Head to Head: Bush will improve health care for everyone

There are three things Americans can always count on: death, taxes and Al Gore playing "Mediscare" politics in an election year.\n Last month Gore told seniors a phony story about his own mother-in-law to win their support for his flawed drug plan. Now he's inventing stories about Medicare to frighten seniors. Here are some quick facts to counter his Medicare myths:\n• Gore voted "yes" twice to cut Medicare: as vice president, he twice cast the tie-breaking vote approving significant cuts to Medicare by more than $55 billion.\n• Gore endorsed cutting $344 billion from Medicare: Gore endorsed financing the Health Security Act -- primarily through massive cuts to the Medicare program of $344 billion during nine years. \n• Gore could bankrupt Medicare. He offers nothing more than budgetary gimmicks that would do nothing to take Medicare off its collision course with bankruptcy.\nAndrea Peyser, of the New York Post, wrote, "I don't need (Gore) to preach values to my family. Not when he'd use his elderly mother-in-law to scare votes from old people and dog haters. Poor Shiloh."\nSeniors deserve a president who puts as much energy into saving Medicare as Gore puts into politicizing it.\nAt a Gore campaign event, Winnifred Skinner, a senior citizen, shared her story about how she spends hours a day collecting cans so she can afford both food and her prescription drugs.\nJohn Roberts, on the "CBS Evening News," said, "Politics aside, who really has the better plan for Winni? Between Social Security and a small pension, she brings in $10,900 a year. Two hundred dollars a month goes to prescription drugs; $111 for Medigap insurance to cover doctor bills. At her income level, Gore's plan would pick up all of her prescription costs by 2002, leaving her to pay just the Medigap. Bush would provide funding to immediately pay her prescriptions, and four years from now, eliminate the Medigap cost as well, saving her more than $300 a month."\nThe choice is clear; George W. Bush's plan works.\nTo modernize Medicare, Bush is offering a $110 billion MediCARES proposal for comprehensive reform, which will:\n• Guarantee every senior access to all current Medicare benefits.\n• Give Medicare recipients a choice of modern health plans.\n• Provide prescription drugs to seniors immediately.\n• Cover the full cost of Medicare premiums for the poor and pay 25 percent of premium costs for other seniors.\nBush said, "I want to seize this moment to modernize Medicare. To increase, not just funding, but choices and quality and security. To provide a prescription drug benefit. And to place Medicare on firm financial ground."\n"OK, enough about senior citizens," you say, "I'm in college; that doesn't affect me just yet."\nWell, listen up women: Bush has not forgotten about you.\n"When it comes to patient protection for women, Gore's tired rhetoric highlights his inability to lead on issues important to women," said Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett. "While Gore talks tough, Bush signed into law one of the strongest patient protection laws in the nation for women."\nHighlights of patient protections signed by Bush:\n• Granted women direct access to OB-GYN. Texas law now requires HMOs to give women direct access to their obstetricians-gynecologists without going through a gatekeeper doctor first.\n• Extended minimum hospital stays following childbirth. Bush signed legislation requiring managed care plans to cover a 48-hour minimum hospital stay following childbirth.\n• Required more complete care following mastectomies. Bush signed legislation requiring minimum hospital stays and breast reconstruction following surgeries.\n• Removed financial incentives for limiting services. HMOs are prohibited from using any financial incentive that induces providers -- direct or indirectly -- to limit medically necessary services.\n• Expanded patient freedom of choice. Bush advocated and signed legislation allowing patients to choose their own doctor, even outside their health care plan. Enrollees also have the right to select or change their primary care physician or provider within their HMO network up to four times during any 12-month period.\n• Required HMO report cards. Based on legislation signed by Bush, the Office of Public Insurance Counsel must issue annual "consumer report cards" that identify and compare HMO performance.\nHealth care is an issue that clearly affects everyone, young and old. Bush's plan will improve health care immediately -- for all Americans.