Health Care/MediCare Common Sense

Senator McCain wrote an opinion piece for USA Today Opposing view: Don’t slash Medicare. It’s a common sense opinion piece that one would hope would be something of a no-brainer for Democrats and Republicans alike. Cutting MediCare benefits to institute a new government health care program just isn’t logical…

The Democrats have proposed slashing Medicare by nearly $500 billion, one-half a trillion dollars, to create a new federal government-run health care entitlement and are trying to package it as “health care reform.”

Among other cuts, the proposed reductions in Medicare include $120 billion to the Medicare Advantage program; $150 billion to providers, including hospitals, hospices and nursing homes; and $23 billion in unspecified decreases to be determined by an “Independent Medicare Advisory board.”

…

I have consistently been a strong advocate of making Medicare a more efficient and stronger program through improving incentives for better coordinated care, reducing Medicare fraud and abuse, and eliminating preventable errors. These are common sense.

Unlike slashing the Medicare program by half a trillion dollars in order to finance more Washington spending and mandates, I have advocated putting any savings created by improvements to Medicare back into the program to improve it for our seniors and ensure its viability.

Simply put, the Democrats’ proposed cuts to Medicare would impact seniors’ access to quality care. This is a price that Americans should not be asked to pay.

Senator McCain is sponsoring an amendment to send the health care bill back to the finance committee so that it can be re-written in a way that doesn’t use MediCare cuts to fund reform. His web site is also sponsoring a petition against using MediCare cuts to fund the health care bill.

---

Some Health Care Common Sense From Senator McCain