WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator Pat Roberts today said an expansion of Medicare is not health care reform and could ration care for all Americans.

 Senator Roberts made the following remarks on the Senate floor:

 “I cannot believe anyone is seriously considering expanding Medicare to tens of millions of people aged 55 and over as a compromise to the government-run or so-called public option.

 “It doesn’t take a genius to see that a huge expansion to Medicare is, as one single-payer advocate in the House dubbed it, “the mother of all public plans;” an “unvarnished and complete victory” for advocates of single-payer health care and socialized medicine.

 “In other words, this is not a compromise to the public option-- it’s worse!

 “Government-run insurance plans currently control nearly half of the market. With the government’s power, they have the ability to set payment levels for doctors and hospitals and home health agencies and even hospices and all other health care providers, not based on the actual costs that those providers incur when treating patients, but instead based on whatever arbitrary spending target the budget crunching bean counters determine the government can afford.

 “Medicare has been on an ever-shrinking path towards bankruptcy for years. The latest reports from the Medicare trustees say the Hospital Insurance trust fund will go broke within the next eight years. The program has $38 trillion in unfunded liabilities.

 “And how has the government responded? By severely underpaying Medicare providers and denying Medicare patients’ claims.

 “Medicare only pays doctors around 80% of their costs and hospitals even lower.

 “Privately insured Americans pay a “hidden tax” of nearly $90 billion per year to make up for these underpayments, but even that hasn’t been enough to keep some providers in business and able to afford to accept Medicare patients. Medicaid is even worse.

 “Medicare is also a huge denier of claims. I think many of my colleagues would be surprised to hear that Medicare denies claims more often than most private insurance companies: in fact in 2008 Medicare had the highest percentage and the highest number of denied claims in the country.

 “Think about that when you hear Senators demonizing private insurance companies for denying claims: Medicare is even worse.

 “This bill already exacerbates these Medicare problems by cutting almost a half a trillion dollars from this already woefully underfunded program. Now we’re considering adding even MORE people?

 “By underpaying health care providers and denying claims, Medicare already rations health care. Expanding Medicare to tens of millions of new people as envisioned by this ‘compromise’ will take government rationing to a whole new level.

 “Because as the government takes over more of the health care system and becomes responsible for more of the increasing costs of that system, the only way it will be able to afford this commitment is to ration health care.

 “And, as I’ve said countless times before, this bill gives the government all the tools it requires to ration care. 

 “From Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER), to the Independent Medicare Advisory Board, to the new powers granted to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, this bill puts the rationing infrastructure into place.

 “So what we have here is a recipe for disaster: a bill that already significantly weakens the woefully underfunded Medicare program and lays the foundation for a rationing infrastructure, plus a ‘compromise’ that will pour millions of more people into the program.

 “In the no-holds barred search for a proposal that can attract 60 votes, I don’t understand how any Senator could support this idea.

 “The American Hospital Association, American Medical Association, and Federation of American Hospitals are finally taking notice of the advice they are receiving from their state and local hospitals and doctors– they’ve finally seen the light and come out in opposition to this “deal” at least.

 “I urge my friends across the aisle to resist this latest misguided attempt at deal-making. The consequences are just too dangerous.”

 Senator Roberts is a member of the Senate Committee on Finance, and the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. He is Co-Chairman of the Senate Rural Health Caucus. 
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