Medicare

Peter Roskam Launches Campaign to Strip Constituents of New Health Benefits

On April 4, 2010, in Healthcare, Medicare, Middle Class, Peter Roskam, Senior Citizens, by RSR
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Congressman Peter Roskam, the Republican representing Illinois’ 6th Congressional District in Chicago’s western suburbs, this week launched his campaign to repeal the landmark healthcare reform legislation recently signed into law by President Obama. Roskam, who campaigned vigorously against the bill and who voted against its passage, complains that the legislation raises healthcare costs and taxes on the middle class, piles on to the national debt, and interferes with the doctor-patient relationship.

Roskam’s complaints, are, of course, baseless. The health reform legislation will provide subsidies for low- and middle-class families to make health insurance more affordable, reduces the deficit by $132 billion over 10 years, and does absolutely nothing to disrupt the relationship between patients and physicians. And it will make health insurance available to millions of working Americans who do not have access to coverage today – 32 million by 2019. Roskam, however, is determined not to let that happen. He says the plan is a radical government takeover of healthcare. It isn’t. It is simply sound insurance regulation coupled with subsidies to make insurance more affordable. In fact, as the President has pointed out, the health exchanges that will be created under the new law are very similar to a plan created by the conservative Heritage Foundation.

The Kaiser Family Foundation has produced a couple of excellent resources to help you understand what is covered under the new healthcare legislation and the timeline over which changes will take place. If we had real representation in Congress, your Congressman would be helping you to understand this information. Since he will not, we will try to help to the degree that we are able.

Roskam’s opposition to the healthcare bill appears to be rooted in large part, not so much in the details of the reform plan, but rather in an overwhelming desire to see the President fail in order to advance his own party’s electoral prospects. Roskam is also a steadfast opponent of any kind of consumer-friendly industry regulation, be it in the realm of healthcare, banking, or the environment. We have all already seen the disatrous results of the Republican deregulatory ideology in creating the recent banking and credit crisis with the resultant recession. Now Roskam, if he has his way, would replace the Democratic reform legislation with a massive deregulation of the health insurance industry that will do nothing to help working people but will help line the pockets of the insurance companies that fund his campaigns.

Though his his claims about the dangers of the healthcare reform legislation are without merit, Roskam has enormous resources at his disposal. His Congressional office gives him tremendous access to corporate media eager to help him in his misinformation campaign and his Congressional budget and franking privileges allow him to produce mailers like we saw last summer designed to scared district residents about reform. We will have to be strong and fight hard to keep him from taking away our hard-won health benefits.

We encourage you to contact Peter Roskam to voice your support for healthcare reform and to ask him to cease his efforts to take away your benefits. You can reach him at (630) 893-9670 in Bloomingdale or at (202) 225-4561 in Washington.

Roskam has also taken to Twitter as part of his efforts to kill health reform. You can talk back to him directly there. He is @PeterRoskam and he is tweeting about repeal using the tag #218hcr. We are doing are best to counteract his misinformation there.

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Rep Gutierrez States Intent to Vote For Healthcare Reform – Peter Roskam Continues to Obstruct

On March 18, 2010, in Healthcare, Immigration, Medicare, Peter Roskam, Senior Citizens, by RSR
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We owe a big thank you today to Democratic Representative Luis Gutierrez who today, together with the rest of the House Hispanic Caucus, announced his intent to vote for the Democratic healthcare reform bill when it comes to the floor, possibly as soon as Sunday. Representative Gutierrez had been hesitating to offer his support for the plan because of its ban on undocumented immigrants buying into the plan, and because of  the administration’s failure to push aggressively for immigration reform during the President’s first year in office. We too are disappointed on both fronts but we think that Rep. Gutierrez chose the best course in agreeing to vote for healthcare reform. We fear that a defeat on the present healthcare plan, with all of its weaknesses, would not only set the cause of improving our healthcare system back by years, but would probably jeopardize any chance of movement on immigration reform for the foreseeable future. We thank Representative Gutierrez for his vote and for his determined efforts on behalf of justice for immigrants. I’d encourage you to call and thank him but the best thanks is probably to give his staff a break from phone calls.

