The Century Foundation: In Medicare Debate Endgame, Congress Should Make Sure Nation's Elderly are Winners; TCF Releases Guide 11/12/2003
From: Christy Hicks of The Century Foundation, 212-452-7723; e-mail: hicks@tcf.org; e-mail: http://www.tcf.org NEW YORK, Nov. 13 -- With Congress scheduled to adjourn in just ten days, House and Senate negotiators may be nearing an agreement on a Medicare bill that would include an outpatient prescription drug benefit. Many hurdles remain, the most important being a provision that would increase competition between private health plans and the traditional Medicare program in the future. "Congress will be able to compromise on most of these issues. If it does, a bill can be passed," says Century Foundation fellow Leif Wellington Haase in a newly released guide to the issues in the debate over the Medicare bill. "However, if the question of whether Medicare should remain a public program or move ineluctably in the direction of privatization takes center stage, the quest for a prescription drug benefit once again will reach an impasse." In "At What Premium? A Guide to the Medicare Bill Endgame" Haase outlines the key issues, including competition and "premium support," that will be critical to a bill's passage. He points out that the biggest problems may occur in the wake of a bill being enacted. These obstacles may include the erosion of retiree drug coverage by employers and the dissatisfaction of many Medicare beneficiaries with the scope of the prescription drug benefit. However, he concludes that while the debate on the broader issue of Medicare's future is vital, the basic issue at stake must not be obscured. "Outpatient prescription drugs are an integral part of modern medicine and belong in the benefits package of any proper health insurance program," he says. "It is desperately unfair to needier Medicare beneficiaries -- in particular the roughly one-quarter who lack any supplemental drug coverage -- that the fate of a prescription drug benefit should come down to questions of ideology that have little to do with this fundamental point." Leif Wellington Haase works on health policy issues for The Century Foundation. He is the author of a number of issue briefs, reports, and commentaries on the subject. He is the author of Medicare Reform: The Basics (2001) and he has served as the staff director of the Foundation's Task Force on Medicare Reform. "At What Premium? A Guide to the Medicare Bill Endgame" is available on The Century Foundation Web site at http://www.tcf.org. Mr. Haase is available for interviews and commentary. For more information, contact Christy Hicks at 212-452-7723 or hicks@tcf.org. --- The Century Foundation is a research foundation that undertakes timely, critical, and analytical studies of major economic, political, and social institutions and issues. Nonprofit and nonpartisan, TCF was founded in 1919 and endowed by Edward A. Filene. |