MAINE SENIOR REPORT   

August 8, 2007

An Information Service of the

Maine Council of Senior Citizens –
Alliance for Retired Americans
 (see link on home page at……

www.maineaflcio.org
 

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 3RD TUESDAY OF THE MONTH

9:30 AM   71 State Street, Augusta (MSEA/SEIU building)
NEXT MEETING - TUESDAY AUGUST 21
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 FROM THE DESK OF THE PRESIDENT

This entire issue is devoted to the recent action in the House and Senate approving increased funding for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP). Usually we focus on a number of issues but this action and the further action pending in September are of crucial importance to seniors and to all
Americans who want to improve the nation's health care system.

 As noted below, the legislation:

(1) Impacts seniors as well as children

(2) Is a prelude to the enactment in time to come of universal single payer health care

(3) Highlights (due to the Bush veto threat and GOP opposition) the basic Bush/GOP objectives in the area of health care

(4) Is not yet finalized and requires attention and work on the revised House/Senate measure in September

(5) Like all aspects of health care will be one of the top issues in the 2008 election.

We urge you to be informed and to make your voice heard on this vital issue that so strongly impact seniors and, indeed, all Americans.

John Carr

President

Maine Council of Senior Citizens
 
CONGRESS ACTS ON MEDICARE LEGISLATION
Victory for Seniors
House-Senate Conference Still Necessary
Raise Tobacco Tax 45 Cents
Opens Up Basic Fight - Health Care for All

The Bush administration is equating health care for children with public health care. This is good news for seniors and Democrats, for whom this is a winning issue and an excellent warm-up for a future fight over health care for all.

The argument over the reauthorization of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) and the threat of a Bush veto is proving to be not an argument over a particular program, but an increasingly desperate rear-guard action by the White House (and the Medical-Industrial Complex that funds it) to block any types of public insurance that could bring this country one step closer to universal health care.
 

In the beginning of August the U.S. House of Representatives passed  “The Children’s Health and Medicare Act of 2007,” by a 225-204 vote.  The legislation expands the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), a federal program for the children of the working poor, but it also helps older Americans.

 It would expand coverage for preventive health screening for seniors under Medicare and would provide $19 billion over five years to prevent scheduled cuts to physician reimbursements under Medicare.  To pay for itself, the bill would raise the federal tobacco tax by 45 cents a pack, while making federal payments to managed-care plans under Medicare equal to reimbursements for the federally managed Medicare program.  The reductions in overpayments to Medicare Advantage will increase the solvency of the Medicare Trust Fund by three years.

Senior Benefits
Among the new free benefits are diabetes screening tests, screening for glaucoma, an initial preventive physical examination, bone mass measurement, prostate cancer screening tests, colorectal cancer screening tests, mammography screening, and pap smear screening.

•  Helps low-income Medicare beneficiaries with Part D drug costs and cost sharing in traditional Medicare by raising asset limits, streamlining requirements for the Part D Low Income Subsidy (LIS), and improving Medicare Savings Programs (MSP);

• Ensures seniors access to the doctors of their choice by eliminating a scheduled ten percent payment cut to doctors;

• Allows Medicare beneficiaries to change drug plans if their drug plan formulary changes;

• Expands Medicare coverage by eliminating cost sharing for preventive health and bringing parity to cost sharing requirements for mental health.

When Medicare was established in 1965, it only provided services for the diagnosis and treatment of illness or injury.  Preventive services were not covered.  As the value of preventive services has become better understood, Congress has amended the Medicare law in an effort to expand coverage of preventive benefits.

To see a complete list of the preventative measures now covered (and paid for) by Medicare please go to:
http://www.medicare.gov/health/overview.asp

Bush Threatens Veto
The U.S. Senate passed a more modest version of the SCHIP bill by a vote of 68-31, making a House-Senate conference bill likely for this fall.  “Thank you all for your hard work in phone calls, letters to Congress and the media, and emails.  It paid off.  This is a great victory for the Alliance for Retired Americans and seniors, because it puts us on the path to stop Medicare privatization and improve the Medicare program,” said Edward F. Coyle, Executive Director of the Alliance.  “However,” he added, “President Bush has issued veto threats on the legislation.  So there's still work in front of us.” 

