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Senior Citizen Politics
Allowing Those 55 to Buy-in to Medicare, Negotiated
Drug Prices in Richardson Health Plan
Presidential candidate wants more emphasis on
preventive health care, too, as Sen. Clinton takes a turn as hospital
nurse
Aug. 8, 2007 The Democratic presidential
candidates have been taking turns to present their universal health care
proposals and yesterday it was New Mexico Governor Bill Richardsons
turn. Some innovations in his plan that can impact senior citizens
include letting those ages 55 to 64 pay to join Medicare, mandating
negotiations on Medicare drug prices and more emphasis on preventive
services. KaiserNetwork.org also notes today that Sen. Hillary Clinton will
work a day next week as a hospital nurse.
Democratic Presidential
Candidate Richardson Unveils Universal Health Care Plan That Would
Expand Preventive Coverage
Presidential candidate New Mexico Gov.
Bill Richardson
(D) on Tuesday announced a proposal that would extend health insurance
to the 45 million U.S. residents who lack coverage and would not require
a tax increase, the
Washington Post
reports. Under the proposal, all residents would have to obtain health
insurance (MacGillis, Washington Post, 8/8). The proposal would:
● Allow residents ages 55 to 64 to pay to
participate in Medicare, expand Medicaid and SCHIP to include more
low-income children and families and allow young adults to continue to
receive health insurance through the policies of their parents until age
25;
● Provide tax credits on a sliding income scale
to help residents purchase health insurance (Glover,
AP/Houston
Chronicle, 8/7);
● Allow residents and small businesses to
purchase the same health insurance offered to members of Congress and
the president;
● Mandate that health insurers no longer can
deny coverage to residents with pre-existing medical conditions;
● Provide veterans with a "Heroes Health Card"
that would expand their access to health care;
● Require employers to pay a share of health
insurance costs for employees;
● Limit interest rates applied to health care
costs charged to credit cards;
● Allow the federal government to negotiate
prices directly with pharmaceutical companies under the Medicare
prescription drug benefit (Petroski,
Des Moines Register,
8/8);
● Establish incentives for preventive care
programs; and
● Improve health care efficiency though
increased use of technology and other measures (AP/Houston Chronicle,
8/7).
Richardson said that the proposal would cost an
estimated $110 billion annually but that savings from the plan would
cover the cost (Washington Post, 8/8).
He said, "Despite Republican hand-wringing about
the cost of universal care, it is clear that the cost of doing something
-- in lives and dollars -- pales in comparison to the cost of doing
nothing" (Des Moines Register, 8/8). Richardson added, "My plan does not
build a new bureaucracy. The last thing we need between patients and
doctors is another sticky web of red tape" (AP/Houston Chronicle, 8/7).
Clinton to Work as Nurse
In other campaign news, presidential candidate Sen.
Hillary Rodham
Clinton (D-N.Y.) next week will work a shift as a nurse at a
hospital in the Las Vegas area as part of the "Walk a Day in My Shoes"
program sponsored by the
Service Employees
International Union, the
New York Post
reports. The Clinton campaign has not commented on the nursing duties
that she will perform.
On Wednesday, presidential candidate Sen.
Barack Obama
(D-Ill.) will help a home health aide care for an 87-year-old patient as
part of the program. Presidential candidates Sen.
Chris Dodd
(D-Conn.), former Sen.
John Edwards
(D-N.C.) and Richardson previously have participated in the program
(Earle, New York Post, 8/8).
AFL-CIO Debate
Seven Democratic presidential candidates on Tuesday
participated in a debate sponsored by the AFL-CIO at Soldier Field in
Chicago during which they discussed health care and other issues, the
Washington Post
reports.
During the debate, Clinton said that she has fought
against pharmaceutical and health insurance industry groups on health
care issues for a number of years. Edwards discussed health care when an
audience member told the candidates that a forced disability retirement
has left him unable to afford health insurance for himself and his wife
(Balz, Washington Post, 8/8).
●
MSNBC
video of the complete debate is available
online.
Video of a question for Edwards on health care also is available
online
(MSNBC, 8/7).
Letter to Editor Praises Giuliani Proposal
The health care
proposal
recently announced by presidential candidate and former New York City
Mayor
Rudy Giuliani
(R) "underscores the obvious: only the innovation of the private sector
and competitive pressures exerted by individual customers will cure what
ails the health care system," Scott Atlas -- senior adviser to the
Giuliani campaign, a senior fellow at the
Hoover Institution
and a professor at the Stanford University
School
of Medicine -- writes in a
Washington Times
letter to the editor.
According to Atlas, the proposal would "increase
the quality, affordability and portability of health care using
consumer-driven solutions," and families would have more "authority ...
through a new tax-free income exclusion ... of up to $15,000 for
Americans without employer-based coverage."
Giuliani has "laid out bold principles to get
affordable coverage for all Americans, and that coverage would offer
what they actually want, rather than what government decrees for them,"
Atlas writes, adding that proposals announced by Democratic presidential
candidates "offer only steps toward socialism" (Atlas, Washington Times,
8/8).
Preventive Care Might Not Save Money, Columnist
Writes
The great hope of every health care reformer is
that better care will mean cheaper care," columnist David Leonhardt
writes in a
New York Times
opinion piece, noting that the "three leading Democrats running for
president have all put this idea at the center of their plans," and
Giuliani has suggested it as well.
Leonhardt continues, "The would-be reformers have
hit on something important here. The current health care system doesn't
pay hospitals, doctors and nurses to keep people healthy; it pays for
tests, surgeries and drugs," so with a greater focus on preventive care,
U.S. residents "would be healthier than they are today and live longer."
However, "the current presidential candidates go
one step further," Leonhardt says, adding, "They don't merely argue that
preventive care delivers good bang for the buck. They argue that it
delivers good bang for no bucks whatsoever. And this is where the
candidates are overreaching."
He writes that "[n]o one really knows whether
preventive medicine will save money in the long run, let alone free up
the billions of dollars a year needed to help pay for universal health
insurance." Leonhardt continues that by "describing it as an easy
win-win solution, the presidential candidates are gliding over an
important part of the issue" -- that preventive care "saves real money
only when it replaces existing care that is expensive and doesn't do
much, if any, good."
However, people receiving this type of care
"typically don't consider it wasteful," and "[p]ersuading people
otherwise -- persuading them that basic care is sometimes cheaper and
better -- will be difficult," Leonhardt writes (Leonhardt, New York
Times, 8/8).
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