HD Blog

The vote in Florida was expected to be close. The Republican's were heavily favored by the growing Cuban-American community and the state's growing elderly population leaned heavily toward the Democrats. Expanding Medicare benefits was considered a prime way to court enough votes to swing the state one way or the other. By the time of the hotly debated election, legislation had not been passed and neither party did a very effective job of blaming the other side for the failure to pass a bill. Of course, nobody could have predicted what eventually happend in Florida.

Fast forward to today. As the population ages and with the two parties being so close to each other in voter support, the elderly are considered one of the most important voting blocks. So for the past year the two parties have been jockying for who would get the most credit should the bill pass and who would get the most blame should the bill fail. Complicating the situation is the growing elderly population and the fast-growing costs of Medicare and Social Security. Current estimates have Medicare and Social Security taking up 80% of the federal budget by 2030. Expanding benefits would increase these costs but, at the moment, there is very little voter concern.

With both parties supporting the prescription benefit, the distinction between the two became the scope of the prescription benefit. The Democrats supporting full prescription coverage for all seniors and the Republicans backing prescription benefits for only those with lower incomes, not the wealthy. (The elderly are the wealthiest demographic in the country.)

The Medicare bills that passed the House and Senate had some important differences that had to be ironed out in the conference committee. This is where this bill has stalled for past several weeks. At an impass, the Republicans on the committee took the unusual step of meeting without the Democrats to create a proposal that would meet with the approval of the two key Democrats on the committee - the very-liberal Max Baucus and the very-conservative John Breaux. It worked and now there is a tentative agreement, though broad support is still in doubt with Ted Kennedy and Tom Dascle now arguing that it is a very bad bill for seniors.

Here's the reported details:

All seniors get a 15% discount on prescriptions. In an attempt to provide some competition to keep costs down private insurance companies can provide some of the services now only provided by the government. More money will be routed to rural areas. The reimportation of drugs will still be banned. Employers will be subsidized to minimize the number of seniors who lose their private insurance.

Perhaps the most important portion of the bill for the Huntington's Disease community is a new tax break for those with high-deductible insurance policies (not limited to the elderly).

At the moment, this bill sounds like a positive for HD community. The tax break will save individuals hundreds of dollars a year and this isn't likely to reduce the amount of money that pharmaceutical companies will spend on badly-needed new drug research. For those HD families who rely on Medicare, they should also come out ahead.

Of course, that is based on what is being reported. Expect this bill to get full approval and to be signed by the President. Until then, you'll see a lot of jockying in the media as each party seeks to maximize their position while demonizing the other side. This is just the beginning to what is going to be an ugly election year.