The LA TIMES reports:

The Supreme Court on Monday gave employers a green light to reduce health benefits for millions of retirees who turn 65 and become eligible for Medicare. The justices turned away a legal challenge from AARP, the nation's leading senior citizens lobby, which had contended these lower benefits for older retirees violated the federal law against age discrimination.

The court's action upholds, in effect, a rule adopted last year by federal regulators that says the "coordination of retiree health benefits with Medicare" is exempt from the anti-age-bias law.

...

Employers in California, large and small, say benefits for retirees already have become a casualty of soaring medical costs.

"In some cases, it's become a millstone around their necks," said Jack Kyser, chief economist of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. "Corporations aren't all heartless, but in many cases, you're competing with multinational corporations that don't have quite the obligations that domestic firms have."

...

David Sloane, AARP's senior vice president, said the court battle shows a need for Congress to take up healthcare reform. "We have an entirely voluntary system" where employers provide healthcare if they choose to, he said. "This is the fundamental problem we are dealing with. One way to solve the problem would be for Congress to pass comprehensive healthcare legislation."

 

The Supreme Court gives another gift to big business - quelle suprise! Anybody notice a trend?

The point on international competitiveness is valid however, and a reason I often cite to sell the single payer system. The employer based system puts a burden on labor intensive industries like the automotive industry. This becomes a jobs issue. Under a single payer system healthcare costs are shouldered by all via progressive taxation and healthcare costs are not an albatross around various industries necks.

This SCOTUS ruling is a blow to people who will lose healthcare coverage provided by employers, which often times is more comprehensive than the benefits provided by Medicare. That's why HR-676 is the "Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act." Medicare has had a target around it's neck for decades and so we first have to to undue all the damage inflicted upon it by anti-government types in Congress, for example the Medicare "part D (for disaster)" fiasco. We also need it to reflect modern medical realities. Like for example that it is cheaper (and better for the patient) to pay for a nurse to come in a couple times a week, then to have someone in an inpatient facility, etc.

The big winner here is the health insurance profiteers because people at this age are so expensive to cover and now Uncle Sam (meaning you and me) will be forced to cover those expenses. And the employers will win too, just not as much as the insurers.

This ruling will have some interesting consequences. It's easy to see it exacerbating the funding shortage that Medicare is due to encounter in the future. When Bush tried to move on Social Security Privatization ("personal accounts"), some of the more honest TV commentators were pointing out that the chicken-littlism over supposed SS funding "crisis" was a little puzzling since its peanuts compared to what looms over on the Medicare side of things (also puzzling because that Bush's idea would have made the "crisis" worse.)

This will probably make it harder for anti-government factions in the Congress to screw with Medicare because there will be more people in it, people who are pissed off because they had better coverage under thier employer plan, who will hopefully get active in ensuring that Medicare is preserved and protected, if not improved and expanded to all under HR-676.

Medicare is lurching toward disaster and it is too late for the Bush Administration and Congress to do anything about it, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said on Tuesday.

He said the next administration will have to act to stop rising costs and get control of the $400 billion federal health insurance plan for the elderly, which now covers 44 million people.

"Higher and higher costs are being borne by fewer and fewer people. Sooner or later, this formula implodes," Leavitt said in a speech to the right-leaning Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute think-tanks.

...

Leavitt's speech echoes repeated warnings from other federal government officials who have noted that Medicare spending is projected to be 3.3 percent of gross domestic product in 2009

4. The solution to the problem is contained in his comments -- "by less and less people". We need to consider countering the right-wing noise on Medicare with a coordinated message: "Expand Medicare to save Medicare" by explaining the benefits of a universal risk pool versus what we do with Medicare right now -- redline out the most expensive patients to insure and make them the governments problem.