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Bush Says He Will Fix Medicare Drug Program
President wants bipartisan solution to Medicare,
Medicaid, Social Security
Feb. 2, 2006 President Bush, speaking in
Nashville yesterday, followed up with some details concerning healthcare
that were not covered in the State of the Union. He said he will address
the problems in the Medicare prescription drug program and called for a
bipartisan solution to the financial problem of Medicare, Medicaid and
Social Security, according to the Daily Health Policy Report by
KaiserNet.org.
Daily Health Policy Report
Administration News | President Bush Discusses
Health Proposals, Other State of the Union Themes While in Nashville
[Feb 02, 2006]
 President Bush on Wednesday "took his upbeat
message on the road" and reiterated his health care proposals in a
"reprise" of his State of the Union address in Nashville, Tenn., the
New York Times reports. Although Bush "rushed through a list of
proposals on health care," he promised to address problems with the new
Medicare prescription drug benefit, which he did not mention in his
address on Tuesday, the Times reports (Pear, New York Times, 2/2).
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'These are Our Problems to Solve,' Declares HHS
Secretary in Medicare Drug Benefit Progress Report
Feb. 2, 2006 New estimates released yesterday by
Health and Human Services show the costs of the Medicare drug benefit
are significantly less than expected. In a one-month progress report,
Secretary Mike Leavitt also said HHS and the Medicare drug plans are
taking actions to improve the drug programs performance. "We make no
excuses. These are our problems to solve," he said in releasing the
report.
Read more...
Medicare Drug Program Costing Everyone Less Than
Expected
Feb. 2, 2006 - Medicares new drug coverage will
have significantly lower premiums for beneficiaries and lower costs to federal taxpayers
and states, as a result of stronger than expected competition in the
prescription drug market and lower drug costs, CMS Administrator Mark B.
McClellan announced Thursday.
Read more...
House Passes Budget Bill with
Biggest Cuts in Medicaid,
Medicare
Cuts $99.3 billion over 10 years - 27% from Medicaid,
23% from Medicare.
Feb. 1, 2006 It's done. The House has passed and
sent to President Bush the budget reconciliation bill that was strongly
opposed by most senior citizen advocacy groups and newspaper editorials
due to the deep cuts it makes in Medicaid and Medicare. It was a very
close vote 216 to 214. The bill cuts the budget by $38.8 billion over
five years 50 percent of the cuts over 10 years are in Medicaid and Medicare.
Read more...
Senior Citizen Programs Get Virtually No Attention in State of the Union
Bush wants commission to study boomer impact on senior programs
Jan. 31, 2006 - There was little expectation that President Bush would
propose many specific proposals to enhance the senior citizen programs
of Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid - those expectations were
understated. What seniors got on these programs was a brief mention,
late in the speech, that lasted for two paragraphs proposing "a
commission to examine the full impact of baby boom retirements on Social Security,
Medicare, and Medicaid." That was it!
Read more,
including text of State of the Union...
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Bush also said that the future financial problems
with Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security require "a new attitude" in
Washington, D.C., adding, "I want the Democrats on Capitol Hill to hear
loud and clear, I want a bipartisan solution on mandatory and
entitlement spending for the sake of a future generation of Americans"
(Koffler, CongressDaily, 2/1).
In addition, Bush reiterated his call for
legislation that would cap damages in medical malpractice lawsuits,
adding, "It's time for those senators who are blocking that bill, those
senators who are representing the trial lawyers of America, to
understand the damage they are doing to the health care industry of this
country."
Meanwhile, Bush advisers in Washington, D.C., "set
forth a more detailed case" for his proposal to expand health savings
accounts "as a way for people to squirrel away money for their medical
needs," the Times reports.
According to Allan Hubbard, a senior Bush economic
adviser, HSAs could help low-income U.S. residents because the
high-deductible health plans associated with the accounts are less
expensive than traditional health insurance.
He said, "Some people say, 'Well HSAs are just for
the rich and the well,'" adding, "As it turns out, of the three million
people who have taken up HSAs, 37% were previously uninsured, and 40%
earn less than $50,000 a year." However, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.)
called HSAs "a windfall for the wealthy" that "will make life harder for
ordinary Americans" (New York Times, 2/2). Additional information from
the White House is available
online.
Health Care Proposals Examined
In related news, several newspapers recently examined some of the health
care proposals that Bush announced in his State of the Union address.
Summaries appear below.
