Possum Philosophy: Congress and your health

By ROBERT CAHILL/Columnist

OK, let’s say you either are or you’re turning 40ish to 50ish. You know who you are and what it means. You don’t need me to remind you. The little aggravating aches and pains are becoming more frequent. Minor injuries aren’t so minor. Healing and recuperation times are taking longer, much longer. When teenagers look at you, you can almost read their minds. Instead of thinking, “Hey he/she is way cool,” they’re thinking, “Ewww!! Old people.” Yeah, hurts your feelings. I know. I’ve been there for lots longer than I care to admit now.
So now you’re probably wondering, “What’s he rambling on about now? I don’t need him lecturing me about old age. Just look at him. Like they say, physician, heal thyself.” Well, my fellow baby-boomers (I hate that term, don’t know why, just never liked it), we just dodged a major bullet and many of you may not have been aware of it. On Wednesday, July 16, Congress overrode President Bush’s veto of a Medicare bill.
For those of you on the younger edge of Boomerdom, you may not be familiar with Medicare. But take my word for it, you will be, probably more familiar than you ever imagined, definitely more familiar than you want to be. According to Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org), the online encyclopedia, Medicare is a social insurance program of the U.S. government that provides health insurance coverage to people 65 and older or who meet other special criteria. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the program into law on July 30, 1965. As an interesting note, at the bill-signing ceremony, Johnson enrolled former President Harry S. Truman into Medicare and presented Truman with the nation’s first Medicare card.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) decided in its infinite wisdom to cut the reimbursement rate for doctors and other health-care providers by 10.6 percent effective this month. This may seem trivial to some of you right now. Many people think doctors and other health-care providers are way overpaid anyway. Some no doubt are, but in actuality, not most. In some areas, doctors already had been refusing or at least cutting back on the number of Medicare and Medicaid patients they accept due to what they consider unreasonably low reimbursement by CMS.
Years ago, many Americans worked for companies that had benefit plans that included retaining company paid or partially paid health insurance after retirement. Times have changed. Many companies that once had excellent employee benefit plans now have little or no benefits at all. Private paid health insurance is expensive. Medicare and Medicaid (in areas such as southwestern Virginia where incomes are already traditionally lower) are often the only health insurance many if not most older folks can afford.
In rural areas such as the Southern Highlands, a shortage of doctors is already a problem. If only a few of those in such areas refuse to accept new Medicare patients, the health-care problem will be exacerbated. This is not good. After all, no one can force their former employer to continue health benefits into retirement. And the only option to aging is not a good one.
CMS has made such proposals before and Congress has stepped in and prevented these cuts. It did so just a few days ago, but Bush vetoed the bill, saying it took money from the (privately operated) Medicare Advantage plans. However, in a not too surprising move, Congress overrode Bush’s veto. In the house, the vote was 383 to override it, 41 not to override and 11 were counted as present but not voting. In the Senate, the count ran 70 to override, 26 not to override and 4 present but not voting.
Curious as to how our local people voted? On the original vote, as well as the override vote, all of Virginia’s Congressional delegates but one, Eric Cantor a Republican representing the 7th District, voted for passage both times, while Cantor voted against both times.
In the Senate, Sen. Jim Webb, a Democrat, voted yes on both occasions. Sen. John Warner, a Republican, voted nay on the first vote and was one of the four counted as present but not voting on the override. To my surprise, Congressman David Davis, the local fellow from just across the line, in Tennessee, voted in favor of passage both times. I am particularly surprised by this as Davis, who is in his “rookie” term in Congress, has voted pretty much for anything and everything Bush liked. Although this is only the third time Bush has had a veto overridden, it was evidently something of a surprise to him since several of his staunchest, most conservative allies, the votes he no doubt felt sure of, voted in favor of the override.
Perhaps this will send a message to the large insurance companies as well. With more and more employers cutting benefits; with the cost of everything from gasoline to groceries skyrocketing, with banks failing and home foreclosures rising, they may just price themselves out of business. I cannot think of a soul that would not prefer a simple system. Medicare/Medicaid is complicated, often frustrating and difficult to understand. But if it is all one can afford, it is all one can afford. That is a matter of simple economics that even those folks like me, who find economics on a large scale sometimes difficult to understand, see the truth of the matter.
And if it preserves the number of doctors and type of care available to low- to middle-income citizens, then whether a few large insurance companies and a few arch-conservatives like it or not, it is still a good thing. Besides, I’d rather see our tax dollars spent on healthcare for our own instead of building roads and hospitals in Iraq, for people who hate us, don’t want us there, just want our money for oil. 

A freelance journalist, Robert “Rocky” Cahill writes regularly for the News & Messenger. His Possum Philosophy column publishes in each Saturday edition.