CHIPS Measure Passes House

From the NYTimes:

Over angry Republican objections, the House on Wednesday passed a sweeping expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, financed with increases in tobacco taxes and cuts in subsidies to private Medicare insurance plans for older Americans.

The bill embodies the Democrats’ vision for health care, taking a step toward the goal of universal coverage while reversing what they see as Republican efforts to “privatize Medicare.”

By a vote of 225 to 204, the bill passed, with support from 220 Democrats and 5 Republicans. Ten Democrats joined 194 Republicans in voting against it. The bill would provide coverage for more than four million uninsured children in low-income families, prevent cuts in doctors’ Medicare payments scheduled for Jan. 1 and raise the federal cigarette tax 45 cents a pack, to 84 cents.

It would also increase assistance to low-income Medicare recipients and eliminate co-payments for most preventive care provided to Medicare recipients.

Our healthcare system is incredibly expensive and bloated with a dizzying maze of inefficient insurance company bureaucracy. While the bill focuses on expanded coverage for children - and it is a national disgrace that we have children uninsured - it also takes a whack at the new supplemental Medicare insurance plan which is confusing to seniors but lining the pockets of insurance companies. Naturally, the insurance companies are up in arms and are running ads on CNN and elsewhere non-stop featuring "average" seniors who are warning that Congress is threatening to cut their benefits. But this is the reality:

More than eight million of the 43 million Medicare beneficiaries are in plans offered by companies like Humana and United Health. Since December 2005, enrollment in private plans has shot up 40 percent.

On average, the Congressional Budget Office says, Medicare pays the private plans 12 percent more than it would cost to cover the same people under the traditional Medicare program. The House bill would eliminate the differential, saving $50 billion over the next five years and $157 billion from 2008 to 2017.

If they can't compete with what it would cost to run the program as part of Medicare then they shouldn't be able to offer coverage. It is nothing but corporate welfare for the rich.