You’ll be seeing more and more of Maggie Mahar here as she works blogging into her new role at The Century Foundation. But of course, she’s not the only one who’s made this connection. If you want to see more of your host’s caustic comments on Medicare Advantange, and lots of good comments around it, try here, here here, here or here. Here’s Maggie on this week’s dust up.
A debate rages in Congress: Who needs the money more – UnitedHealth or the kids?
This week, a storm hit the House of Representatives when law-makers began to debate a proposal that would, in the words of a Wall Street Journal editorial, “steal nearly $50 billion from Medicare Advantage, the innovative attempt to bring private competition to senior health care” in order to beef up the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), a program that delivers health care to poor children.
Last night, the House voted 225-204 to pass the legislation.
SCHIP is scheduled to expire September 30; the House bill would renew the program while expanding it to include another 5.1 million children at a cost of an extra $50 billion over five years. The bill’s backers propose to fund the legislation by increasing the federal cigarette tax by 45 cents while simultaneously paring the premium that Medicare pays private insurers who provide Medicare to seniors. The goal of the bill, reformers say, is to ensure that all children in the United States have health insurance. The Wall Street Journal’s editors see things otherwise: “Democrats apparently want to starve any private option for Medicare,” the editorial concluded.
Rupert Murdoch hasn’t yet weighed in, so I decided to take a look at the proposal. Would the House bill really make it impossible for private sector insurers to continue to offer needed benefits to seniors?
