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Right of Older Americans to Add Own Money to Get Unrationed Insurance in Medicare at Stake: House Votes to Ration Medicare, Critical Votes Will Come in Conference.
On August 1, 2007, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 225204 to adopt legislation that would effectively end the right of older Americans to spend their own money to save their own lives through the private fee-for-service alternative the National Right to Life Committee's efforts had added to Medicare in 1997 and expanded in 2003.
National Right to Life had sent a letter to all member of the U.S., House of Representatives opposing the measure. 220 Democrats and 5 Republicans voted for the bill while 194 Republicans and 10 Democrats voted against the bill as NRLC had urged.
The bill, known as the "CHAMP Act" ("Children's Health and Medicare Protection Act"), now goes to a conference committee with a Senate bill that contains no such provisions. Both bills relate to the state expansion of the "State Children's Health Insurance ProgramSCHIP."
Under the private fee-for-service plans option in Medicare, senior citizens can choose health insurance whose value is not limited by what the government may pay toward it. These plans can currently set premiums and reimbursement rates for providers without upward limits set by government regulation. This means that such plans will not be forced to ration treatment, as long as senior citizens are willing and able to pay more to choose them. Over 1 million older Americans are now enrolled in private fee-for-service plans, about 2% of all Medicare beneficiaries. (For more details, including an analysis explaining how the House-passed CHAMP Act would effectively end the private fee-for-service option, see www.nrlc.org/Medicare/index.html.)
However, in a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.), 18 Democratic House Members,led by Representatives Collin Peterson (D-Mn.) and Lincoln Davis (D-Al.), called for the offending provisions to be dropped by the conference committee and warned that they might not vote for the conference report if this were not done.Since the vote margin on the House floor in favor of the bill as it went to conference was only 11 votes, and 12 of those voting in favor signed the letter, this warning ...
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