Care, not scare

tool name

tool name

Reform, forward

There is no question that Democrats will have to convince all Americans, not just those who rely on Medicare for their health care coverage, that their proposals to cut back federal subsidies to private Medicare plans and to providers such as hospitals don't represent a threat to the elderly. These steps, part of the health care reform plan now under debate in the U.S. Senate, are intended to save money that will be diverted to extend insurance to those who don't have it.

Democrats say the Medicare changes, which they insist will not result in denying treatment to those who need it and want it, are crucial threads in the overall reform tapestry they've tried to create. They're also key to making Medicare more solvent in the long run, one reason reforms are supported by AARP.

So now Republicans, having blasted the reform plan as amounting to government-run health care, have suddenly become defenders of government-run health care, which, hello, Medicare is. It seems opponents will take any convenient stance

Commentary: America deserves a better debate about overhauling health care

Some Republicans in Congress have characterized health care reform proposals put forward by Democrats as everything from socialized medicine to a budget back-breaker to the end of the Republic.

Spurred on (and some do act like saddled horses) by the multibillion-dollar health insurance industry, they conjure visions of elderly people without coverage, or worse, subject to "death panels." The Democrats would spend America into a deficit hole from which the country will not emerge, they say, and only we opponents are standing up for responsibility.

Go back 40-plus years, and one can read these same arguments. There was under President Lyndon Johnson a proposal to provide a health-insurance safety net for older Americans, so they would not die from lack of care or an inability to pay for what they needed to keep them alive. And, it was argued, the program would protect them from poverty.

Healthy debate

A health care reform proposal from Nevada Democratic Sen. Harry Reid, the chamber's majority leader, is financially sound in terms of slightly reducing, not increasing, the federal deficit over 10 years, and it contains common-sense ideas similar to those in a measure passed by the House. It differs in that it would include but allow states to opt out of a government-option competing with private insurers. It would not let illegal immigrants buy insurance from a national exchange (the House would allow it). It would add an excise tax on high-cost insurance plans and slightly boost the Medicare payroll tax for those of high incomes.

It is not government-run, national health care. It is not a dismantling of the private insurance industry. It is not perfect. But it is a constructive aim to cover more people, to give them more options and to provide some changes in a system now virtually controlled by the insurance and drug industries, a system that is growing more expensive, and will continue to grow more expensive

Why public support for health care overhaul faltered

WASHINGTON — As a candidate, Barack Obama promised to pass a health care plan with important benefits for average Americans For the typical family, costs would go down by as much as $2,500 annually. Adults wouldn't be required to buy insurance. No one but the wealthy would face higher taxes.

A year later, however, the health care proposals in Congress lack many of those easy-to-sell benefits, which became victims of the lengthy process of trying to win over wavering lawmakers, appeasing powerful special-interest groups and addressing concerns about the heavily burdened Treasury.

"There's nothing in it the average person could understand about why your costs would be lower," said Robert Blendon, a professor of health policy at Harvard's School of Public Health. "They don't even have good illustrations about how it would be cheaper. They did not find a way to save money for people with job-based insurance."

Key House Dem. Clyburn: 'half a loaf' on health care better than nothing

WASHINGTON — House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn is pushing a compromise on the most contentious part of President Barack Obama's bid to provide medical benefits to uninsured Americans.

Instead of a nationwide government insurance program, Clyburn is urging other Democrats to accept a scaled-down public option that would be tested as a pilot program in several parts of the country.

"We ought to set up some pilot programs regionally around the country," Clyburn, the No. 3 leader in the House of Representatives, told McClatchy. "What you're trying to do is find out what works and what doesn't work."