Some good news in the Obama HCR Plan.

[clear eye]

Since the House has made it clear that they do not have a majority willing to pass the Senate plan, Pres. Obama has come up w/ a modest group of proposals which he believes will improve the situation of many people while being relatively "uncontroversial". This includes scaling back the independent Medicare commission from the version in the Senate bill which posed a threat to the integrity of Medicare. It would still be likely to include members from the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries, which could be viewed as a conflict of interest when regulating the government portion of Medicare and the drug coverage plans, but it would have a more limited scope of operation. As described on the White House website http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/health-care/plan

Creates an independent commission of doctors and medical experts to identify waste, fraud and abuse in the health care system. The President’s plan will create an independent Commission, made up of doctors and medical experts, to make recommendations to Congress each year on how to promote greater efficiency and higher quality in Medicare. The Commission will not be authorized to propose or implement Medicare changes that ration care or affect benefits, eligibility or beneficiary access to care. It will ensure that your tax dollars go directly to caring for seniors.

If passed as is, this removes for the time being the potential for a conservative administration to staff the commission w/ "experts" whose intention would be to reduce the public portion of Medicare to a plan for the poor only and fold it into Medicaid, or other similar large changes.

[BP2]

1. Even the Pukes can'be against fighting fraud, waste & abuse. Can they?

[clear eye]

2. I wouldn't count on them for anything, but our calls to liberal members may have helped.

It's not so much an increase in the laws against these misuses of the program as it is a change in who determines these laws. Personally I would have preferred all these regulations continue to be drawn up by Congressional committees in consultation w/ "experts" and voted upon by an accountable Congress. However since the WH is insisting on having the regulatory authority turned over to the Executive Branch in the form of a commission created to be as unaccountable and unresponsive to the public as possible, it's good news that their authority is going to be quite limited. I would hate to entrust the whole shape of Medicare to the tender mercies of "experts" appointed by the next conservative President and coming from the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries. It appears we just may have dodged that bullet.

We need to call those same House members to thank them for their influence on this, to let them know how important the limitations on the Commission are to us, and that we'd like them to stand strong on it.

[demosincebirth]

3. Sure they can, if they didn't come up with the idea.