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Guest Commentary January 31, 2002
Privatization of Medicare
The Honorable Sherrod Brown
On Monday President Bush called the Medicare program old and tired. He said he wants to give seniors better options like those available in the private sector. He said he wants to overhaul Medicare. He wants to overhaul Medicare and privatize Medicare.
The President has every right to push his privatization agenda but not by co-opting an issue like prescription drug coverage, as emotional and important as it is, not by characterizing Medicare as a failed program so that he can justify his goal of privatizing it. Whether it is Social Security privatization or Medicare privatization, it is disingenuous of the administration to portray privatization as improving the system.
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The retirement safety net was not put in place because liberals wanted to make the Federal Government bigger, nor should it be dismantled because conservatives want to make the Federal Government smaller. The safety net of Medicare was put in place because the private sector could not make a profit offering health insurance to seniors, so they stopped doing it. It was put in place because the values of this Nation are such that we believe Americans who helped build the Nation's unrivaled prosperity through their working years should not face financial uncertainty and hardship when they retire.
Pooling our resources into the public program we call Medicare is the best way to provide consistent, equitable, reliable health care benefits to our retirees. The stock market and the HMO industry may be good at many things, but alleviating uncertainty and providing health care are not two of them. Now the future of Social Security and Medicare are on the line.
The President says that seniors deserve better options in Medicare; that is why he favors privatization. Is Medicare inferior to the private insurance market? Would seniors be better off with a voucher that helps pay for coverage in an HMO?
Medicare is more reliable than private health plans. Medicare offers more choice than private health plans. Medicare operates more efficiently than private health plans. According to survey after survey, including a recent one from nonpartisan Commonwealth Fund, Medicare far outranks both employer-sponsored and individually purchased private insurance as a trusted source, a trusted source of health coverage. But the administration wants to give seniors more choice and better options in Medicare.
Is it better to have your choice of HMOs than to be able to choose your doctor under Medicare? Is it better to have your choice of HMOs than being able to choose your hospital under Medicare? Is it better to have your choice of HMOs than to be able to choose where any of your health care is delivered, from whomever you want, to the way regular, traditional government-sponsored Medicare fee for service works?
Medicare is a single plan that treats all beneficiaries equally, provides maximum choice and access for patients and doctors. Contrast that with the President's Medicare voucher program envisioned by the administration. Instead of being guaranteed access to needed health care services, seniors would be guaranteed access to a partial voucher for private health insurance.
Medicare guarantees full choice of physicians. Private HMOs advocated by the administration do not. Medicare guarantees full choice of any hospital. HMOs, privatized Medicare; privatized HMOs do not. It appears higher-income seniors could afford this voucher plan because they could go and buy an additional decent plan. Lower-income enrollees would be relegated to restrictive alternatives.
In other words, when the President uses choice, it is really a code word for wealth. Some choice. ...
Medicare coverage is not old and tired. It is one of the best programs government has ever put together. It is simply incomplete without a prescription drug benefit. That is the Medicare issue.
I hope the President will abandon his privatization agenda and work with us in this body to add a real prescription drug benefit for all seniors. We do not need to fight over perceived and fabricated problems in the current Medicare program. The system is not broken. It simply needs prescription drug coverage to add to the Medicare system. We need to address the real issue.
Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, represents the 13th Congressional District of Ohio in the U.S. House of Representatives. The above column has been adapted from a speech Rep. Sherrod delivered on the floor of the House, January 29, 2002. To contact him, Click Here.
The above column has been distributed by PoliticsOL.com.