Republican Peter Roskam is another story. Roskam appears to be unbending in his decision to vote against increased access to healthcare for residents of the sixth district. Indeed, Roskam today unveiled a new talking point on Twitter designed to work the anti-statist teabaggers up into a frenzy: that healthcare reform will give enormous new powers to the Internal Revenue Service and that we will all be soon set upon by an army of 16,000 new auditors. We find Roskam’s anti-IRS rhetoric a tad frightening in light of the recent suicide attack on the IRS facility in Austin.

Roskam had to change his tactic todaywhen the Congressional Budget Office today released its scoring of the Democratic bill, making ridiculous Roskam’s claims that it would increase the debt. The CBO found that the bill actually REDUCES deficits by $130 billion over the first 10 years, and by a staggering $1.2 trillion over the second 10 years. This while providing an additional 32 million Americans with coverage and eliminating the worry of denials based upon pre-existing conditions. Plus the seniors who Roskam has been trying scare about Medicare cuts will have their prescription drug doughnut hole, a gift from President Bush and the last Republican Congress, closed, making their prescriptions more affordable and thereby preventing avoidable hospitalizations related to drug non-compliance.

Peter Roskam is on the wrong side of history in his opposition to this bill.


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Seniors: Ask Peter Roskam if He Supports GOP Plan to End Medicare

On February 4, 2010, in Healthcare, Medicare, Peter Roskam, Senior Citizens, Social Security, by RSR
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House Republicans are in the process of drafting an alternative budget proposal. Nothing has been finalized but the representative who will write the proposal, Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, has a draft that includes the end of Medicare as we know it, replacing it with a system of vouchers for seniors to buy private insurance. Also included is a plan to privatize social security, turning your savings over to the wall street speculators who caused the recent financial collapse.

It is urgent that you contact Peter Roskam today and tell him to reject any plan that would take away your Medicare and Social Security.

You can contact Peter Roskam in Washington at (202) 225-4561 or in Bloomingdale at (630) 893-9670.

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Peter Roskam Votes to Cut Medicare Payments to Physicians

On November 19, 2009, in Healthcare, Medicare, Military, Peter Roskam, Veterans, by RSR
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Earlier today, Republican Congressman Peter Roskam voted to cut Medicare payments to physicians, putting at risk access to care and choice of physician for the nations senior citizens, for disabled persons served by Medicare, and for families of U.S. military personnel receiving care through TRICARE, the health care program serving active duty service members, National Guard and Reserve members, retirees, and their families and survivors. It was just Peter Roskam’s way of saying thank you to the nation’s elders and soldiers for their hard work and sacrifices for their country, and thank you to the nation’s physicians as well for their efforts on behalf of their patients.

The vote was on H.R.3961 – Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act of 2009. Congressional action was required on this bill to prevent physicians caring for seniors and military families from receiving a 21% pay cut in 2010. Such a drastic cut in physician reimbursement would force many physicians caring for seniors and for military families to stop accepting such patients or dratically cut back on the number of physicians. This would result in many patients losing access to their physician of choice and perhaps losing access to care altogether. Roskam himself described the access problem in a letter attacking similar impending cuts back in 2008:

“Despite the rising costs of living, Congress is unwisely poised to cut Medicare payments for physicians, severely limiting access to medical care for an ever growing senior population,” said Roskam. “If such cuts are enacted, Illinois will lose $510 million for the care of elderly and disabled patients over the next year, and $10 billion over eight years. It is my sincere hope the bipartisan support from many of my fellow colleagues will help restore this funding, insuring that Medicare patients can find physicians in their community with the financial ability to treat them.”

