"It's About Coalitions, Not Purity" Part Forty-Two
"Medicare Prescription Benefit"
Before I move directly to George W. Bush's second term, I want to touch on the Medicare changes enacted in late 2003, which resulted in a great deal of prescription drug coverage being added to the program, but the law didn't fully take effect until 2006, during Bush's second term. The 2003 Medicare reform law pushed by President Bush had many complexities and not all prescriptions were covered under all circumstances. The bill was controversial on both sides of the aisle. While most Democrats had favored providing a prescription coverage element to Medicare for some time, they also generally charged the Bush proposed legislation gave too much power to the pharmaceutical and insurance industries,* and that it further pushed "a move toward privatization," ** with the Medicare Advantage segment. Hardline conservatives generally opposed any expansion of Medicare, citing the costs and the deficits being run in the federal budget. Prior to the congressional vote, the Bush administration released a projected cost of $400 billion dollars for the prescription plan over ten years, but within weeks of passage, the administration released a new cost projection of more than $500 billion over the same time period, especially bringing more criticism from conservatives. The final bill was passed and signed into law by President Bush. The vote in Congress: House of Representatives vote: 220 for (204 R-16 D) and 215 against (25 R-189 D- 1 I) and the Senate vote: 54 for (42 R-11 D-1 I) and 44 against (9 R-35D), 2 not voting (2-D).***
* The law prohibited Medicare from negotiating with drug companies for lower prices, and the law required seniors to choose an insurance company or HMO for the prescription benefit, but that participation in the prescription program was purely by individual choice; that is, it was voluntary.
** Like with everything medical, changes to Medicare in 1997 were complex and to try to keep this as simple as possible, the law introduced "Medicare + Choice," which generally allowed seniors the option of having a private insurance company (or HMO) plan to cover their basic part of Medicare (hospital stays, physicians and outpatient tests and procedures), "plus" other coverage and pricing structures beyond those of traditional Medicare, but with Medicare paying a standard fee to the private companies for each senior. The insurance companies "could" charge seniors a monthly premium or higher copays for certain services, in addition to their premiums going directly to Medicare. The 2003 changes to Medicare brought prescription coverage to traditional Medicare, which the private plans usually already offered, which brought changes to how the private plans were to be compensated by Medicare. The "Medicare + Choice" program was renamed "Medicare Advantage." Critics of both the 1997 and 2003 changes argued that with seniors who were better off financially able to essentially pay for extra services outside of Medicare, that eventually only the poor and sickly seniors would be left in traditional Medicare, making them vulnerable to cuts in medical benefits, and perhaps an eventual abandonment of Medicare altogether by politicians, as healthier seniors and those with more financial means could actually save money and get better coverage by going to private plans. Remember, private companies have to make a profit and the easiest way to do so is to insure people who are healthier and thus "less likely" to use expensive medical services. Of course this was before the health care reforms of 2010.
*** Just a note: Later, Republicans Paul Ryan and Rick Santorum criticized "entitlements," but both voted "for" the Medicare expansion in 2003. Former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who was no longer in Congress at that time, offered support for the legislation, later to join in the criticism of entitlements.
WORD HISTORY:
Shave-This word goes back to Indo European "skahb," which meant "to scrape, to scratch." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "skaban(an)," with the same meanings, which then gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "sceafan/scafan," meaning "to shave, to scrape." These then became "shaven" (meaning "to shave"), before the modern version. Later the noun form, "a shave," was derived from the verb from the notion "something shaven" or "something shaved off." Both "shaven" and "shaved" are used for participle forms, with "shaven" especially used as an adjective, as in, "The witness said the man has a clean shaven face." "Shaved" is also the past tense form, shared with the now archaic "shove" (long "o"). By the way, English also once had the noun "scafa," which meant "plane;" that is, "tool for planing, shaving wood," but modern "shaver" "seems" to be derived or patterned after it. The other Germanic languages have: German "schaben" ("to scrape," "to plane," also somewhat less often, "to shave"), also the German noun "Schaber" ("scraper"); Dutch and Low German "schaven" ("to plane"); West Frisian "skave" ("to scrape, wear down"); Swedish "skava" ("to scrape"); Icelandic "skafa" ("to scrape"). Neither Danish nor Norwegian "seem" to use a form of the word in their standard modern languages.
