Dems
Balk at Proposed Medicare Changes
By JANELLE CARTER, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - President Bush (news
- web
sites)'s plan to seek broad changes to Medicare is meeting early resistance
from Democrats who say seniors in the government health insurance program
shouldn't have to endure a major overhaul just to get a prescription drug
benefit.
Administration
officials on Friday said Bush will send guidelines to Capitol Hill in coming
weeks that will include the drug benefit as well as sweeping changes to
Medicare. White House officials
were said to be still working out the details, and it is believed Bush will
reveal more of his plan in his State of the Union address Jan. 28.
Senior officials who
discussed the issue only on the grounds of anonymity said a central component
of the changes will be competition among providers. Bush has long proposed such
reforms as a way to cut escalating costs. House Republicans included a pilot of
that proposal in a prescription drug bill that passed the House last year. The
pilot would have called for the traditional Medicare program to compete with
health maintenance organizations in four cities.
One
administration official said reforms are needed because the government can't
just attach a drug benefit to Medicare without structural improvements to the
system, particularly when Medicare is on the brink of running out of money with
the influx of the baby boomers in coming years.
Still,
Democrats said it is unwise to tinker with Medicare's foundation.
"Senior
citizens have paid into Medicare all their lives and deserve a prescription
drug benefit — no strings attached," said Sen. Edward Kennedy (news,
bio,
voting
record), D-Mass. "Medicare should not be the price senior citizens
have to pay for the affordable prescription drugs they deserve."
Kennedy, along with
Democratic Sens. John Rockefeller of West
Virginia and Bob Graham of Florida, sent a letter to Bush
Friday asking him to reconsider his plans.
"The most important
single step we can take to modernize Medicare and make it better is to provide
the prescription drug coverage senior citizens need," the senators wrote.
"We urge you not to divert the Congress from that critical task by
insisting that partisan, controversial and potentially destructive changes in
Medicare be the price senior citizens have to pay for the affordable
prescription drugs they deserve."
An official with the
AARP said it's too early for the nation's largest senior citizen lobby to
declare opposition or support.
"Medicare
does need to be brought into the 21st century and does need to have adequate
prescription drug benefits," said John Rother, AARP's director of policy
and strategy. But AARP also wants to see provisions that will allow
"people who are perfectly happy with Medicare the way it's run today to
stay put," Rother said.
Any
proposals for Medicare reforms could complicate what's already likely to be a
bruising battle over how best to provide a prescription drug benefit in
Medicare.
Last year's debate
stalled in the Senate after neither side could muster the 60 votes needed to
end debate. The two sides broke down mainly over Republican-backed language to
allow the prescription drug plan to be administered by private insurers, rather
than the government. Democrats have said it's too risky to turn the program
over to private industry.
Democrats and
Republicans are going to want to push action on a Medicare prescription drug
benefit in preparation for the 2004 presidential election.
The administration has
new confidence it can enact the changes Bush proposed in summer 2001, given the
Republican takeover of the Senate. Incoming Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist
of Tennessee is a Bush ally, surgeon and major player on health-care issues.
The proposed Medicare
changes were first reported in Friday's editions of The New York Times.
