Congress Makes Such a Muddle of Medicare That Only Politicians Will Get Any Coverage

[302Riz]

Rarely have so many agreed to spend so much to do so little for so few.

This is Medicare month in Congress and so no pander is too preposterous. Lawmakers rush to finish, before July 4th, a prescription-drug plan they call the most far-reaching expansion of health care to the elderly in more than a generation.

It should be called history's biggest Medicare fraud.

And that's just the loophole-ridden drug plan, which would actually force some elderly people to spend more in premiums, deductibles and copayments than they spend now for their medicine. Anyway, the real purpose of the measure was tucked into the House version of the bill without hearings or debate. It's a radical overhaul of Medicare that would turn the health-insurance system for the aged into a voucher program, beginning in just seven years.

The House proposal would replace Medicare's guaranteed coverage with a guarantee only that the elderly would get a sum of money to buy whatever kind of benefits - at whatever price - private insurers choose to offer. Those who want traditional fee-for-service Medicare would be forced to pay higher premiums. So at least now we know the drug plan, skimpy and fraught with uncertainties, is merely a cover for achieving former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's dream of forcing Medicare to "wither on the vine."

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