Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- A Republican senator -- and physician -- asserted Tuesday during a rancorous floor debate that President Obama's health care overhaul will shorten the lives of America's seniors by cutting Medicare.
"I have a message for you: You're going to die sooner," said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., an obstetrician.
Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., defended the health care legislation, saying it would make Medicare a smarter buyer and improve prescription coverage and preventive benefits for seniors.
"I hate to say it ... these are scare tactics," Baucus said. "Sometimes you've got to call a spade a spade." The Senate was debating an amendment by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., that would strip from the bill more than $400 billion in Medicare cuts to home health providers, hospitals, hospices and others.
Polls show seniors are concerned that expanding coverage for the uninsured will come at their expense. Earlier this year, former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin warned of "death panels" that would deny coverage to frail seniors -- a charge that was widely debunked. Medicare spending actually would keep growing under the Democrats' legislation, albeit at a slower rate.
Despite the partisan sparring over Medicare, the first health care amendment offered was bipartisan, a measure to increase preventive care for women co-sponsored by Sens. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine. Snowe was the only Senate Republican to vote in favor of Democrats' health care legislation in committee.
Their amendment would give the Health and Human Services secretary authority to require health plans to cover additional preventive services for women and was inspired in part by controversial recommendations last month that women undergo fewer mammograms and Pap smears to test for cancer. Republicans seized on those recommendations as early signs of rationing of care they say would happen under the Democrats' 10-year, nearly $1 trillion health bill.
