The Bush Budget: Putting Tax Cuts for Wealthy before Health Care for Americans

Senator Edward M. Kennedy continues his fight to stop the tax giveaways for the wealthy by bringing to a vote his request that conferees reject any House proposal to extend the capital gains and dividends tax cuts. Senator Kennedy believes that those funds would be better spent on Medicare, Medicaid and fixing the nation’s healthcare crisis. The House version of the bill provides tax breaks on capital gains and dividend income that will take $50 billion over the next ten years and give it to people who are already wealthy. The President’s budget cuts almost $50 billion from Medicare and Medicaid for the next five years, harming health care for our seniors, for the disabled, and for the poor.

Senator Kennedy said, “Again and again and again, under this Republican President and this Republican Congress, we’ve seen trillions of their tax dollars given away in tax breaks to the wealthy and to corporations while the rest of America is asked to sacrifice. It’s wrong to give away $50 billion in tax breaks for the wealthy while cutting $50 billion from Medicare, Medicaid and other healthcare needs. Those are the wrong priorities for America, and the motion I offer today gives the Senate a chance to set things right.”

You can read Senator Kennedy’s full remarks on the Bush budget here.

In a Time of Great Promise in the Life Sciences, Americans Should Not Be Without Health Care

We are in the century of the life sciences – a time of extraordinary promise for new medical miracles. But for too many Americans, quality affordable health care is a distant dream. It should be a right, not a privilege. America faces a health care crisis. Too many Americans are uninsured, and the number of the uninsured is increasing at an accelerating rate. No American family is more than one pink slip or one employer decision to drop coverage away from being uninsured. Health care costs are too high and are rising at double-digit rates. America can do better, but the budget makes the health care crisis worse.

A Track Record of Failure

The Bush Administration has fanned the flames of America’s health care crisis, by failing to offer real solutions and pandering to special interests. The Medicare drug “plan” was turned over to the insurance industry, denying seniors the choice of remaining with the Medicare program they know and trust. The results were so disastrous that the President did not even mention the program in the State of the Union address. 46 million Americans have no health insurance. Since 2000, nearly six million more Americans have become uninsured – that’s an increase of 4,000 people every day. The large and growing number of the uninsured is only part of the health care crisis. Costs are rising out of control, making health care coverage less affordable, and undercutting American industry in the global marketplace. Insurance premiums have increased a whopping 73% in the last five years. That rate is more than five times higher than the growth in earnings – putting quality health care out of reach of millions of Americans. The Administration has put ideology over progress in medical research, by imposing the worst budget cuts in 35 years on NIH, and blocking lifesaving stem cell research.

The President’s Budget

The President has said that he wants to achieve bipartisan progress in health care. The budget is the true test of whether that desire is real, or simply election-year rhetoric. Here are the questions to ask to see if the budget that the President will propose has adopted the path of cooperation or confrontation:

• Medicare. The path of cooperation would be to fix the disastrous Medicare drug benefit. The path of cooperation would be to reduce Medicare spending only by cutting overpayments to HMOs and drug companies. This partisan budget chooses confrontation by cutting more than $105 billion over the next ten years from Medicare payments to hospitals and nursing homes that will erode the quality of care that seniors receive. The budget proposes the unprecedented step of proposing massive across-the-board cuts on Medicare, regardless of Congressional action.

The budget cuts funding for Massachusetts hospitals by $14 million in 2007 – over $11 million for inpatient care and almost $3 million for outpatient care. These cuts come as hospitals are being asked to improve quality, invest in health IT, prepare for public disasters and provide care for increasing numbers of uninsured and underinsured patients. The budget cuts funding for Massachusetts home health agencies by an additional $10 million in 2007. Massachusetts home health agencies already were cut $10 million per year in the recent budget reconciliation bill.

• Health care coverage & costs. A bipartisan approach to reducing costs and improving coverage would improve health care coverage through measures with broad support, such as expanding CHIP or restoring the cuts in Medicaid, and would address the soaring cost of drugs by allowing importation of safe medicines from Canada and other industrialized nations. Instead, this partisan budget proposes only gimmicks, like HSAs, that will worsen the health care crisis. In fact, the budget proposes increasing the amount of the tax giveaway to make these tax shelters more attractive to wealthy investors. The budget also proposes taking the first step to privatizing Medicare and replacing it with chancy private accounts that give no guarantee of quality health care.

On the heels of major cuts in Medicaid, the budget proposes further cuts of over $17 billion in the next ten years. These measures mean reduced care and worse health for millions of poor and disabled Americans.

• Public Health Priorities. A bipartisan budget would respect the nation’s commitment to medical research by providing a meaningful increase in the NIH budget and restoring funds to essential health programs slashed in prior years. This partisan budget imposes draconian cuts on NIH. Of the 19 NIH institutes, 18 will lose funding. That means less research into cancer, diabetes, stroke, spinal injuries, and many other serious illnesses. As a result of these cuts, NIH will cut the number of grants it funds by over 600, resulting in a loss of over 60 new grants to Massachusetts alone. The budget also decimates funding for critical health programs, such as preventive health, training medical professionals, emergency medical services for children, and hearing screening for newborns. The budget slashes funds for children’s hospitals to train pediatricians, pediatric specialists and pediatric researchers by more than 66%. Boston Children’s Hospital would be cut by $14 million in 2007.

Although the President’s budget adds an additional $188 million for HIV/AIDS drugs and testing, the budget continues to level fund the health programs in Ryan White that actually provide the care and treatment people need once they are identified as having HIV/AIDS. A program for aggressive testing is only as good as the services an individual receives once they have been identified.

Medicare for All

The real solution to the health care crisis is to make Medicare available to every American who wants to enroll in it. Administrative costs are low, patient satisfaction is high, and patients have the right to choose any doctor and hospital they think is best. Senator Kennedy has introduced legislation (S. 2229, the “Medicare for All Act”) to extend Medicare to all Americans. Those who prefer private insurance can choose any plan offered to members of Congress and the President. To ease the transition, Medicare for All will be phased in by age group, starting with those 55-65 years old and children up to age 20. Our budget priorities should also respect America’s commitment to finding new cures for serious illnesses, and to aiding those affected by the challenge of disease by supporting health programs.

–Crystal Patterson