Medicare Facts versus Fiction

Now that Representative Paul Ryan’s proposed changes to Medicare are the dominating the news, we’ve gathered resources from trusted sources to help voters sort facts from fiction.

Does the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) cut $700 billion from Medicare?   The non-profit Center for Medicare Advocacy has posted Medicare Facts and Fiction, which explains that the Act does not cut benefits to seniors.  It achieves savings through payment reforms, service delivery innovations, and by reducing waste, fraud and abuse.

Is Medicare bankrupt?  No, says Illinois law professor Richard Kaplan in his paper, Top Ten Myths of Medicare in the Elder Law Journal.

Would the Ryan Plan turn Medicare into a voucher program?  Yes, sort of, says David Lazurus in the Los Angeles Times. 

But would the Ryan Plan end Medicare?  No, says FactCheck.org.

Decision Day Inside the Marble Chamber

Having spent four nights camped out on the pavement for a seat in the Supreme Court’s oral arguments on the Affordable Care Act, it was an easy decision to return for the decision announcement on June 28, 2012.

There wasn’t an empty seat in the house.  Tightly packed into mahogany pews with no electronics of any kind, we enjoyed an unusual forced intimacy where people actually talk to each other. 

Most there were Washington insiders, like Michele Bachmann and her large entourage who sat in the row behind me. The Supreme Court media was in full force with Nina Totenberg, Jeffrey Toobin, and Jeanne Cummings seated in front of me.

Without smartphones or a copy of the decision, everyone in the chambers would learn the outcome from the justices themselves.  We rode an emotional roller as the justices slowly and methodically unveiled the outcome. 

Justice Roberts was nervous as he first addressed the individual mandate, but it was clear from the start that the mandate would be held unconstitutional under the Commerce and Necessary and Proper Clauses.  But then he turned to Congress’s taxing power, and it was equally obvious that the mandate’s penalty would survive as a tax.

An angry, defiant Justice Kennedy delivered the dissent while Scalia sat silently, scowling and squirming in his chair.  Their obvious resentment makes sense now that we know about the war that broke out among the conservative justices during the decision-making process.

Justice Ginsberg had the last word.  The Affordable Care Act had survived “largely unscathed,” she said. 

I breathed in the victory.  I felt immediate relief for my children.  I nearly broke down when a reporter asked for my reaction to the decision.

Then I walked outside into swarming throngs of Tea Party protesters in a full-blown angry roar.  Opponents had already erupted into their anti-tax rage and were promising: “Repeal and replace, step by step.” 

The Affordable Care Act had survived its day in court, but the health care war raged on.

My 92 Hour SCOTUS Camp-out

I wanted to see the Supreme Court’s health care arguments with my own two eyes because my kids are sick with incurable illnesses, Type 1 diabetes and epilepsy, and are uninsurable in the private insurance market.   The Court doesn’t allow television cameras, leaving me no option but to join the queue on the sidewalk.

Memories of my 92-hour urban camp-out are tinged by extreme sleep deprivation.  I’ve never pulled four all-nighters in a row -- not in law school or child-rearing – much less outside in rain and freezing temps with a pop-up chair, flimsy sleeping bag, and a tarp. (No tents are allowed.) Thank goodness for the camaraderie of my fellow campers and the caffeine and central heat at the Capitol Hill Starbucks.

Inside the Court’s cloistered chambers, the justices clashed just as throngs of Americans grappled outside.  I left wondering whether the conservative justices understood that the long arm of interstate commerce reaches into my children’s lives every day keeping them uninsurable.

All that was pushed aside as I departed the sidewalk, camping gear in tow.  I had three things in mind: a burger, a bath and a warm bed, in that order.  

Was this glimpse inside worth 92 variously wet, cold and sleepless hours?  Yes, because for me liberty is the right to see very personal justice being dispensed with my own two eyes.

This post was originally published in the Washington Post.

Supreme Court: Laying It All on the Line

People, prepare yourselves for the biggest legal media frenzy since Casey Anthony.   On Monday, March 26, the Supreme Court begins three days of oral arguments on the legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. 

But you can't watch this epic battle on Court TV.  The Supreme Court doesn't allow cameras inside its marble chambers.  You'll have to depend on Fox News, CNN and Rush Limbaugh to tell you about what happens.

Meanwhile, Washington elites are in a mad scramble for seats, according to the Wall Street Journal’s The A-Hed.  Most of the 400 tickets for each day's arguments are allocated among the litigants, their attorneys, and the media, but the real free-for-all is over the 81 seats set aside for  the justices who are busy doling them out to Washington power players.

