Lawmakers Have ‘Dim View’ of New Medicare Commission

Senators and House members affiliated with 1998's Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare "take a dim view" of plans to establish a new task force on Medicare -- a proposal that President Bush and Senate Finance Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) discussed this week, CongressDaily/A.M. reports. However, Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), a "prominent member" of the 1998 commission, expressed support for a "more targeted" task force. "The year-and-a-half of hard work we did does not need to be repeated," Frist said Tuesday, but he added that he would "not object to a focused effort to develop a framework" for legislation. "The president is likely to give specific instructions on what he wants," he said.

Meanwhile, experts have "chewed over" most of the potential proposals for Medicare reform, and according to a panel of experts at a congressional briefing Tuesday, "there is no easy solution." During a session sponsored by the Alliance to Improve Medicare and the "centrist" Progressive Policy Institute, Maya MacGuineas, a board member of Third Millenium, called Medicare reform "the hardest outstanding issue out there." She added that although lawmakers could address Medicare's long-term financial woes with a number of "popular" proposals, most plans have "significant downsides." For example, she pointed out that raising Medicare's eligibility age to 67 would not result in much savings "because the youngest beneficiaries are the least expensive." In addition, many seniors "just short" of Medicare eligibility cannot purchase health insurance. She added that Medicare could boost cost-sharing requirements for beneficiaries, which would curb overuse of medical services -- "in a perfect economic world." However, many Medicare patients have supplemental insurance to pay costs not covered by Medicare, and increasing deductibles and co-payments "would just shift costs," MacGuineas said. While she conceded that raising payroll or income taxes or subjecting Medicare beneficiaries to "affluence testing" could work, she added that "increasing revenues does not slow health care spending." She also said that even the "much-touted" proposal to allow private health plans to compete for Medicare patients would "not necessarily" lower costs. "Competition is going to increase efficiency, but will it outweigh the cost savings Medicare gets now from its market power?" she asked. Still, Dede Spitznagel, vice president for policy at the Healthcare Leadership Council, said that Medicare "need[s] to change soon" (Fulton/Rovner, CongressDaily/A.M., 1/31).