Republicans Will Be Republicans..Mine, Mine, The Hell With The Common Good
From ThinkProgress: "Earlier this week, Politico reported that Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) switched his vote and opposed an increase in Medicare payments to doctors, after he made a deal with the White House. Officials promised Specter, who has been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease, “an administrative fix to increase Medicare reimbursements for oncologists.” Yet at least one medical association, the American Society of Clinical Oncology, is “horrified” by Specter’s actions and assured Hill staff yesterday that it did not lobby him for the deal.
And from WonkRoom: "Last week, the White House and its allies in the Senate, voted down a proposal that would have made “cuts to the private Medicare Advantage program” in order to finance the deferment of a 10.6% physician fee cut for doctors who treat Medicare patients."
Of course, Republicans protect their cronies feeding at the Medicare Advantage government trough, a program of, by, and for private corporate health care profiteers who received more subsidies than traditional Medicare.
"But as Robert Laszewski of Health Care and Marketplace Review points out, while Medicare Advantage plans “are paid 13% more than traditional Medicare pays for similar seniors,” there is no evidence to suggest that they deliver “a better cost/quality result” than traditional Medicare programs.
"Thus, rather than bringing Medicare Advantage payments back to parity with fee for service, and using the savings to prevent the scheduled physician fee cuts, conservatives sided with the insurance lobby".
Arlen Specter along with his Republican colleagues in the Senate told traditional Medicare covered seniors and their physicians to go to hell.
Remember this is the same Arlen Specter who slipped a ringer into the terrible Patriot Act in a Republican controlled Congress. From Wikipedia: "On 9 March 2006, The USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 was signed into law. It amended the process for interim appointments of U.S. Attorneys, written into the bill by Arlen Specter during his chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee.[18] The change allowed the Bush Administration to appoint interim U.S. attorneys without term limits, and without confirmation by the Senate. The Bush administration used the law to place at least eight interim attorneys into office in 2006. Specter claims that the changes were added by staffer Brett Tolman"
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