Editorials

A look back at an infamous day

On an eerily calm Sunday morning in 1941, the chaos that had enveloped the other side of the globe hit our borders.

Two separate aerial attacks — consisting of 353 aircrafts launched from six Japanese carriers — bombarded a U.S. naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

Nearly 2,500 soldiers stationed on that base lost their lives in the attack, with another 1,200 badly wounded.

Japan was concerned about America’s possible attempts to limit its expansion throughout Southeast Asia.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt worried about an explosive outburst of aggression, which manifested itself on what he called the “day which will live in infamy.”

The next day, the United States and Britain declared war on Japan, further escalating World War II — which officially began two years earlier — beyond the European borders.

From that day forward, thousands of Americans answered Uncle Sam’s call and joined the effort to slow the ruthless expansion of fascist dictators like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.

The Great Depression had ravaged the American economy in the years leading up to Pearl Harbor, but there was no shortage of bravery and heroism in this nation’s armed services.

In the 67 years since that fateful day, we take this day to honor those who died in the Pearl Harbor attacks and we reflect on the lessons this nation was forced to learn the hard way.

Many of your friends and neighbors still know exactly what they were doing when the news broke.

Some heard the news from their teachers, others learned about it from their parents. A few were even active members of the military at the time and took up the call to serve their country when it happened.

Today’s generation might not have the proper context for what this day means.

Their knowledge might not extend beyond a few school lessons and a terrible film directed by Michael Bay.

But as we get swept up in the holiday season, Pearl Harbor Day annually reminds us of those who gave to the ultimate degree.

Medicare overpays private health insurance companies

Private health insurance plans were supposed to control costs and improve the quality of care delivered to millions of elderly Americans under Medicare.

But that’s not the way things have worked out. Three new studies, published last week in the respected journal Health Affairs, show that private plans have hiked costs while offering scant evidence of improved quality. And if history is any guide, the price tag is about to grow even steeper.

This is open enrollment season for the 45 million Americans covered by Medicare, a once-a-year period during which they can sign up for a so-called Medicare Advantage plan run by a private health insurance company.

Enrollment in these private plans has been growing quickly over the past two years, a trend that may continue this year. More than 10.3 million people -- nearly one of every four Medicare enrollees -- now are covered by a privately administered Medicare plan.

On average, Medicare Advantage plans cost about 13 percent more per person than traditional Medicare. And the fastest-growing Medicare Advantage plans, called private fee-for-service plans, cost even more: 18 percent more per enrollee than traditional Medicare. Just 26,000 people were enrolled in such plans in December of 2003; about 2.3 million are today.

The private fee-for-service plans operate essentially the same as traditional Medicare, which means that taxpayers and Medicare enrollees are paying substantially more for the same services that are available through Medicare. That makes no financial sense for taxpayers.

The extra costs are covered by subsidies that were built into the 2003 law that created the Medicare prescription drug benefit. The subsidies for private plans were designed to foster competition that supposedly would hold down costs, increase efficiency, encourage innovation and offer expanded benefits to Medicare enrollees.

The same justifications were used 25 years ago, when the first private Medicare plans were created by Congress. What happened then, however, was that the private plans charged more than traditional Medicare and enrolled elderly people who were healthier than the average Medicare patient.

There’s no evidence that Medicare Advantage plans are engaged in “cherry picking” -- enrolling only the healthiest Medicare enrollees. But in one of the three new studies, researcher Marsha Gold writes that Medicare Advantage has “added to Medicare’s complexity and costs ... without apparent improvements in quality.”

Complications make life harder for the 45 million elderly Americans enrolled in Medicare. And no improvements in quality means that money is spent inefficiently on care that is delivered haphazardly.

President-elect Barack Obama and congressional Democrats should take aim at these subsidies for private insurance companies. At a time when Medicare’s finances are starting to feel the strain of covering the first of the retiring baby boomers, there is no excuse for subsidizing less-efficient private health insurance companies to provide the same care traditional Medicare does more cheaply.

That’s not to say there should be no role for private health insurance companies in Medicare. But if they want to compete for Medicare business, they should do so on an equal financial footing.

Reprinted from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.Distributed by Creators Syndicate Inc.