Senator Max Baucus of the Senate Finance Committee introduced a health care reform plan yesterday that will have a significant impact on the availability of hospice services and end of life care. Baucus’s plan attempts to bridge the gap between Democratic support and Republican refusal of health care reform. To gain Republican support, Baucus proposed a plan that lowers health care costs without raising the federal deficit. The plan does so by taxing insurance companies and employers that do not provide health care for employees. The problem with his proposal is that it also reduces government contributions for health care that is needed by many Americans, such as hospice and elder care.

Baucus’s proposed legislation calls for cut-backs in programs sponsored by Medicaid and Medicare. One section of Baucus’s legislation reads:

Revisions to Annual Market-Basket Adjustments for Part A Providers – The provision would reduce annual market basket updates for hospitals, home health providers, nursing homes, hospice providers, long-term care hospitals and inpatient rehabilitation facilities, including adjustments to reflect expected gains in productivity.

Annual market basket updates reflect the rising cost of living in the country. If these updates are reduced, funding for hospice care, nursing homes, and other such services will not be raised to levels that take into account increased rates, and patients will be forced to cover the differences.

Florida’s Senator Bill Nelson finds the plan insufficient as it now reads. He will attempt to make changes to protect Floridians who are covered by Medicare Advantage. Cutting funding for this program was another method of reducing health care spending so dramatically in Baucus’s proposal. Nelson said, “I don’t think we can punish seniors who signed up,” and called the plan “a starting point.”

In the process of amending and approving proposals for legislation, each side must make compromises. It will not be easy to come to a resolution that pleases all involved, but there are some compromises that should not be made. The well-being of Americans should be a top priority in this endeavor, and that means that Americans need to have affordable access to quality care. Hospice and elder care is one area of health care that cannot be marginalized.