The best that can be said about this cynical exploitation of people and families in hospice settings is that at least there is no Death Panel making coverage decisions. The cut is across the board, one size fits all and designed not to save lives or save Medicare as Senator Reid claims, but to win the support of specific Senators and special interests. Connecticut’s Chris Dodd gets a hospital, New York and Florida get to keep Medicare Advantage, a program that allows poor seniors to get additional services (like hospice) without paying more premiums while millions of other seniors will be tossed from the program. (They will be able, once again, to buy expensive supplemental insurance from AARP, which coincidentally supported the health care bill.) There are very special Medicaid payments for Ben Nelson’s Nebraska, which already gets more dollars per person and a higher federal share of payments than the programs average.
Liberals excuse this behavior by claiming it is the one-time cost of getting a deal done that benefits the nation as a whole. However, such horsetrading – cutting benefits to free up cash for universal healthcare is a central feature of both the House and Senate bills and of government run systems in general.
Healthcare policy and deal making is already a big business.
It is easier to get cuts by force than through regulatory “reform.”