Medicare seniors look to their doctor as the key professional in charge of their care. Every aspect of our health care system from hospitals to rural health clinics relies upon the skills and services of physicians. A stable payment structure for physician services is critical. The impending cuts will only destabilize the Medicare program and jeopardize all patients’ access to care if not addressed in a thoughtful manner. It is critical that we work together in a bipartisan fashion to enact legislation early in this year to stop the Medicare cuts.

So  Roskam’s support of pay cuts to doctors this time around is based in his obstructive partisanship rather than good policy and he is willing to let everyone suffer for it.  DuPage County Seniors, families of servicemen, and physicians should take note of this vote and remember it next fall.

Fortunately, Peter Roskam did not get his way. H.R. 3961 passed by a vote of 243-183. Only a single Republican voted for the bill: Rep. Michael Burgess of Texas. We see once again that all the Republican protestations about supporting the troops are really just so much hot air.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued the following statement on the passage of H.R. 3961:

“Strengthening Medicare for generations to come is essential to our efforts to reforming health care for all Americans. This legislation will permanently improve the way Medicare pays physicians and in doing so, guarantee that America’s seniors will continue to have access to excellent care through Medicare.

“This legislation is a top priority for seniors and was endorsed by the AARP and the American Medical Association because it protects seniors’ access to their doctor, promotes primary care, and offers incentives for doctors to provide patients with higher quality and more efficient care. Today’s vote by the House keeps our promise to strengthen Medicare, never weaken it.

“As this legislation heads to the Senate, the statutory ‘pay as you go’ budget bill will be added to ensure that we put our nation back on a path of fiscal responsibility and begin to bring down the deep deficits that face our nation.”

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Peter Roskam’s Vote for Pay Cut to Du Page County Physicians

On August 2, 2008, in Healthcare, Medicare, Peter Roskam, by RSR
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Summer has been busy and I haven’t had time to write as much as I’d like. Some important votes have slipped by without comment. One that I think is of particular interest is the vote on June 24 on H.R. 6331: Medicare Improvement for Patients and Providers Act of 2008. Medicare recipients and the physicians who care for them should take special note.

On July 1st 2008, physicians participating in the Medicare program were scheduled to receive a 10 percent cut in reimbursement. An additional 5 percent cut was to take place in 2009. These cuts, if enacted, could have been devastating to both physicians, who are struggling to maintain the solvency of their practices in the face of reimbursement reductions by state, federal and private payers, and to Medicare recipients, who are faced with increasing difficulty in finding physicans willing to treat Medicare patients. According to the American Medical Association, as many as 60% of physicians would have been forced to limit their services to Medicare recipients under the proposed cuts.

In an effort to prevent these cuts from taking place, Democrats in the House, led by Rep. Charles Rangel, introduced H.R. 6331. In addition to to stopping the physician pay cuts, the bill provided for a number of modest improvements to the Medicare program to aid beneficiaries including:

  • Coverage of additional preventive services
  • Elimination of late enrollment penalties for the part D drug benefit
  • Coverage of pulmonary and cardiac rehabilitation
  • Elimination of higher co-payments for mental health services

Prior to the vote, President Bush threatened to veto the bill because it would have reduced payments to Medicare Advantage plans – private health insurance plans that offer alternatives to traditional Medicare under contract with CMS. Such plans currently receive, on average, about 12% more than the cost of services for recipients in traditional Medicare. Outside the Administration, there is widespread feeling that these plans, which are supposed to reduce costs through careful medical management, should be receiving reimbursements at a level lower than the costs of traditional Medicare, although insurance companies argue that the cuts will increase out-of-pocket costs and decrease options for Medicare Advantage recipients.

When the bill came to a vote on June 24, Peter Roskam voted no, siding with the Bush administration in its desire to allow the pay cuts to take effect. The bill passed but was vetoed by the President on July 15. That veto was quickly overridden by the House and Senate and has become law.

Physicians and Medicare recipients in the 6th district should ask Peter Roskam why he voted to support pay cuts for Medicare physicians. Roskam can be reached at his Washington office at (202) 225-4561 or in Bloomingdale at (630) 893-9670.

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