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On Closing the Debate
By John L. Hess
November
24, 2003
As the Senate of this great democracy was voting to close offdebate, the question arose: Why the rush? The same question arose when
Congress let Bush hurl the bombs on Iraq. Why the rush? The main reason, I think, is that they're lying, and every day, the truth dawns on more
people.
Most of them still don't know what is in the Medicare bill.Members of the House didn't know when they approved it on Saturday.
Senators had a bit more time. It will be an eternal disgrace that they couldn't muster 40 votes to keep the discussion going. That was one more
proof that it was a heap of lies. They've stalled on prescription drugs since
1935. The pretend benefits to consumers in this bill don't take effect until after the elections next year, so there was no rush. The
benefits to the drug manufacturers, the private insurers and hospital chains
were quite clear -- their stocks were booming. The bill actually forbids Medicare or the states to negotiate for lower prices, and forbids private
citizens to fill their prescriptions across the border. It proposes to divert large amounts of Medicare money into H-M-0-type combines, with a 30
percent bonus for "administrative costs." Medicare operates more efficiently, in my experience, at an overhead cost of less than 3 percent.
I know, I'm repeating myself, but I must, because the media keepsrepeating the lies. People have to learn the facts for themselves, in the
alternative media, on the internet. This would be a good moment for me to plug my new book - but that fine old reporter Morton Mintz has a memoir
too, that we ought to buy. He tells me that he exposed AARP as a racket in
the Washington Post in 1972. I was abroad for the Times then, so it took me
a while to catch up. Anyway, listen -- the world hasn't come to an end.
There's work to be done.
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© 2002 Global Action on Aging
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