Editorials, Opinion Pieces Address Medicare Part B Premium Increase, New Policy

Several newspapers recently published editorials and opinion pieces on a new policy that will require higher-income Medicare beneficiaries in 2007 for the first time to pay a higher monthly premium for Part B than other beneficiaries. Summaries appear below.

Editorials

• Denver Post: "Giving wealthy seniors a smaller but still substantial subsidy so Medicare can remain affordable for low- and middle-income citizens is a sensible reform in Medicare's rate structure," a Denver Post editorial states. Although some experts have said that the new policy will prompt many higher-income Medicare beneficiaries to leave the program, "Medicare is so highly subsidized, with taxpayers picking up 75% of its overall costs, that even the new surcharges don't come close to the rates wealthier seniors would have to pay for private insurance," the editorial states (Denver Post, 9/17).
  
  
• St. Louis Post-Dispatch: The new policy is a "Trojan Horse attack on Medicare, a poisoned pill slipped into the 2003 Medicare 'Modernization' Act that created the prescription drug coverage program," according to a Post-Dispatch editorial. "While higher premiums for the wealthy may seem logical and benign," the division of the "pool of recipients into subgroups with different premiums and different needs" will result in a "higher cost per enrollee -- and less political support -- for Medicare," the editorial adds (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 9/16).
  
  
• Washington Post: "This modest reform, which won't affect the premiums 96% of retirees pay, is expected to raise an extra $20 billion for Medicare over the next decade," a Post editorial states, adding, "That's a fraction of the program's long-term funding shortfall, but it's still worth having." The editorial says, "If Democrats oppose modest changes that hit only the rich, how will they find the courage to support far-reaching reforms?" The editorial also discusses Congressional efforts to reverse a scheduled reduction in Medicare physician fees, saying, "part of the apparent progress in protecting Medicare's finances by containing medical inflation will turn out to be illusory" (Washington Post, 9/17).
  

Opinion Pieces

• Mike King, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: The "country didn't really get much of a say -- or even much notice -- about a radical change already enacted in the 41-year-old Medicare program," Journal-Constitution columnist King writes in an opinion piece. Under the new policy, by 2009 Medicare beneficiaries "making more than $100,000 a year could pay three or four times what they pay now, which could mean that private coverage for those who are healthy would be cheaper" and could prompt those beneficiaries to leave the program, King writes, adding, "Without that universal base, Medicare might go the way of Medicaid ... which is chronically underfunded and in constant threat of benefit cutbacks" (King, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 9/17).
  
  
• Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "Raising seniors' primary health care coverage to pay for a complicated plan that's not bringing down their drug costs will hurt seniors financially overall in the end," Lowey writes in a Journal-Constitution opinion piece. "Medicare Part B premiums have become the new 'target for convenience' for saving Medicare dollars when better options exists, such as giving Medicare the power to negotiate lower drug prices for Part D or reimporting cheaper, safe drugs," Lowey writes, adding, "If higher-income seniors leave Medicare because they can get a better deal elsewhere, it will become a welfare program for the poorest and sickest, undermining the universality that has kept the program strong for generations" (Lowey, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 9/17).