
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, October 19, 1995                   TAG: 9510190065
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

MEDICARE BILL PASSAGE JUST A BAND-AID

For all the partisan acrimony and special-interest angst over the Republicans' Medicare reform plans, even the most far-reaching proposal - expected to be passed by the House today - would only postpone a financial crisis likely to make the current stakes seem like child's play by comparison.

In the view of experts, unless far more drastic actions are taken, Medicare could collapse under a 20-year wave of baby boomers, starting in 2010.

``The problem with Medicare isn't the next seven years. The problem with Medicare is when all the baby boomers retire,'' Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., said Wednesday.

That time bomb, experts say, can be averted only by Draconian measures barely hinted at by most politicians: tax hikes, reductions in services, higher payments by the wealthy and, as Senate Republicans have proposed, an increase in the eligibility age from 65 to 67.

To achieve $270 billion in savings over seven years, the House legislation would reduce the annual rate of growth in payments to providers from 10 percent to 6.5 percent. The plan seeks savings by encouraging seniors to enter less expensive, managed care organizations.

The House plan also would increase monthly premiums for the voluntary, Part B doctor insurance from the current $46.10 to about $90 by the year 2002.

Although the vote's outcome was not in doubt, House Republican leaders led by Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., continued a series of closed-door meetings Wednesday with their rank-and-file to nail down support.

Gingrich agreed, for instance, to boost payments for hospitals and health plans in rural areas but discarded a break for chiropractors.

Meanwhile, House Republicans decided to abandon controversial plans to strike federal laws that protect the income, savings and property of spouses and children of people whose nursing home stays are subsidized by Medicaid.

Analysts say that, given the white-hot rhetoric that has engulfed the current debate - as well as last year's debacle over President Clinton's health reform effort - Congress is unlikely any time soon to address the long-term viability of Medicare.

``It's just very hard for people to focus attention on these problems that are 10, 15 years off,'' said Robert Blendon, a Harvard School of Public Health public opinion expert.

Instead, Democrats and Republicans say, Congress likely will create a high-profile, bipartisan commission to tackle Medicare's long-term problems.

The bill expected to be adopted by the Republican-dominated House would create a ``Commission on the Effect of the Baby Boom Generation'' to study the problem and recommend actions to Congress. It appears to be one of the few undisputed elements in the broad Medicare reform bill.

by CNB