Many Seniors Oppose Health Reform: What’s Wrong With This Picture?
September 10th, 2009 by Ken Coughlin
According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted in mid-August, about six in 10 Americans over 65 disapprove of the way President Obama is handling health care, with 53 percent strongly disapproving. At the same time, virtually everyone over age 65 is a Medicare beneficiary, a highly popular government program. Obama’s goal is to give all Americans the health care security that makes the Medicare program so well-liked among the elderly. So why are so many seniors apparently opposed to reform? In a word, fear.
Since seniors are a key voting bloc that reliably turns out even in off-year elections, some opponents of health reform have spread the word that proposed reforms will result in cuts to Medicare and the establishment of “death panels” that will decide who among the old will be cut off from life-saving treatment. As President Obama made clear in his address to Congress last night, both of these assertions are patently false. But many of the elderly have bought into this fear mongering and are terrified. Here are the facts:
Obama and House Democrats want to cut $177 billion in federal payments to the private Medicare plans over the next decade. The federal government now pays these “Medicare Advantage” plans, on average, 14 percent more per patient than it pays for those in the traditional Medicare program. These private plans are operated by some of the nation’s largest insurers, such as UnitedHealthcare and Humana. Obama and others argue that paying more to the Medicare Advantage plans is unfair to seniors in the traditional program. Reducing these large handouts to private insurers who compete with traditional Medicare will only make the Medicare program financially stronger.
The House health reform bill (HR 3200) would also allegedly make Medicare benefit “cuts.” As Joseph Baker, President of the Medicare Rights Center, has explained in recent testimony: “These ‘cuts’ are actually savings that providers like hospitals have already agreed can be made in order to trim Medicare’s budget and contribute to health care reform without affecting access to care for people with Medicare.” For the past 20 years, the Medicare Rights Center has been helping Medicare beneficiaries secure the benefits they deserve. If health reform would in any way jeopardize Medicare recipients’ benefits, you can bet the Center would sound the alarm. Instead, the Center is backing health reform. Moreover, far from cutting Medicare, the House bill would invest about $320 million more in Medicare.
Now, about those “death panels”: if you believe that, there’s a bridge in New York City you may be interested in. A provision in the House bill simply says that if a Medicare recipient wants to discuss end-of-life care with her doctor – and learn about things like advance directives, palliative care and hospice care – Medicare will pay for such counseling. The benefit is purely voluntary and payments to doctors are not based on the outcome of these talks, as some have falsely claimed. Many states have enacted or are developing similar initiatives. They recognize, as does ElderLawAnswers, that talking about end-of-life issues is better done before a crisis hits, at which point the patient may no longer be able to convey his wishes. But thanks to the “death panel” scare tactics, this worthy provision has been dropped from consideration in the Senate.
It is the greatest irony that health reform opponents – many of whom have also been longtime foes of Medicare — are telling seniors that their government-provided Medicare is threatened by government-provided health reform. Rather than buy into the message of fear, seniors should look closely at the messenger.
September 14th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Thank you for putting the facts out there. Too many people are putting out fear.
September 14th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
F-E-A-R is right! The ‘messengers’ will continue their fight to strangle MediCare, ‘improving’ it to death, a la part D!!!
September 14th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
I don’t think you have all the facts, nor does anyone else making all the statements pro and con. AS far as I’m concerned it’s not broke. Don’t mess with it.
September 15th, 2009 at 6:04 am
I did not realize that you were so LEFT WING. I am a conservative patriot. Please remove me from your mailing list.
September 15th, 2009 at 9:08 am
This piece seems a little biased, actually, it seems a lot biased. You are a candidate for that bridge, if you believe that the legal profession (along with the unions) are among this administration’s (and the Congressional majority’s) favorite special interest groups.
I seriously wonder if the writer’s support for health care insurance reform, as proposed, would be nearly as enthusiastic, if meaningful medical tort reform was included as a means of reducing the cost of medical care. Although the retort is often that this area represents only a small portion of the cost of health care (less than 1%), there is data that indicates that much of the “excessive” testing conducted is an attempt by the medical profession to protect themselves from law suits. There are estimates that law suit prevention procedures represent 20% or more of medical costs.
