March 1, 1973
Page 6092
MEDICARE CUTBACKS
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the Senate has the privilege today of hearing from 12 of our distinguished committee chairmen on a single critical topic – the administration's proposals to cut back the medicare program. These proposals would reduce medicare coverage drastically, requiring the elderly covered by medicare to pay out of their own pockets an additional $500 million for medical costs now covered by medicare.
Medicare coverage for hospital costs, for instance, would be reduced by making the patient pay 10 percent of all daily hospital charges for the first 90 days, after paying for the first day's room and board, while under current law, the patient pays nothing for hospital care for the first 60 days after paying an initial $72 deductible. This change alone would each year cost a single hospitalized medicare patient, on the average, an extra $138.
As for the cost of physicians’ services, the administration would reduce medicare coverage from 80 to 75 percent of the "reasonable charges," and would increase the initial deductible charged to the patient from $60 to $85. This proposal would increase the patient's share of a $350 doctor bill, for instance, by 28 percent, from $148 to $198.
Rising costs by themselves are reducing medicare coverage well below the 50 percent of the elderly's health bills the program originally covered. These proposals would compound the burden of rising costs lowering effective medicare coverage to only about 40 percent of the health costs for older Americans.
It is a privilege for me to join with my colleagues in their unified expression of concern about the administration's proposals on medicare. In the years since this administration has controlled the executive branch, the Congress, under the weighty influence of these distinguished committee chairmen, has repeatedly cut this administration's budget requests when necessary. Today's response, therefore, cannot in any way be termed one of irresponsible spenders. Rather, it is the reasoned response of responsible, experienced, and economically minded legislators to an irresponsible administration proposal.
The President has couched his campaign to cut the budget in terms of increasing the self-reliance of the American people. Certainly self-reliance is a worthwhile goal and it is a quality that identifies with the people of my region. But does President Nixon expect to increase the self- reliance of the elderly by reducing the amount of aid they get for health care?
I recently attended hearings of the Special Committee on Aging, whose distinguished chairman will soon address us on the floor. At those hearings I asked the president of the National Council of Senior Citizens whether an increased exertion of self-reliance on the part of the elderly could help their plight. His response was this:
The generation I represent has had about 70 years of self-reliance.
He saw nothing wrong with relying for once on the effort of all Americans to aid the elderly to get medical care which many of them cannot afford, notwithstanding 70 years of self-reliance.
I am curious whether indeed the administration hopes to carry the theme of self-reliance so far that it would place on the aged poor, in need of health care, the burden of increased "self- reliance" on their own scarce resources. This is one of the questions I hope to explore next week when the Subcommittee on the Health of the Elderly of the Special Committee on Aging holds its opening round of hearings on the barriers to health care for older Americans. As chairman of this subcommittee, I am looking forward to exploring many questions about the health needs of the elderly, such as rising health costs, the alternatives to institutionalization, and the fragmentation of health delivery. The first order of business for my subcommittee, will be to focus on the proposed medicare cutbacks. For this purpose, the subcommittee will be privileged to have as its leadoff witness next Monday Mr. Caspar Weinberger, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. Perhaps those hearings will give us more details on the administration's proposals, and their impact on the elderly.
In the meantime, I hope that today's demonstration of concern about the administration's medicare proposals will serve as a warning to the administration that this Congress, acting in its most responsible fashion, does not intend to turn its back on the health needs of the elderly.
Mr. President, I am delighted to see on the floor the distinguished chairman of the Special Committee on Aging, the Senator from Idaho (Mr. CHURCH), who, I am sure, will make a significant contribution to this dialog.
Mr. CHURCH. Mr. President, I congratulate the able senior Senator from Maine for his excellent statement and for the hearings we propose to conduct into the whole question of barriers to the health care of the elderly.
I know that centermost in his consideration of this broad question will be the President's proposal to add many hundreds of millions of dollars to the cost of the elderly and the ill for the benefits that they now derive under the medicare program, and to continuing this care, I want to turn my remarks this morning. Before doing so, however, I commend the Senator for the initiative he has shown. And I think his hearings will demonstrate that this proposal simply lacked the backing of the American people.
I think that without any question here is a place where Congress must draw the line. We should be looking for ways and means to improve the medicare program. Certainly we ought not to retreat from the ground we have already won.
So I compliment the Senator from Maine on his initiative.
Mr. MUSKIE. I thank the distinguished Senator from Idaho.