But what about the general public?  How many seats do we get?  Would you believe 50?  That puts John Q. Public lowest man on the totem pole, leaving one to wonder what that says about the Court’s concern for the public’s right to see its government at work.

The Court accepted this case knowing that the decision would have a decided impact on the outcome of the presidential election.  Are the justices surprised that an astounding 75% of Americans believe their decision will be influenced by politics?

The Supreme Court could redeem its image and the public’s confidence by deciding the case based upon legal precedent, not partisan political views.  Most scholars believe the law is constitutional, as evidenced by the American Bar Association’s recent poll of court experts who overwhelmingly expect the Court to uphold the law. 

The die is cast.  The Supreme Court has put legitimacy on the line, and the rule of law hangs in the balance.

Gender Penalties Cost Women $1 Billion Annually

Women are paying a lot more for their health insurance premiums than men for the same insurance in the 36 states that still allow gender rating.   Higher premiums cost American women approximately $1 billion a year, according to a new study from the National Women's Health Center.

The study found that more than 90 percent of the most popular plans charge women higher premiums.  Maternity costs don't factor into these out-sized premiums because only 3% of the plans cover maternity care. 

Help is on the way.  In 2014, the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") will ban gender penalties in the individual insurance market and will require that all plans provide maternity coverage.

There's more.  Beginning August 1, 2012, Obamacare will requires all insurers to cover women's preventive care services without co-pays or deductibles.  Click here for more information.

The National Women's Law Center has launched the "I Will Not Be Denied Campaign," highlighting the protections for women in the Affordable Care Act.  For more information, go to www.iwillnotbedenied.org.

The Case for Cameras in the Supreme Court

At precisely 10:00 a.m. March 26, in a marble palace atop a hill in Washington, D.C., nine Supreme Court justices will emerge from behind red velvet curtains to begin an unprecedented five-and-a-half hours of oral argument over three days. In the case known as Florida vs. Department of Health and Human Services, the court will decide the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.

At the heart of the case is the law’s individual mandate, which requires most Americans to purchase private health insurance. Opponents warn that the mandate tramples individual freedom and even threatens IHOP, White Castle and chicken nuggets. Obamacare is government run amok, so their argument goes, because there will be no limit on governmental intrusion into our lives.

Not so, say Obamacare supporters, who explain that the individual mandate is necessary to fix our broken health-care system because it helps solve the problem created by the 49 million uninsured whose uncompensated care costs the rest of society more than $50 billion a year. As Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has said, a mandate requires “free-riders” to take personal responsibility for their medical care rather than depending on the government.

The Obamacare decision, expected in late June, may be a game-changer for those struggling to afford crippling health-care and health insurance premium costs. Thirty-two million Americans are expected to gain coverage under Obamacare, including legions of middle-class families. The law’s ban on insurance exclusions for pre-existing conditions will be welcome relief for 57.2 million non-elderly Americans with medical conditions.

The decision’s long-term effect upon our individual freedom and the health of millions of ordinary Americans will pale, at least temporarily, in comparison to the fireball that will roil presidential election politics.

Yet, despite the magnitude of this landmark controversy, only a scant 50 or so citizens willing to spend one or more nights sleeping on the court’s marble steps will witness the arguments each day with their own eyes, because the court does not allow cameras into its chamber.

Led by C-Span CEO Brian Lamb, mainstream media have raised a cry for live television coverage of this singularly important case. The court has not responded.

By thrusting itself squarely into presidential election politics, the court has once again opened itself to attacks on its legitimacy as impartial arbiter of the rule of law. We all remember Bush vs. Gore, where five justices put an end to the Florida vote count, handing the presidency to George W. Bush.  And we are now witnessing the effect of the court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, which opened the floodgates for campaign contributions from corporations and unions to Super PACs that thus far have poured more than $98 million into the presidential campaign. These controversial decisions, among others, have led court observer Jeffrey Toobin to describe the court as a “partisan battlefield.”

According to Drexel University legal scholar Lisa McElroy, the American public has a presumed right to see its government at work. Television coverage of Supreme Court proceedings would give the American people the opportunity to form their own educated opinions about the legitimacy of the court as an institution. At risk is nothing less than the public’s confidence, which according to former Justice John Paul Stevens, is the “true backbone of the rule of law.”

With or without television coverage, the American people will decide for themselves whether the court’s Obamacare decision is based on the rule of law or partisan political beliefs. Allowing cameras, even if only for this case, is the court’s best chance for protecting and preserving its honor and integrity, but time is running out.

Postscript:  The Court announced on March 16 that will release same audio recordings and transcripts.