NYT editorial: Come Again?
Republicans claim to be deeply worried about the deficit — their favorite political target, followed closely by President Obama’s relentlessly demonized health care reform. So why are they so determined to overturn one of the central cost-control mechanisms of the new reform law?
Republicans in both the Senate and the House have introduced bills that would eliminate the new Independent Payment Advisory Board, which is supposed to come up with ways to rein in excessive Medicare spending — and stiffen Congress’s spine.
Starting in 2014, whenever Medicare’s projected spending exceeds a target growth rate, the board of 15 members (drawn from a range of backgrounds, appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate) will have to recommend reductions in payments to doctors and health care providers to bring spending back to target levels. These recommendations would become law unless Congress — not known for its political courage in such circumstances — passed an alternative proposal that would achieve comparable savings.
None of this poses any real threat to Medicare beneficiaries. The law prohibits the board from making proposals that would ration care, increase taxes, change Medicare benefits or eligibility, increase premiums or cost-sharing, or reduce low-income subsidies for drug coverage. It cannot call for a reduction in payments to hospitals before 2020.
(More here.)
Republicans in both the Senate and the House have introduced bills that would eliminate the new Independent Payment Advisory Board, which is supposed to come up with ways to rein in excessive Medicare spending — and stiffen Congress’s spine.
Starting in 2014, whenever Medicare’s projected spending exceeds a target growth rate, the board of 15 members (drawn from a range of backgrounds, appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate) will have to recommend reductions in payments to doctors and health care providers to bring spending back to target levels. These recommendations would become law unless Congress — not known for its political courage in such circumstances — passed an alternative proposal that would achieve comparable savings.
None of this poses any real threat to Medicare beneficiaries. The law prohibits the board from making proposals that would ration care, increase taxes, change Medicare benefits or eligibility, increase premiums or cost-sharing, or reduce low-income subsidies for drug coverage. It cannot call for a reduction in payments to hospitals before 2020.
(More here.)
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2 Comments:
If anyone thinks that a panel appointed by the President and approved by the Senate is not going to have Congress interfering with their business is in LaLa land.
I mean, haven't we heard this before when Barney Frank and Chris Dodd told us all that Freddie and Fannie were on solid financial footing regardless of the warnings from the Bush Administration that they had taken on too much debt and exposed the taxpayer to too much risk? Remember Freddie and Fannie came under the pressure of the Federal Government during the Clinton Administration to take on riskier investments as part of requiredments of the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977.
We got in the housing mess with Freddie and Fannie because we were told that home ownership was a 'right' and GSEs like Freddie and Fannie were used to subsidize that dubious right.
So, here we are now with another 'right' - the right to health care - and we are doing the same thing in exposing the taxpayer to massive costs. How on earth can we cover another 30 to 40 million uninsured and save money at the same time?
Now, the Times tell us to bury our head in the sand over the same situation and 'don't worry, everything is just fine' as Frank and Dodd suggested we do with Freddie and Fannie.
Perhaps the Republicans finally are 'getting it' that you cannot pile on debt with impunity by proxy with GSEs under the rubrick of another dubious 'right' and have learned a tough lesson that they obviously forgot when they were in the majority during the Bush Administration. I am hoping there is a Democrat somewhere who is concerned more about the exponential costs of their programs regardless of some nameless panel in charge of keeping costs in check than they are about their re-election.
The costs of health care soar when prices and information aren't transparent. Check out the explanations at www.whatstherealcost.org
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