Please explain what, if anything, is wrong with medicare and
what needs to be done to fix it.
Response:
Securing the Medicare program is critical not only for our nation's
seniors but for all of us. Medicare provides the foundation of our whole
health care system. Many rural hospitals rely on Medicare for more than
50% of their revenues. Some rural hospitals in Minnesota rely on
Medicare for as much as 80% of their revenues. When rural hospitals
close, it affects the whole community.
There are a number of changes -- many of which were included in the
President's most recent balanced budget proposal which I supported --
that could be made to Medicare to extend the short-term solvency of the
program through 2005. I also supported the President's 1993 deficit
reduction program which contained specific Medicare provisions to extend
the solvency of the Medicare program through its currently projected
bankruptcy date of 2001.
I believe that changes to the Medicare program must be policy-based and
not budget-based. For example, changes to provider payments or
reimbursement rates must be precisely aimed at where the fat is in our
system and not be across-the-board. This is especially important for
Minnesota because reimbursement rates under the Medicare program are more
than twice as much in other areas of the country as in our state. Not
only that, costs in some of the most expensive areas of the country
continue to grow at about twice the rate that Minnesota's costs are
growing. That means the fat areas are just getting fatter and fatter and
we are all paying the bill. Seniors in Florida and California often pay
no co-payments or premiums and get the same prescription drug coverage
because reimbursement rates are so high there For-profit health plans in
certain areas of the country are making a fortune off of the Medicare
program. That's just plain wrong. I have fought and will continue to
fight to make sure that savings from the Medicare system will come from
where the fat is, protecting beneficiaries and preserving the solvency of
the system, rather than used to pay for huge tax cuts primarily for the
wealthy.
Of course, over the long haul, comprehensive health care reform is
essential -- we cannot look at Medicare costs in a vacuum. We must
examine in a bipartisan, policy-based way how quality health care can be
delivered to every American in as dignified and cost-effective a manner
as possible. As a U.S. Senator, I have worked hard to promote home-based
care alternatives, to encourage preventive care, to preserve research
funding which could lead to cures and disease prevention, and to enact
consumer protections to ensure that the bottom line of the insurance
companies is not the only line.