WHEREAS:
Medicare is the federal program that provides basic health care coverage for senior citizens and people with disabilities; and
WHEREAS:
Medicare provides flexible options for beneficiaries, ranging from the traditional fee-for-service program—where unlimited choice of doctors still attracts 85% of beneficiaries—to HMOs, which tend to be more restrictive but have fewer out-of-pocket costs; and
WHEREAS:
Medicare is financially solvent and able to pay benefits through 2007, at which time demographic changes—including a shrinking workforce and a growing population of aging baby boomers—will combine with longer life spans and expensive new health care technologies to create funding problems for the system; and
WHEREAS:
The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 created a bi-partisan Medicare Commission to study the system and make recommendations to Congress by March 1999 on ways to keep Medicare solvent for the future; and
WHEREAS:
This mandate is fraught with dangers, considering the difficulties of projecting health care costs far into the future when new medical discoveries could radically change the current outlook, along with unforeseen changes in the economic and employment picture; and
WHEREAS:
The Medicare Commission is also charged with studying the needs of the aging population, to see how Medicare might improve its package of benefits to better serve the seniors of today and tomorrow; and
WHEREAS:
Some members of the Commission have already stated that they favor changing Medicare from a benefits package that is guaranteed by the federal government to a system of vouchers, in which seniors receive a set-dollar amount with which to purchase an insurance plan from the private market; and
WHEREAS:
A voucher system would fragment and ultimately destroy the broad risk pool that enables Medicare to balance expenditures for the healthiest seniors—who use few services—against the cost of serving the sickest and most expensive-to-treat population in the nation, while maintaining administrative costs at under 3%; and
WHEREAS:
A voucher system would push more seniors into HMOs—where restrictive practices may not be suited to treating the oldest and sickest beneficiaries—and would lead to eroded benefit packages and increased co-pays as the cost of health care outstripped voucher amounts; and
WHEREAS:
Some Commission members would like to raise the age of eligibility for Medicare benefits from 65 to 67, 68 or beyond, which would cause serious hardship for workers who must retire earlier due to ill health or strenuous jobs and could greatly increase the number of Americans who have no health insurance.
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:
That the delegates to this AFSCME International Convention urge the Medicare Commission to do the following in its recommendations to Congress:
- Propose strong cost containment mechanisms that will help ensure financial solvency for Medicare well beyond 2007, without projecting Medicare costs so far into the future that their accuracy must be in question;
- Reject the concept of replacing the current Medicare system with one based on individual vouchers;
- Guarantee a viable, affordable fee-for-service option, based on shared risk that is spread across a broad population;
- Foster innovation, while retaining the critical program features that assure health security through a reliable set of benefits;
- Protect more effectively against fraud and abuse;
- Retain the current package of benefits and improve access to preventive care and prescription drugs;
- Address the growing need for chronic health care services;
- Better protect low-income beneficiaries from out-of-pocket costs;
- Reject arbitrary caps on program spending, which could dramatically increase seniors’ out-of-pocket costs for basic health care needs;
- Reject proposals to increase Medicare’s current age of eligibility; and
- Ensure the administration of the program by AFSCME represented employees receiving union rates of pay and benefits, and on the basis of reasonable, manageable workloads
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:
That AFSCME push for legislative solutions that recognize that providing quality, affordable health care for the big baby boom generation must be a national priority for the new century—just as educating the baby boomers was a priority of the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s—and that this nation is capable of shifting its priorities with the changing needs of our society.
SUBMITTED BY:
INTERNATIONAL EXECUTIVE BOARD
Steve Edwards, President
AFSCME Local 2858, Council 31
Illinois