Catholic Charities Opposes Veto
Catholic Charities USA urges Congress not to give into presidential veto threats. "The White House's threat to veto this much-needed expansion of SCHIP would deny America's children essential health care and is the wrong approach to resolve ideological differences over health care reform," continued Hill. "Congress and the Administration must find the political will to improve the program in order to cover ALL eligible children. Adequate health care is a basic human right. When our nation denies that right, we neglect the common good and weaken our society."

Specifically Catholic Charities USA is calling on Congress to continue coverage for those children already enrolled in SCHIP, provide sufficient resources to enroll the millions more uninsured children who are eligible for SCHIP or Medicaid; ensure coverage for legal immigrant children and pregnant women by removing the current five-year restriction; and remove other barriers that keep many eligible families from enrolling in the program.

"It is a tragedy that 9 million children are living without health insurance in this country when we know that SCHIP works and is making a real difference in the lives of children from low-income families," said Candy Hill, senior vice president for social policy for Catholic Charities USA. "We can -- and must -- do better. SCHIP should be reauthorized and strengthened so even more low-income children have the health care coverage they need to grow up healthy and strong."
 

Sponsored Links

Call Veto Threat "Shameful"
“We commend the strong bipartisan vote in the U.S. Senate to reauthorize and expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). This is an enormous step forward for children and their health," said the Families USA director.

“This vote is even more commendable because Senators chose to look after the wellbeing of millions of children, especially those children in low-wage working families who can't afford health insurance, despite the President’s shameful veto threat.

“We continue to support Congress to do even more for children as the bill moves to conference.”

Tobacco Money Backs Veto
The major obstacle? President Bush is vowing to veto the bill, even though Republican and Democratic senators reached bipartisan agreement on it. The bill adds $35 billion to the State Children’s Health Insurance Program over the next five years by increasing federal taxes on cigarettes.

The conservative Heritage Foundation is against the tobacco tax to fund SCHIP, saying that it “disproportionately burdens low-income smokers” as well as “young adults.” No mention is made of any adverse impact on Heritage-funder Altria Group, the cigarette giant formerly known as Philip Morris.

Truth Is - Cigarettes Kill
According to the American Association for Respiratory Care, with every 10 percent rise in the cigarette tax, youth smoking drops by 7 percent and overall smoking declines by 4 percent. Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children’s Defense Fund, says: “It is a public health good in and of itself and will save lives to increase the tobacco tax. Cigarettes kill and cigarettes provoke lung cancer, and every child and every [other] human being we can, by increasing the cigarette tax, stop from smoking or slow down from smoking is going to have a public health benefit, save taxpayers money from the cost of the effects of smoking and tobacco.”

Public Wants Change
Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families just released a poll that says 91 percent of Americans support the expansion of SCHIP to cover more kids.

And the American people are willing to go much further. As demonstrated by the popularity of Michael Moore’s latest blockbuster, “SiCKO,” the public, across the political spectrum, is ready to fix the U.S. healthcare system.

No wonder Americans feel this way considering the racket that passes for America’s health-care system — the worst of the industrialized world, judging from its costs, access and quality. At $5,267 (based on 2004 data), Americans spend on health care by far more, per capita, than any other country. (Canada is next at $2,931.) Despite that, between Canada, France and Britain — the three countries whose “socialized” medicine system we’re most often compared to — we have the lowest life expectancy, the highest infant-mortality rate and the fewest hospital beds per 1,000 people. We have the fewest nurses except in France, but France has more doctors.

Best care in the world? Think again. Once you do get to see a care-giver, good luck. Last March, The New England Journal of Medicine exploded the myth of quality care with a study that showed that half the time, patients don’t receive the care they need. They’re mis-diagnosed, mistreated (literally) and mis-referred. Then they’re billed enough to induce fresh coronaries.

