Just one more question, Congressman

Last week I joined a roomful of citizens gathered to hear Congressman Joe Barton (R-Arlington) report on recent doings in the U.S. House of Representatives. Health insurance for poor children didn’t seem to be a key concern for the folks there, but it was included on an official handout that covered immigration reform (1 page), Iraq (2 pages), and energy (3 pages). SCHIP got 2 pages.

Listening and reading, I learned that the Congressman still likes lignite coal and believes in keeping your tires inflated properly to save gas. He told us the Trans Texas Corridor would not be all that different from I-35, and assured us that “it’s not going to be 12 lanes wide, after all!”

Well, I guess that’s true in a way. But since the TTC is planned to be 1200 feet wide, you have to wonder.

That’s a whole different column, though, from the one I want to write today, because some pretty outrageous things are being said and believed about the SCHIP legislation, beginning with Barton’s handout. I don’t think there’s room here to talk about them all, so I’ll just hit the high points.

Item: Well, of course the Congressman’s first concern is the cost. He worries that federal funding will increase by more than $88 billion over ten years; to put that in perspective, the Pentagon is presently spending $6 billion a DAY in Iraq alone.

Shoot, just two weeks out of Iraq and we've got SCHIP paid for!

Item: Barton claims that the legislation would “remove seniors out of private healthcare plans in Medicare Advantage … and greatly increase the number of people eligible for Washington-controlled, bureaucrat-run healthcare.”

Leaving aside for the moment his characterization of Medicare and SCHIP, try as I might I couldn’t find anything to support that. But even if in fact he were right, here’s what they’d be losing, according to the official Medicare website:

In most of these plans, generally there are extra benefits and lower copayments than in the Original Medicare Plan. However, you may have to see doctors that belong to the plan or go to certain hospitals to get services.
… In addition, you might have to pay a monthly premium to your Medicare Advantage Plan for the extra benefits that they offer.

But wait! According to MedicalNewsToday.com, the new legislation will:

Increase Medicare benefits for preventive care and mental health care, raise the value of assets low-income seniors can have and still qualify for the Medicare prescription drug benefit and cover more out-of-pocket Medicare costs for lower-income elderly beneficiaries.

And, get this: It will “eliminate co-insurance and waive the deductible for current preventive benefits covered by Medicare.”

Sounds like Mr. Barton and the insurance companies anticipate that a lot of folks, offered these extra benefits, may abandon Big Insurance for Medicare.

And as for that bit about “Washington-controlled, bureaucrat-run healthcare” — give me a break! Both Medicare and SCHIP are fee-for-service programs where you choose your provider and the provider of your choice sends the bill to the government.

You want to talk about bureaucrats? Ever dealt with a private health insurance company?

Item: But worried as he is about the evils of government provided health care, Barton is really, really worried about what he calls “cuts” in Medicare. The thing I find even more exasperating than outright dishonesty is the sin of omission, making a thing appear bad by not telling the whole story.

In this case, the so-called cuts are really reductions in reimbursements to the Medicare Advantage program by eliminating EXCESS payments. No doubt the insurance companies are going to miss them, and that’s the truth!

In addition, the legislation would delay cuts to physicians proposed over the next two years and instead INCREASE payments by .5% in each of those years.

Item: The Congressman, referring to a 2005 HHS report, claims that “the Democrat [sic] Majority’s SCHIP proposal” provides health care to illegal aliens.

Well, according to an item in the Houston Chronicle, that’s just not so.

Actually, the SCHIP legislation bars illegal immigrants from joining. [There is] a provision that let states change rules on required documentation. This was deemed necessary because many of the applicants, largely poor whites and African-Americans, couldn't find original birth certificates and don't have passports. In any case, Social Security numbers will still be required.

Item: In a section quaintly entitled “The Ills of Universal Health Care,” the good Congressman worries about our health care becoming too much like “the national care systems found in Canada and the United Kingdom.” He tells us that both systems “are rationed-care oriented which leads to lower quality care and long waits.”

Here’s what I found in the April 2007 American Prospect:

A 2003 study in The New England Journal of Medicine found that the United States spends 345 percent more per capita on health administration than our neighbors up north. This is largely because the Canadian system doesn't have to employ insurance salespeople, or billing specialists in every doctor's office, or underwriters. Physicians don't have to negotiate different prices with dozens of insurance plans or fight with insurers for payment. Instead, they simply bill the government and are reimbursed.

And Barton quotes from an article by a Canadian doctor to suggest that Canada’s wait times are horrible and deadly, though he doesn’t offer any fact whatsoever to show that we are any different.

Again citing the American Prospect:

A 2003 study found that the median wait time for elective surgeries in Canada was a little more than four weeks, while diagnostic tests took about three (with no wait times to speak of for emergency surgeries). By contrast, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development data from 2001 found that 32 percent of American patients waited more than a month for elective surgery, and 5 percent waited more than four months. That, of course, doesn't count the millions of Americans who never seek surgery, or even the basic care necessary for a diagnosis, because they lack health coverage. If you can't see a doctor in the first place, you never have to wait for treatment.

Couldn’t say it any better.

I have to end this for now, but while I continue my research for the next round, let me just say I would really like to hear the Congressman’s answer to this:
What exactly would be the “ill” in universal health care?