A bill designed to improve Medicare benefits for seniors and make the program affordable by eliminating spending on Medicare Advantage Plans was filibustered by Senate Republicans last week.Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller says a bill is ordinarily passed with 51 votes, but if the bill is filibustered, it requires 60 people to vote for the bill or else it can not be discussed further.  As there are only 51 Democrats in the senate, Rockefeller says it is difficult to get bills passed, especially on controversial subjects such as healthcare.Rockefeller co-authored the bill, called the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008, and says that for the past several years President Bush has suggested a 10% cut in reimbursement for doctors who work with Medicare patients.  The bill would have stopped the cut and increased reimbursement by 1%, but now the cut will occur in less than next two weeks.  The fear is that these cuts will lead to a decrease in doctors who accept Medicare patients and who are willing to locate in more rural areas of the state where Medicare is more widely needed.Rockefeller says the bill would also have stopped deceptive advertisements for Medicare Advantage, which he says is an unnecessary program many seniors can not afford.  The program takes money out of the regular Medicare program which Rockefeller says hurts West Virginia seniors who are not wealthy.The annual Part B premiums on Medicare would also have been decreased under this bill. According to Rockefeller, the decreases would have encouraged more seniors to participate in the program.Rockefeller stated that the President and the White House do not like Medicare or Medicaid and have been trying to find ways of cutting the programs for the past six or seven years.  Rockefeller says such cuts can not be made because of the more than 300,000 West Virginians who depend on the programs for their healthcare.He did acknowledge that the systems needed improvements in order to be more efficient, but says he will be waiting until the election in November for any hope of seeing such changes made.

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Tags: health, healthcare, insurance, medical, Medicine, Rockefeller, West Virginia