth to death and be considered
a fundamental human right.
Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer
for Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org). He can be reached at
shamu...@yahoo.com
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Copyright Shamus Cooke , Global Research, 2009
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