Before I move directly to George W. Bush's second term, I want to touch on the Medicare changes enacted in late 2003, which resulted in a great deal of prescription drug coverage being added to the program, but the law didn't fully take effect until 2006, during Bush's second term. The 2003 Medicare reform law pushed by President Bush had many complexities and not all prescriptions were covered under all circumstances. The bill was controversial on both sides of the aisle. While most Democrats had favored providing a prescription coverage element to Medicare for some time, they also generally charged the Bush proposed legislation gave too much power to the pharmaceutical and insurance industries,* and that it further pushed "a move toward privatization," ** with the Medicare Advantage segment. Hardline conservatives generally opposed any expansion of Medicare, citing the costs and the deficits being run in the federal budget. Prior to the congressional vote, the Bush administration released a projected cost of $400 billion dollars for the prescription plan over ten years, but within weeks of passage, the administration released a new cost projection of more than $500 billion over the same time period, especially bringing more criticism from conservatives. The final bill was passed and signed into law by President Bush. The vote in Congress: House of Representatives vote: 220 for (204 R-16 D) and 215 against (25 R-189 D- 1 I) and the Senate vote: 54 for (42 R-11 D-1 I) and 44 against (9 R-35D), 2 not voting (2-D).***
* The law prohibited Medicare from negotiating with drug companies for lower prices, and the law required seniors to choose an insurance company or HMO for the prescription benefit, but that participation in the prescription program was purely by individual choice; that is, it was voluntary.
** Like with everything medical, changes to Medicare in 1997 were complex and to try to keep this as simple as possible, the law introduced "Medicare + Choice," which generally allowed seniors the option of having a private insurance company (or HMO) plan to cover their basic part of Medicare (hospital stays, physicians and outpatient tests and procedures), "plus" other coverage and pricing structures beyond those of traditional Medicare, but with Medicare paying a standard fee to the private companies for each senior. The insurance companies "could" charge seniors a monthly premium or higher copays for certain services, in addition to their premiums going directly to Medicare. The 2003 changes to Medicare brought prescription coverage to traditional Medicare, which the private plans usually already offered, which brought changes to how the private plans were to be compensated by Medicare. The "Medicare + Choice" program was renamed "Medicare Advantage." Critics of both the 1997 and 2003 changes argued that with seniors who were better off financially able to essentially pay for extra services outside of Medicare, that eventually only the poor and sickly seniors would be left in traditional Medicare, making them vulnerable to cuts in medical benefits, and perhaps an eventual abandonment of Medicare altogether by politicians, as healthier seniors and those with more financial means could actually save money and get better coverage by going to private plans. Remember, private companies have to make a profit and the easiest way to do so is to insure people who are healthier and thus "less likely" to use expensive medical services. Of course this was before the health care reforms of 2010.
*** Just a note: Later, Republicans Paul Ryan and Rick Santorum criticized "entitlements," but both voted "for" the Medicare expansion in 2003. Former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who was no longer in Congress at that time, offered support for the legislation, later to join in the criticism of entitlements.
WORD HISTORY:
Shave-This word goes back to Indo European "skahb," which meant "to scrape, to scratch." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "skaban(an)," with the same meanings, which then gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "sceafan/scafan," meaning "to shave, to scrape." These then became "shaven" (meaning "to shave"), before the modern version. Later the noun form, "a shave," was derived from the verb from the notion "something shaven" or "something shaved off." Both "shaven" and "shaved" are used for participle forms, with "shaven" especially used as an adjective, as in, "The witness said the man has a clean shaven face." "Shaved" is also the past tense form, shared with the now archaic "shove" (long "o"). By the way, English also once had the noun "scafa," which meant "plane;" that is, "tool for planing, shaving wood," but modern "shaver" "seems" to be derived or patterned after it. The other Germanic languages have: German "schaben" ("to scrape," "to plane," also somewhat less often, "to shave"), also the German noun "Schaber" ("scraper"); Dutch and Low German "schaven" ("to plane"); West Frisian "skave" ("to scrape, wear down"); Swedish "skava" ("to scrape"); Icelandic "skafa" ("to scrape"). Neither Danish nor Norwegian "seem" to use a form of the word in their standard modern languages.
Labels: conservatives, English, entitlements, etymology, George W. Bush, Germanic languages, insurance industry, medical prescriptions, Medicare, Newt Gingrich, Paul Ryan, pharmaceutical industry, Rick Santorum
posted by Randy at 9:05 PM
1 Comments:
The Republicans stopped Medciare from negotiating lower prices, but then they complain about costs. All done to support those big companies, as is so common with the GOP. They also didn't pay for any of this, but then savaged Obama later on his medical plans.
Post a Comment
<< Home