NRL News
Page 7
June 2007
Volume 34
Issue 7

Tell Congress to Say NO to Health Care Rationing by
Preserving the Private-Fee-For-Service Alternative in Medicare!

In Washington, people don’t agree about much. But when it comes to Medicare, there are two critical facts that are virtually universally held:

1. Medicare, in its current form, will experience serious financial crisis with the impending retirement of the baby boom generation. (Plain English: The mass exodus of Medicare payers will suddenly become Medicare payees, resulting in far more money coming out of Medicare than is coming in!) 

2. As a result of the dis-proportionate number of payers to payees, less and less health care will be available per person. Tax hikes simply could not even begin to fix the kind of shortage that is predicted.  Health care rationing would be inevitable.

Thankfully, however, there is a pro-life alternative to health care rationing in Medicare, and that is the private-fee-for-service option. Though it is currently the fastest growing segment of Medicare, it is still so new that relatively few people are even aware that it exists.

But its congressional opponents know about it and are working hard behind the scenes to destroy the private-fee-for-service option.  They know that if enough people learn about the program, it will be nearly impossible to take it away from them.

How does private-fee-for-service plans work? The government allows Americans who choose to do so to add their own money on top of the government contribution in order to have access to plans that aren’t forced to ration health care.

The private-fee-for-service plans — unlike all the others in Medicare —  don’t have to ration health care because premiums are allowed to rise to reflect the actual costs of health care.  In addition, when people put their own money on top of the government contribution, physicians and hospitals are then able to shift costs so they can provide better health care for the poor. 

With the private-fee-for-service option, Americans have access to plans that don’t have to comply with government controls that tell your doctor which treatment you can get and which you can’t get. Instead, treatment decisions are made between you and your doctor. The government provides a defined contribution — not a defined benefit. The result?

Americans are not forced into a one-size-fits-all plan that will ration life-saving health care, food and fluids. Rather, they are free to shop around for a plan that works best for them.

Opponents have cleverly erected a seriously misleading smokescreen as part of a calculated strategy to demonize these plans, including allegations that seniors have been mislead into signing up for the plans by rogue marketing agents. According to the Center for Medicare Services (CMS) — the government entity that administers the Medicare program —  these complaints have amounted to less than one half of one percent of all the people who are enrolled in private-fee-for-service plans.

Nevertheless, CMS has responded to these alleged “marketing abuses” by implementing a temporary moratorium on the marketing of these plans until any alleged “marketing abuses” are investigated and addressed. Therefore, there is simply no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. 

Make no mistake about it. At the end of the day, this battle is not about marketing abuses. The campaign to eliminate the private-fee-for-service option is nothing less than an aggressive ideological agenda that “government knows best.”

We are working hard at National Right to Life Committee to preserve private-fee-for-service as a legal option. But it is crucial that they hear from you! Please contact your Congressman and Senators immediately and tell them to preserve the private-fee-for-service alternative under Medicare Advantage!