Page 2 - Robert Pear News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Nobody’s going to make a movie about reporters at home with their cursors.

The latest congressional leadership proposal for a "demonstrationproject" to test Medicare reform continues a tiresome pattern ofbad federal health policy that undercuts the effectiveness ofmarket-based health care reforms. Serious Medicare reform means onething: creating a premium support financing system modeled on theFederal Employees Health Benefits Program.

The House-Senate conferees now attempting to reconcile twoprofoundly flawed Medicare bills should go back to the drawingboard and use as a blueprint the 1999 majority recommendations ofthe National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare, whichproposed that Medicare beneficiaries be given a choice betweentraditional Medicare as it exists today and new, private plansoffering comprehensive, integrated benefits including fulloutpatient prescription drug coverage.

The House-Senate conference committee outline agreement this weekguts any serious long-term reform of the troubled Medicare programwhile proposing the single largest entitlement expansion in theprogram's history. Instead of enacting real reform at a datecertain and in time to accommodate the retirement of the massivebaby-boom generation, key congressional leaders are insteadproposing a limited "demonstration project" to test seriousMedicare reform, confined to a few areas of the country.

Obamacare will affect the private practice of medicine and surgery and impact Medicare patients.