A trip down Medicare memory lane with Joe Lieberman in
2003
Following up yesterday’s post, here are some Medicare highlights from
Sen. Joe Lieberman's hopeless presidential run in the 2004 election.
2003 did not get off to a good start. On
“The nation’s health insurers, a target of Democrats for
years, intend to mount an aggressive grassroots and media campaign aimed at the
The association's campaign conducted a survey that showed
that "providing drug coverage for senior citizens is the most important
health-care issue among 300 likely 2004 Democratic caucus-goers." The next
item on the list of importance was "the cost of drugs and funding Medicare" . . .”
That month, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) announced that he
was running for president "to guarantee health care
through Medicare for all. I am running for livable wages and a
full employment economy. I am running to oppose this unjustified war against
All nine
Democratic candidates formulated health care proposals, Lieberman last. In May
2003, Rep. Dick Gephardt
(D-Mo.) proposed repealing Bush’s 2001 tax cuts and using the money to pay for
a program to give tax credits to employers to provide medical coverage to the
nation's 41 million uninsured. Lieberman’s response:
"With all respect to Dick Gephardt, if his plan were
implemented, it would take as much money out of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds as the Bush tax cut."
[remember this one, when we get farther down 2003]
“Connecticut Sen. Joe
Lieberman Monday signed a pledge committing to push
for revamping the Medicare
system which has
"There's a good case made here," Lieberman
said. "I think there's a good claim here."
Lieberman signed a formal pledge offered by Democratic Rep.
Leonard Boswell to all nine candidates seeking the Democratic presidential nomination.
In that pledge, candidates are asked to acknowledge that
disparities exist in the Medicare reimbursement system and they agree to push
for changes.
"I hereby pledge to address that inequity by working
to narrow the gap in reimbursement rates," the pledge says.”
June 25, 2003: among Senate votes missed by Lieberman; WSJ reports,
"Medicare
legislation cleared the last major hurdles in the Senate, as supporters turned
back demands to expand prescription-drug coverage to fill coverage gaps for patients
with above-average drug costs and certain retirees with employer-provided
health benefits . . . [also] House Republicans completed details of their
Medicare package in anticipation of passage this week. The emerging House
measure is more aggressive and pro-health-insurance industry than the Senate's
in promoting competition with the current Medicare structure. Both measures
include provisions to speed low-cost generic drugs to market, but the House
tends to be more conservative and favor brand-drug makers. . . Democrats . . . fear
President Bush will tip the talks in the House's favor and that added to the
bitterness of Tuesday's losses for labor, which fears that changes will have
the unintended consequence of encouraging companies to drop drug coverage for
their retirees.”
June 26, 2003: After Lieberman was widely criticized for
missing 30 different Medicare votes in the Senate, the Lieberman campaign
issued a press release titled “Lieberman Expresses Support for Medicare Reform
Bill”:
“This bill is a
first step toward answering the prayers of our seniors who are struggling to
pay for drugs they need to live longer and healthier lives. But my vote is not
an enthusiastic endorsement; we cannot ignore the substantial weaknesses in
this proposal. It has an enormous gap in coverage that leaves millions of
low-income seniors without the help they need. Premiums may vary from plan to
plan. Some seniors may be forced to go round and round in a revolving door,
changing plans as private plans come and go. And seniors covered under
employer-based retiree plans would not get the catastrophic benefit they need.
One of my first
acts as President will be to fix this bill before it goes into effect in 2006. The best way to achieve significant Medicare reform is to lay
this foundation today and then fix the roof tomorrow under my presidency.
The test I applied to this vote is simple: if I were
President, would I sign this bill? And the answer is yes. It is better to begin than never to start the process of
providing seniors with what they need. It
may seem to some to be good politics to oppose this bill, but it would have
made for bad leadership. . .
I
commend the bipartisan effort to beat back the worst pieces of the President's
initial proposal--which would have forced seniors out of Medicare en masse and
paved the road to privatizing the system -- and forge this more sensible
compromise. Going forward, I will oppose any effort in conference to
substantially weaken it by undermining traditional Medicare or forcing seniors
into private plans.”
June 27, 2003: The Hotline reports, “Lieberman: supports
Medicare Rx bill; but doesn’t vote for it.” Lieberman
skipped the vote on the bill.
“Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) on 9/2 unveiled his health care platform for the WH '04
campaign, "proposing a multifaceted plan under which he said no American
would go without health insurance." His plan would "offer
government-funded medical coverage aimed at filling all gaps between private
plans and Medicare or
Medicaid, at a projected cost of $53.4 billion over five years."
Lieberman: "And we will spend less money for each newly insured person
than any other presidential candidate's plan" (Straw,
Lieberman "pledged" to offer "every
American affordable health insurance from birth to age 25" as part of a
$747B health care plan he unveiled to "counter" his WH '04 Dem
rivals' plans.
