OLYMPIA, WA—In a crowded hearing room Tuesday, Feb. 11, Sen. Bob Hasegawa (D-Seattle) introduced SJM-8002, addressed to President Trump, the U.S. House and Senate. The Senate Joint Memorial 8002 urges lawmakers in Washington D.C. to enact a law to halt Medicare Advantage overcharges and fraud and “level the playing field” by adding benefits to traditional Medicare and capping out-of-pocket expenses.
Hasegawa told fellow Senators and a crowd that included members of PSARA (Puget Sound Advocates for Retirement Action), “This memorial comes from the people themselves. They drafted this legislation.”
Medicare was enacted in 1965 as a “public good,” Hasegawa added, “one of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s star programs” to benefit all senior citizens, paid for from a payroll tax on employees and employers. More than $1.6 trillion has been accumulated in the Medicare Trust Fund, a target for runaway Wall Street greed.
“Unfortunately, there is a move to privatize Medicare,” he continued, with Medicare Advantage permitted to pocket 16% of every Medicare dollar in administrative costs and profits. “No one has explained to me how Medicare Advantage provides more efficient health care while also collecting 16% in profits,” he said.
Traditional Medicare administrative costs are two to three percent. There are no profits.
This Senate Joint Memorial 8002, if approved by the Washington State Legislature, demands that Congress enact and Trump sign a law to terminate Medicare Advantage profiteering and preserve original Medicare.
Ed Weisbart, a retired physician and Physicians for National Healthcare leader, hailed the Hasegawa measure. Speaking via ZOOM, he stressed the importance of recouping the tens of billions—some estimates are as high as $140 billion—stolen from the Medicare Trust Fund by Medicare Advantage providers and using the money to help finance expanded Medicare benefits.
Karen Richter, PSARA Co-President, told the hearing that PSARA strongly supports SJM-8002. “Levelling the playing field,” she said, “would scrub overcharging and fraud from the Medicare system while allowing Medicare beneficiaries a real choice about which program they would prefer.” A “level playing field” will give traditional Medicare recipients the same benefits provided to Medicare Advantage enrollees—now just over half the 60 million Medicare recipients. Legislation is needed, said Richter, to restore Medicare “as the public good it was created to be in 1965 and to continue the tradition of Medicare being the lowest cost and most effective health care program in the United States.”
Anne Watanabe, speaking for the PSARA Race and Gender Equity Committee, also endorsed SJM-8002. “Unsurprisingly, higher percentages of seniors of lower income and seniors of color enroll in private Advantage plans,” she said, noting this was because they can’t afford supplemental insurance to cover the 20% not covered by traditional Medicare. They discover too late “that their private advantage plans impose limits on coverage or limited networks, especially in rural areas.” Medicare Advantage profiteers, she added, “delay or deny treatment recommended by their doctors.”
Ellen Menshew, a PSARA member from Clallam County, cited Olympic Medical Center (OMC) in Port Angeles, a public hospital that provides urgent care from Neah Bay on the Pacific coast to Quilcene near Hood Canal.
“OMC is more than just a healthcare provider. It is a lifeline. As the largest employer in our county with 1,500 employees, OMC plays a crucial role in our local community,” she proclaimed. “The most glaring common denominator in the failure of rural hospitals is the impact of for-profit corporate insurance companies,” Menshew continued. These profiteers impose “delays, denials, and slow payments….leave providers struggling to maintain financial stability, forcing hospitals into mergers or total acquisitions.”
The result, she charged, is a reduction in services, staff cuts, and ultimately “a decline in the overall health and wellbeing of the community.”
The hearings were not confined to Hasegawa’s defense of Medicare. Advocates for a measure to provide assistance to cover the ruinous cost of HIV-AIDS retroviral drugs urged passage of a bill to expand State assistance in paying for these life-saving pharmaceuticals that cost as much as $60,000 annually.
Parents with their disabled children crowded the hearing room to hear heartrending testimony from mothers struggling to care for their disabled offspring. They urged passage of SB-5504, authored by newly elected Sen. Mike Chapman (D-Port Angeles), to expand coverage of care for these children. “This is a fairness issue,” Chapman said, arguing that his bill aims to “help low-income families, the most vulnerable in our state.”
Lindsey Topping Shuetz, tears welling in her eyes, testified with her daughter and her eight-year-old son, Owen, in a stroller sitting beside her. Since birth, she said, Owen has been afflicted with a breathing disorder so severe that he stops breathing and will die if she or her husband do not rush to apply a breathing mask to his mouth. They have an oxygen cylinder in the house.
When Owen is hit with one of these attacks, “we rush to put the face mask on him so he can breathe.” The hospital, she said, trained her and her husband on how to apply the breathing apparatus and how to keep Owen’s airways clear.
It took the Topping-Shuetz family five years to win State benefits but only for eight hours each day of coverage. She said they have collected only four hours of coverage, and the balance was paid from their own pockets. “He needs care 24/7. So we are responsible for 16 hours of care each day.”
She is a college graduate and worked at Weyerhaeuser until Owen was born. “I have not been able to work for all his life—eight years.” Her husband is employed by the City of Tacoma’s Water Department. “If this bill is passed, it would mean I get employed. I would be paid that money. There is a difference between parenting and caregiving.”
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