Critics: Medicare Bills Threaten Universality

July 21, 2003
As a Congressional conference committee works to reconcile competing House and Senate Medicare bills, critics are warning of serious flaws in both bills.

In an op-ed article in The New York Times this week, Robert D. Reischauer, who directed the Congressional Budget Office from 1989 to 1995, warns, "If either the Senate or House bill is enacted, the ideal of universality will be history."

According to Reischauer, who is now President of the Urban Institute, a Washington, DC "think tank," universality is a "fundamental principle that has been a hallmark of Medicare since the program's inception. That principle ensures that all Medicare beneficiaries, no matter where they live or what their financial circumstances, are eligible for the same base benefits."

"Understanding what is going on in Congress with Medicare is really not complicated," says George J. Kourpias, President of the Alliance for Retired Americans, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO.

"Democrats, for the most part, want a meaningful prescription drug benefit. Republicans, for the most part, want to privatize the current fee-for-service Medicare program, using private insurance companies, and means-testing the program so that higher-income seniors - not wealthy, just those with slightly higher incomes - pay more for the same coverage as others."

Retiree Don Newcomb of Indianapolis testified in Washington on July 17 before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Human Rights and Wellness on the problems retirees with drug coverage could face under the congressional drug plans.

Newcomb, a UAW member who worked for the Ford Motor Company and Visteon for 38 years, told the subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN), that the House-passed bill, H.R.1, is a direct threat to employer-provided retiree drug coverage.

"I and other UAW retirees are worried that the bill passed by the House will put us at risk of losing our prescription drug coverage. Many employers may use the legislation as an excuse to drop retiree coverage," Newcomb said. "Over four million retirees with prescription drug coverage risk losing their benefits under this bill, and I am one of those four million. I am worried to death about how this will affect my family and other retirees."

Newcomb said H.R.1 discriminates against employer-provided retiree drug coverage because it does not count employer contributions toward meeting the catastrophic cap in the bill the way that employer contributions do count toward meeting the limits for Medicare hospital and doctors coverage.