Lieberman said his plan would extend coverage to 31.6M
"uninsured people within a decade--at less expense to the government than
other Democratic candidates have proposed." He would create a "new
universal health program called 'Medikids,' meant to guarantee coverage for the
estimated 9 million children who are uninsured." Said Lieberman in his
speech at an elementary school in
Lieberman would pay
for his plan by repealing "some" of Pres. Bush's tax cuts . . .”
[Remember that attack on Gephardt’s proposal to do same,
above?]
Oct. 15, 2003: The AARP hosted a forum on
Medicare, skipped by Lieberman. The Hotline
reported: “AARP Forum: “Three Words--Medicare, Medicare, Medicare”:
“Tomorrow (10/15), six of the 9 WH
Dems will meet in
November 2003: According to various news
reports, Lieberman remained ‘undecided’ on the GOP Medicare bill going through
Congress.
Nov. 24, 2003: According to the Los Angeles Times,
Lieberman’s "Operation Liebermania II: A Joe-Vember to Remember,"
stalled in
“The $400
billion package, which would add a prescription drug benefit to the program
starting in 2006, was the largest expansion of Medicare since the program's
creation in 1965. It also opened up Medicare to federally subsidized
competition from private insurers and pharmaceutical companies. The bill was
strongly supported by President Bush, and its passage under a Republican
president and Republican-controlled Congress was seen as a significant
political victory for both the president and his party.
The legislation had been strongly opposed both by liberal
Democrats, who said the bill heralded a dangerous erosion of the Medicare
program and was disproportionately generous to drugmakers and insurance
companies, and by conservative Republicans, who worried about its high price
tag and paucity of cost-saving measures. . .”
This ‘Medicare reform,’ be it noted, was the
bill that created the ‘donut hole’:
“Under the drug plan, which would
start in January 2006, beneficiaries would pay an annual deductible of $250 and
monthly premiums averaging $35. Medicare would cover 75% of prescription drug
costs from $251 to $2,250 a year, after which coverage would stop until the
beneficiary had paid $3,600 out of pocket. Medicare would cover 95% of all drug
costs after the beneficiary had spent $3,600, or $5,100 worth of drugs.”
Other
provisions of note:
“In a clause
that drew strong criticism from Democrats and a few Republicans, the bill
prohibited the federal government from negotiating lower drug prices with drug
companies, pharmacies and drug benefit managers.”
Also:
“Private insurers would be able to start bidding to cover
Medicare beneficiaries starting in 2006. The
bill provided $12 billion in subsidies to encourage insurance companies to
offer drug benefits and to help them compete with traditional Medicare.”
Other provisions included for the first
time a means test—previously opposed by
Lieberman. A provision allowing
re-importation of drugs from
“Eleven Democrats and one independent
voted for the bill with 42 Republicans, while nine Republicans and 35 Democrats
voted against it. Senators John Kerry (D,
Massachusetts) and Joseph Lieberman
(D, Connecticut), both of whom were seeking the 2004 Democratic presidential
nomination, did not cast votes.”
“Sen. Joseph
Lieberman, D-Conn., had harsh words for George W. Bush
Monday as the president affixed his signature to a Medicare
reform package.
"I hope the prescription drug bill the president is
signing today covers pain killers--because it's going to cause a lot of pain
for millions of our seniors," the Democrat presidential candidate said in
a release.”
This is all getting somewhat interesting. Since Lieberman
could not have hoped to win the White House in 2004, presumably he ran to
prevent the Democratic campaign cycle from generating meaningful proposals.
As written earlier, the over-all pattern is clear in
hindsight. This is not mere ‘flip-flopping.’ It is strategy, and still playing
out.
By now, many observers are familiar with Lieberman’s Connecticut Post interview in September
supporting expanding Medicare, video accessible at The Plum Line.
Andrew Sullivan discusses Lieberman’s shifting
explanations at Atlantic Online:
“So...Lieberman only proposed Medicare expansion as an
alternative to the public option that he feared the public option would make it
into the Baucus bill. Now, three months later, when Democrats lack the votes to
pass a bill with the public option and cast about for a substitute, Lieberman
kills the substitute he floated in September.”
Sullivan is right. But the strategy cut even deeper than
indicated. Put simply, Lieberman in September allowed
Democrats and the press to believe that he could support expanding Medicare
coverage if not another public option, allowing them to believe they had a Plan
B if needed. Lieberman’s September comments thus
concealed from Democrats in Congress that they would need to go straight to
‘reconciliation’ to get any form of public option and cost them weeks of
legislative process. Now, with corporate media outlets including the Washington Post as well as the Wall Street Journal basically imposing a
Christmas deadline, and touting a line that wholesale reform not accomplished
by Christmas Eve will be a failure or loss by Obama, Lieberman has more than
served his purpose.
None of this is reported in the front section of the Washington Post, either in legislative
coverage or in political reporting.
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