Senate votes to gut Home health care. How are your parents aging?

Senate Votes for Cuts in Medicare Home  Health Payments - NYTimes.com

I am so relieved that my Mom is no
longer around to witness this travesity.
She would not have lived as long a life
as she did without the Home Health Care
she received from Medicare.


Senate Clears Way for Home Health Care Cuts Sign in to Recommend


Published: December 5, 2009

WASHINGTON — Snowflakes swirled around the Capitol on Saturday, whipped by wintry winds, but on the Senate floor inside, a heated debate raged as Democrats and Republicans traded jabs over legislation to achieve President Obama’s goal of near-universal health insurance coverage.

Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press

By a vote of 53 to 41, the Senate on Saturday rejected a Republican effort to block cutbacks in payments to home health agencies that provide nursing care and therapy to homebound Medicare beneficiaries.

Republicans voted against the cuts, saying they would hurt some of the nation’s most vulnerable citizens. Most Democrats supported the cutbacks, saying they would eliminate waste and inefficiency in home care.

The Democrats’ health care bill would reduce projected Medicare spending on home care by $43 billion, or 13 percent, over the next 10 years. The savings would help offset the cost of subsidizing coverage for the uninsured.

Mr. Obama planned to visit Capitol Hill on Sunday to attend a meeting of the Senate Democratic caucus. The caucus is split over several major provisions of the bill, including one that would create a government health plan to compete with private insurers.

A handful of Democrats and Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine, met Saturday to explore ideas for a possible compromise on the public plan.

In the past, weekend sessions of Congress have dealt with momentous issues like impeachment or fiscal emergencies. But the Saturday session — the sixth day of Senate debate on the giant health care bill — felt, in some ways, like an ordinary workday, as senators debated the health care bill in public and tried to thrash out differences in private.

The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, said the Senate had to meet Saturday so it could finish work on the bill before the end of the year.

“Fourteen thousand people lose their health insurance every day in America,” Mr. Reid said. “The American people don’t get weekends off from this injustice. Bankruptcy does not keep bankers’ hours. The bills don’t go away just because it’s Sunday or Saturday. The pain is still there. And so our work continues this weekend.”

Senator Bob Casey, Democrat of Pennsylvania, said: “We gather on a Saturday, which is rare. But it is entirely appropriate and, I think, essential that we spend the time on a weekend to debate this bill and get it passed.”

The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said his party would not bow to pressure from Mr. Reid.

“The majority leader believes that somehow if we stay in on weekends, Republicans are going to blink,” Mr. McConnell said. “I can assure him we are not going to blink. The longer we discuss this with the American people, the more unpopular it becomes.”

Indeed, Republicans appeared to relish the debate.
“A fight not joined is a fight not enjoyed,” said Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona.
Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, said, “I would not want to be any other place than on the floor today talking about the most important piece of legislation we probably will deal with in our tenure here.”

Much of the debate Saturday focused on what Mr. McCain had said as the Republican presidential candidate in 2008. Democrats said it was odd to see Mr. McCain styling himself as a defender of Medicare because, in the past, he had favored deep cuts.

Mr. McCain denied that he had tried to cut Medicare benefits.
Democrats said Republicans were stalling. Republicans tried to put Democrats on the defensive.

“I don’t understand what it is that would cause my friends on the left, on the other side of the aisle, to throw seniors under the bus,” Mr. Corker said.

Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and chairman of the Finance Committee, said, “Nobody here is trying to throw seniors under the bus.”

Mr. Baucus, a principal author of the health care bill, noted that his mother was receiving home health care and said he would not do anything to hurt beneficiaries.

“We are reducing overpayments,” Mr. Baucus said. “We are rooting out fraud. We are getting the waste out. The savings go back in Medicare and extend the solvency of the trust fund.”

But Senator Mike Johanns, Republican of Nebraska, said, “The cuts will hurt real people.”

And Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, said: “The Medicare home health benefit is under attack. The impact of these cuts will ultimately fall on seniors. Home health agencies will simply not be able to afford to serve seniors living in smaller communities off rural roads.”

Four Democratic senators joined 37 Republicans in voting to block the home health cuts. The four were Evan Bayh of Indiana, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Jim Webb of Virginia.


New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/health/policy/06health.html?_r=2