The writer is correct about one thing – seniors should look closely at the messenger.
September 15th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Exactly what is your explanation (facts and figures) of how the government is going to cut enough funding from Medicare—and gut Medicare Advantage—to be able to pay for a large percentage of the increase in government healthcare costs (for the people who will be added to govt. healthcare rolls)? You are extremely biased in your little article. I definitely will consider the messenger. Due to your flippant and biased attitude, you will be one of the messengers I don’t trust.
September 15th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Margolis is an attorney from Boston. And you’re just now noticing he’s for pro-big government “programs” controlling private insurance companies? Any government program that depends on confiscation from paychecks and imposes the program on people that don’t want it is immoral. We have them. Marx and Ponzi would admire them.
September 16th, 2009 at 2:04 am
Please before you write an article disputing people’s heartfelt objections to a major health care reform, take the time to sit down and actually read it for yourself (as most seniors have already done)HR3200, from page to page, and then take your pen in hand and write the hard truth from your heart not from what the far left wing is relaying to you to write. Most seniors have enough sense to not trust what they hear (probably through a life time of experiences) and to find out for themselves what is truth and what is not. Please before you accuse people of being ignorant get your facts right. How can you put 30 million more people into the health care system with no new doctors and expect rationing of some sort to be put into place. Common sense says, it will only cause delays in treatments and costs will be cut. Seniors know who will be the ones rationed. Remember your going to be a senior some day. Maybe you won’t make light then. Please show me in HR 3200 where the statement you made {Moreover, far from cutting Medicare, the House bill would invest about $320 million more in Medicare. } I must have overlooked that when I read it. I read they would be cutting reimbursements to doctors and hospitals. At this time not all doctors take medicare patients due to that very reason, low reimbursements, and now they would cut even more. I predict that more doctors will just retire earlier should this go into effect, and I can’t say I would blame them at all. Then again, I rest my case. And I won’t even begin to tell you of all the added pork to this health care bill. It is mind-boggling how so much extra spending is put in a health care bill that has nothing to do with health care. That’s what everyone should be concerned with.
Do not pass HR 3200 in any shape or form, the pork will be in it. Thank you for your time.
September 17th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
Even though Medicare is only a few decades old, most of us approaching retirement age feel a lot better knowing it’s available at least as secondary insurance than we would if we had to depend exclusively on being able to continue private insurance. We’ve gotten so used to Medicare that it’s hard to imagine old age without a public insurance option. Now, is it so hard to imagine how much better childhood, or adulthood, might feel with the same sort of safety net? Workers wouldn’t feel tied to dead-end jobs for fear of losing insurance, or forced to switch jobs if their employer couldn’t afford a decent plan; divorcing spouses & their children wouldn’t be suddenly deprived of the breadwinner’s coverage; recent college graduates wouldn’t risk indebtedness because they couldn’t afford private premiums. As citizens of a democracy, we should not turn a blind eye to this major source of fear and stress for a large proportion of our fellow citizens. We are intelligent enough to construct a good public program for our country.
September 17th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
Obama himself at a press conference told a reporter her mother might have to be given pain killer instead of treatment in order to accommodate the impossible mathematics of govt run health care. Fear is not unbased.
Obama in his speech to congress said illegals and abortion were off the table. Trouble is, amendments specifically saying that were voted down. That’s why one congressman called him a liar.
Poor information, lack of facts, mistrust of politicians who don’t read the bills, policians who will insert details afterwards during reconciliation of bills, multiple different bills under discussion- yes, certainly rational discussion is difficult. Many of us know that politicians are the last people we can trust to comprehend the implications and implement this program. Much of health care is excellent right now as far as most people are concerned- potential harm is much greater than potential improvement.
Politicians set regulations and laws- they can have open discussions and fix what needs fixing by creating cost reduction incentives and eliminating ability of the states to restrict competition within their borders (another politically created mess). They should no way be permitted to run the health care system.