Significant changes in Medicare and the addition of a prescription drug benefit are proposed in both a Senate bill (S 1) and a House bill (HR 1), and differences in the bills are being resolved in conference committee. Important pro-life issues are at stake.
Avoiding rationing in medical care: Both bills as finally adopted preserve, with respect to medical services, the basic ability of senior citizens who choose to do so to add their own money on top of the government Medicare contribution in order to get unrationed, unmanaged health insurance through ‘private fee-for-service’ plans.
The National Right to Life Committee will be working to protect the right of older Americans covered by Medicare to add their own money, if they wish, in order to get unrationed, unmanaged health insurance, and to ensure that such health insurance is preserved. At present, there are only a few private fee-for-service plans around the country. The real need for them will arise when baby boomers start retiring. When this demand comes, it is likely insurance companies will find it economically feasible to be there to meet it.
Avoiding rationing of prescription drugs: The House bill, but not the Senate Bill, allows the new prescription drug benefit to be offered by plans with unmanaged access to drugs, and allows senior citizens to add their own money on top of the government contribution in order to get such unrationed drug insurance. The Senate bill, as passed, denies older Americans this right, allowing them to get the prescription drug benefit only in a managed care form.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-IA) have pledged to press in conference committee for incorporating in the Senate bill the provision to provide the subsidized prescription drug benefit as an unmanaged benefit whose premium amount is not subject to governmental approval. The National Right to Life Committee will be working to ensure that older Americans have this right to get unrationed drug insurance.
-Choose Life, National Right to Life Committee, July/August 2003