●
CQ HealthBeat: CQ HealthBeat on Wednesday examined the debate over
the "ambitious" proposal for HSAs, which "represents the
administration's strongest push yet to convince employers and workers to
embrace" HSAs "as a way to get more for their health care dollar."
According to CQ HealthBeat, Democrats said they are "confident they
could defeat the Bush plan" (Carey/Rooney, CQ HealthBeat, 2/1).
●
Los Angeles Times: The Times on Thursday examined how the White
House has "quietly revamped" a proposal "to provide poor families with
tax credits toward the purchase of medical insurance" to make
eligibility contingent upon their enrollment in a high-deductible health
plans associated with HSAs. According to the Times, the
"administration's original low-income tax credit, which it ... proposed
repeatedly in recent years" would have provided $1,000 and $3,000 to
individuals with annual incomes of $15,000 or less and to families with
annual incomes of $25,000 or less to help cover the cost of traditional
health insurance (Gosselin, Los Angeles Times, 2/2).
● Wall Street Journal: The Journal on Thursday
examined the advantages and disadvantages of HSAs. According to the
Journal, "more consumers may have to decide whether HSAs are the right
option for them" as Bush "moves to encourage growth" of the accounts
(Rubenstein, Wall Street Journal, 2/2).
●
Washington Post: The Post on Thursday examined how a Bush proposal
to establish a "tax credit for people with modest incomes to buy
insurance if they could not get it through their jobs" was "nowhere to
be found" in his State of the Union address. According to the Post, Bush
"recommended a far more modest tax credit only for people" who enroll in
high-deductible health plans associated with HSAs and "dropped a plan to
allow Americans to deduct out-of-pocket medical expenses" in favor of
"allowing only low-income people" with HSAs to deduct such expenses
(Baker/Babington, Washington Post, 2/2).
●
USA Today: USA Today on Thursday examined potential problems with
Bush's proposals to expand HSAs and the portability of health insurance.
The proposals are "aimed at controlling costs and helping more people
afford health care," but "it isn't clear how some of the proposals would
work," USA Today reports (Appleby, USA Today, 2/2).
Broadcast Coverage
Several broadcast programs reported on health care issues related to the
State of the Union address:
 APM's
"Marketplace":
The segment reports on HSAs and includes comments from Bush; Regina
Herzlinger, professor at
Harvard Business School; Brad Holmes, vice president of the health
care group at
Forrester Research; Hubert Jolly, vice president at
CitiGroup; Dan Perrin, publisher of
HSA Insider; and John Prince, CEO of
Exante Bank (Palmer, "Marketplace," APM, 2/1). The complete segment
is available
online in RealPlayer.
 NBC's
"Nightly
News": The segment reports on HSAs and includes comments from Robert
Moffitt, director of health policy studies at the
Heritage Foundation; Ron Pollack, executive director of
Families USA; and U.S. residents who have HSAs (Bazell, "Nightly
News," NBC, 2/1). A transcript of the segment is available
online. The complete segment is available
online in Windows Media.
NPR's
"News
& Notes with Ed Gordon": The segment includes comments from Rep.
Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)
(Gordon, "News & Notes with Ed Gordon," NPR, 2/1). The complete segment
is available
online in RealPlayer.
PBS'
"Tavis
Smiley Show": The segment includes an interview with former House
Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), founder of the
Center for Health Transformation (Smiley, "Tavis Smiley Show," PBS,
1/30). A transcript of the interview is available
online. The complete segment is available
online in RealPlayer.
WAMU's
"The
Diane Rehm Show": The first hour of the NPR-syndicated show on
Thursday is scheduled to include a discussion of Bush health care
proposals. Guests on the program are scheduled to include Glenn Hubbard,
former chair of the
Council of Economic Advisers and dean of
Columbia Business School; Pollack; and Julie Rovner, health policy
correspondent for NPR (Rehm, "The Diane Rehm Show," WAMU, 2/2). The
complete segment will be available
online in RealPlayer and Windows Media after the broadcast.
In addition, Joseph Antos, scholar in health care and retirement policy
at the
American Enterprise Institute, and Gerald Shea, special assistant to
the president for government affairs at the
AFL-CIO, are scheduled to answer questions in a Washingtonpost.com
online chat on Bush's health care proposals on Thursday at 1 p.m. A
transcript of the chat will be available
online.
"Reprinted with
permission from kaisernetwork.org (insert hyperlink to http://www.kaisernetwork.org).
You can view the entire
Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, and sign
up for email delivery at
www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser
Daily Health Policy Report is published for
kaisernetwork.org, a
free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. © 2006
Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights
reserved.
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