Court Blocks Bush's last attempt to Screw Up

As President Bush and company used his last days in office to try to pass a bill involving Medicare, a federal court blocked his attempt like a goalie in a soccer game. The bill would have allowed Medicare to save money by paying only for the least expensive treatment options for certain diseases. According to the Bush administration, the bill was introduced because they believe Medicare companies have the right to use discretion, not only in choosing what it would cover, but also in choosing how much of the payment it would cover.
Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. rejected the bill, citing that Congress is the one with the authority to set payment rates, and that Medicare companies should not have the broad discretion to alter them. An earlier Medicare law, passed in 1968, states that if a person’s doctor decides that a certain type of treatment or medicine is necessary for his patient’s health, Medicare would cover it, and the payment rates would be specified in another part of the law. The idea was that Medicare companies could not limit the amount of coverage payments they give back to patients when these patients required more expensive brand-name medicines, if these medicines have been proven to be more effective in providing treatment.

However, even before the Bush bill was introduced, the court discovered that one group of Medicare contractors were already up to something shady. They tried to limit coverage payments for a specific asthma medicine, DuoNeb, which is taken through an inhaler and acts as a nebulizer. While the drug may be expensive, under current law these Medicare providers don’t have the authority to limit the amount of coverage payments, because the Medicare payment rates are set by Congress.

But, under the bill that Bush proposed, Medicare would have had the ability to take prices for medicines into account when deciding which brand of medicine to cover. Allowing Medicare to have this discretion is dangerous because they would surely look for the least costly alternative to the medicines that doctors have prescribed for their patients. It would give them the unbrideled discretion to decide how much they would pay for each medicine. Many believe that Medicare coverage should be based solely on clinical effectiveness, and not based on the least costly alternative. Passing such a bill would prevent many patients from getting coverage for more expensive drugs, even though these specific expensive drugs may be more effective in battling a disease. The patients, especially those relying on Medicaid, would be unable to receive crucial medicine for their illnesses, simply because without coverage, the costs of these medicines were through the roof.

The decision by the court to block the bill surely brought a huge sigh of relief from thousands of Medicare patients across the nation. This was a great decision, because it exemplified perfectly the benefits of our system’s separation of powers. In the United States, through the separation of powers, we have an executive, legislative, and judicial branch. These separate branches were granted the power to use a system of checks and balances to control the behavior of the other branches. Whether you thank Madison, Hamilton, or any of the other Framers of the Constitution, it is important to understand how significant this system of checks and balances is. When one branch, such as the executive branch, tries do dangerous things like pass bills that would disable many patients from buying effective medicine, the judicial branch can step in and check Bush’s power like a hockey player in a game.

In other words, looks like it’s “game over” for you, George Bush.