MOAA’s ‘As I See It’ – Scared Straight on Healthcare
Jan 18 2010
Editor’s Note
Director of Government Relations, Colonel Steve Strobridge, USAF – (Ret.) wrote an article for his As I See It column that was released this Friday. The discussion and comments were going strong but unfortunately ran up against a required database upgrade that stopped the conversation by shutting down our sign in function. Trust me when I say this is a much needed upgrade and despite the week long (expect the site to be back up on Tuesday, January 26th) freeze it is going to be worth the hassle.
Battle of the Bilge does not have the same restrictions so we have reprinted the article here and the discussion can continue. This is based on multiple email requests, thank you for the feedback and for helping us help you speak out about an important issue.
Warmest personal regards,
Matthew LoFiego
As I See It – Scared Straight on Healthcare
January 14, 2009
By Col. Steve Strobridge, USAF-Ret.
As we enter the second decade of the new millennium, most Americans — and most of the military beneficiary population — are scared to death about the future of health care.
And not without reason. There’s certainly no shortage of very real threats. Those fears are heightened further by the Internet and other electronic media that thrive on hype, hyperbole, and our natural tendency to share seemingly outrageous “facts” (which too often actually are outdated “half-facts” taken out of context or even blatant fabrications) with our friends and family.
Throw in a highly partisan political atmosphere in which Republicans and Democrats and liberals and conservatives endlessly trash each other’s ideas and integrity, and everybody’s blood pressure goes up — especially on such a vitally important topic as your family’s health care.
Let’s start with the real threats.
The most imminent one is the crazy formula in current law that requires compounded cuts every year in Medicare and TRICARE payments to doctors. For each of the past several years, Congress has imposed a one-year moratorium on the cuts, because they know allowing the cuts to happen would cause large numbers of doctors to stop seeing Medicare and military patients.
But Congress’ failure to fix the basic statutory formula has meant the size of the annual cut has grown significantly every year.
Now, if Congress doesn’t act before the end of February, current law will require a 21-percent payment cut as of March 1.
Now that’s scary — scary enough that Congress almost certainly will stop it. But they’ll probably just approve a fix for the rest of 2010. Which means they’ll have to act again before the end of the year to stop a 26-percent cut for 2011. Really scary.
As for the next threat, we know it very intimately. Because that threat is us. Or rather me, and people like me. I’ll be 63 years old in April and am among the leading edge of millions of baby boomers who will become eligible for Medicare in this decade.
And Medicare isn’t ready for us. Under current law, Medicare will run out of money in about seven years. The Medicare trust fund actuary says the health care reform bill passed by the Senate would postpone that crisis for another decade — but only if you believe the optimistic assumptions the bill entails, about which the Medicare actuary is dubious.
That means Congress will have no choice but to make further Medicare changes soon — higher Medicare taxes, reduced benefits, or both. Very scary.
Meanwhile, the budget deficit and national debt are rising at unprecedented levels, which means just having the government borrow more money to fund growing health-benefit needs (like fixing Medicare and the doctor payment problem) is a non-starter.
So there will be tremendous pressure in coming years to cut government spending in virtually every area to free up more funds for those critical needs. And that means tremendous pressure on the defense budget, which means a renewal of all the threats we encountered during the tight budget years of the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s: force cutbacks, pay-raise caps, COLA delays, higher health care fees, commissary threats, and more.
Unfortunately, those real threats often are obscured by new-age “red herrings” — the electronic equivalent of chain letters circulating on the Internet, Facebook, Twitter, etcetera, that assert some kind of outrageous proposal that we send to all our friends with a note asking, “Can this be true?”
Unfortunately, much of that well-circulated material turns out to be bits of old news that’s no longer relevant, things that were originally written as satirical fiction, or blatantly false assertions that started as a joke or to serve someone’s personal or partisan agenda. Nevertheless, it often acquires a life of its own on the Internet, evolving into ever-more-outrageous forms, as amused or well-intentioned people pass them on for months and years — and as the “Can this be true?” comments change to “This is true!”
Several such electronic chain letters assert there is imminent legislation that would require TRICARE For Life beneficiaries to pay thousands more a year for their coverage.
There actually was such an idea, floated by the CBO back in 2008, but it was never a serious proposal, nor was it supported by anyone in the administration or Congress. Nothing like it is contained in any legislation before the Hill.
Are there legitimate reasons to be scared about our health care future? Yes.
That’s why MOAA has several current legislative alerts asking members to urge their legislators to reverse impending Medicare/TRICARE payment cuts, protect military beneficiaries from adverse effects of health reform, and more.
But let’s stay “scared straight” on our facts, and keep our energy focused on addressing real problems rather than fictional ones.
Another Message from Steve?
Yes. There’s a reason he’s our top mind on legislative issues. He’s extremely smart and sensible. Listen to him, and pass it on to anyone you have in your contact list.
Discussion
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