Top Democratic Achievement
The Democrats, for their part, have already expressed their intent to make an expansion of S-CHIP “the signature Democratic health achievement” of the Congress. The House, under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi, have offered a plan that increases S-CHIP’s funding by $10 billion a year and would extend coverage to more than 5 million uninsured children struggling to get added to S-CHIP’s rolls.
The Senate measure, a $35 billion expansion of the program over five years, would continue coverage for about 1 million children who might otherwise be dropped and add 3 million youngsters..

Program a "Huge Success"
Bush and his gang cannot argue with S-CHIP’s success. Last year, the program extended health coverage to some 7.4 million individuals. If Congress were to let it lapse, the ranks of the uninsured would swell to well over 50 million, and the states’ budgets would crumble beneath the added burden. The question, then, is not whether the White House signs into law a simple reauthorization — they have already professed a willingness to do that — but whether they can block efforts from Congressional Democrats to extend the program further.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that there are between 5 and 6 million children who are uninsured and qualify for Medicaid or S-CHIP, but are not enrolled. This is largely due to insufficient funding: The program simply cannot afford to cover all who are eligible. The Democrats want to make that funding sufficient. The White House opposes them.

Bush Gets Free Government Care
As the American Prospect points out, Bush after all, is not a man unacquainted with the wonders of government care. As the San Francisco Chronicle’s David Lazarus has noted, this steadfast opposition to public care is “coming from a man who just underwent a colonoscopy performed at the taxpayer-funded, state-of-the-art medical facility at Camp David by an elite team of doctors from the taxpayer-funded National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.”

It might be worth it for the Democrats to ask why he should receive such gold-plated care from the government, but the nation’s uninsured children should be barred from public coverage.

This legislation has been called "spring training for universal health care." Again the American Prospect notes this is not because there is a Trojan horse in the bill, or a compulsory element to the insurance it offers. Rather, it’s because Americans like their government-provided medical care.

Americans Like Medicare
Medicare achieves much higher patient-satisfaction ratings than do traditional private plans, but it’s available to all seniors already, so there’s no rear-guard action to be fought there. But if S-CHIP is also popular, and many parents come to prefer it to private insurance, others will clamor for their children to have access as well. And if you expand public insurance to children, soon it will move to young adults, and then adults more generally. Its expansion, particularly on the eve of a possible Democratic return to the White House, could be the wedge that leads to full, universal health care for all Americans.

This is what the White House, and the insurers and pharmaceutical companies who fund it, fear. Not that S-CHIP won’t work, but that it will. And that extending affordable, high quality public insurance to children will leave some adults wondering why we don’t extend affordable, high-quality public insurance to everyone. Just like we do for President Bush.

ARA CONFERENCE SEPT. 4-7

September 4-7, 2007

Hilton Washington and Towers, Washington, DC

"Building for America's Future"

The Alliance for Retired Americans invites members to attend its Legislative Conference in Washington, DC, September 4-7, 2007, and help us in Building for America’s Future.

The major focus of the speakers, workshops and training sessions will be honing our work with our growing State Alliances and educating our Federal elected officials about our priorities for building a safe and secure future for all Americans. 

Our Lobby Day will highlight our power with Congress.  Our members will meet with their Members of Congress on the issues that will ensure a secure future for America and all Americans, including the prescription drugs, Medicare, and Social Security.  Other scheduled events include a gala banquet (6 p.m. Sept. 6) and awards to persons making outstanding contributions on behalf of older Americans.

In just 6 years, the Alliance has grown to 3.4 million members.  By September 2007, we will have chartered 30 State Alliances.  Join us to set the course for the Alliance for Retired Americans and for a country that cares workers, retirees and their families.  Your voice and energy in Washington make a huge difference.

For Information or to Register>>>>
http://www.retiredamericans.org/ht/display/EventDetails/i/1960
 

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Editor’s Note: We are working to expand our mailing list and encourage forwarding this news report to others. You can remove your name/address from our list by sending name and “newsletter delete” to the Maine Council of Senior Citizens –  send an e-mail to MCSC Director Neena Quirion at mcsc@mseaseiu.org

Ed Schlick

Editor