Pete Stark: “the reason to vote no on this bill is to give the Congress time to perfect the necessary structures and regulations for…”

“the reason to vote no on this bill is to give the Congress time to perfect the necessary structures and regulations for Medicare Select to work. Indeed, it does work in California. The trouble is, there is only one insurance company, Blue Cross, who has been importuning Members to support it, because the insurance commissioner will not allow it. The corporation commissioner does, giving Blue Cross a monopoly. That is not fair in California, either. If it is good in California, let us let other insurance companies sell it. Somebody brought up the good name of the Consumers Union. They did in fact mention some of these policies. However, let me summarize Consumers Union's recommendations to the Subcommittee on Health of the Committee on Ways and Means in February of this year. Consumers Union stated that: Congress should study the impact of further negotiated discounts . . . before rushing to extend the Medicare Select program. . . . Research done to date indicates that the Medicare Select . . . has not achieved its goals. It has resulted in a marketplace in which premium pricing games distort the true cost of the policy. It has not achieved cost savings, but merely shifts costs to other consumers. Few insurers and few consumers have participated. In many States, regulation of this product has fallen between the cracks of different regulatory agencies--is it insurance or managed care?--leaving consumers without the protections they need.”