This Monday the Senate voted on two amendments that determined whether savings from Medicare will be used to enhance the solvency of the financially troubled Medicare program or be used to finance new government health programs and additional spending. Once again, the lesson for taxpayers is clear: Pay no attention to Senate rhetoric on health policy. Pay close attention to Senate action.
Gregg Amendment on Medicare Solvency: Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) offered an amendment that would have required any new spending or revenue reductions stemming from the Senate health care bill to be fully offset by other savings before being enacted. Both the Director of the Office of Management and Budget and the Chief Actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Office of the Actuary would have to certify savings before spending could begin.
Sen. Gregg’s amendment would ensure that any savings from Medicare or Social Security would have to be applied back to those programs.
Gregg’s amendment highlights the issues raised by Senator Michael Bennett’s (D-CO) amendment, which passed early last week. Sen. Bennett’s amendment required savings from Medicare to increase the solvency of Medicare—it did not, however, require all savings from Medicare to be applied to the solvency of Medicare.
Gregg’s amendment would have clarified the policy that all savings from Medicare would be used to enhance Medicare solvency. Sen. Gregg’s amendment failed by a vote of 43-56.
Pryor Amendment on Patient Feedback in Health Care: Senator Mark Pryor (D-AR) introduced an amendment to create an online enrollee satisfaction survey system as part of the new federally designed health exchange that would exist in the states. This would allow enrollees to evaluate qualified health plans in the exchange, as long as the plan enrolled more than 500 participants. It would make it easy to compare enrollee satisfaction levels between comparable plans. Sen. Pryor’s amendment was agreed to with a vote of 98-0.
It should be noted that health plans that are qualified to compete in the exchange will have to meet extensive requirements both at the state and federal level. This means that most plans will not differ much from one to another. Without a wide variety of choice and competition between health plans, the right to choose the benefits and medical procedures that one wants or needs, “consumer satisfaction” information means less than it would in a free market system, where consumers, not government officials, make all the key decisions in the system.
Kathryn Nix currently is a member of the Young Leaders Program at the Heritage Foundation. For more information on interning at Heritage, please visit: http://www.heritage.org/about/departments/ylp.cfm
After noting that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid spending totaled $1.3 trillion, 43 percent of federal spending and more than twice military spending, in 2008, the Washington Post’s Robert Samuelson turns to Obamacare:
Now comes the House-passed health-care “reform” bill that, amazingly, would extract more subsidies from the young. It mandates that health insurance premiums for older Americans be no more than twice the level of that for younger Americans. That’s much less than the actual health spending gap between young and old. Spending for those age 60 to 64 is four to five times greater than those 18 to 24. So, the young would overpay for insurance that — under the House bill — people must buy: Twenty- and thirtysomethings would subsidize premiums for fifty-and sixtysomethings. (Those 65 and over receive Medicare.)
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Although premium changes would apply mainly to people using insurance “exchanges,” the differences would be substantial. A single person 55 to 64 might save $3,490, estimates an Urban Institute study. By contrast, single people in their 20s and early 30s might pay about $600 to $1,100 more. For the young, the extra cost might be larger, says economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth of the Hudson Institute, because the House bill would require them to purchase fairly generous insurance plans rather than cheaper catastrophic coverage that might better suit their needs.Whatever the added burden, it would darken the young’s already poor economic prospects. Unemployment among 16- to 24-year-olds is 19 percent. Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, notes on his blog that high joblessness depresses young workers’ wages and that the adverse effect — though diminishing — “is still statistically significant 15 years later.” Lost wages over 20 years could total $100,000. Orszag doesn’t mention that health-care “reform” might compound the loss.
Samuelson also goes after the AARP, so read the whole thing, here.
As we’ve noted before, the young are not the only losers under Obamacare. Particularly the poor and small businesses take a heavy hit too.