Gingrich Says Some May Lose Medicare Subsidy

As congressional Republicans prepare to unveil their plan for overhauling Medicare, House Speaker Newt Gingrich launched a vigorous defense Sunday of several major features, including making affluent retirees pay more of their own medical costs.

The Republican leader confirmed that under the GOP’s new blueprint, elderly couples whose incomes exceed $125,000 might have to pick up the share the government now pays for doctors’ services.

“We may well phase out” that subsidy, which currently covers more than half the true cost of the Medicare premium, Gingrich said in a television interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He said such a step could be necessary to help curb Medicare’s escalating costs and to convince the public that the reform effort was fair.

On other subjects, Gingrich (R-Ga.), used the nationally televised forum to offer a word of caution to retired Gen. Colin L. Powell, attack a recent magazine article about his own personal life and highlight the political stakes in Capitol Hill budget battles that will begin in the coming days.

“I think it’s frankly in the long run a joke,” he said of the prospect that Powell, the highly popular ex-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, might run for President--and seek to govern--as an independent.

“This country is a party country. You run the House and Senate with parties. You appoint Cabinets out of parties. There is no magic independence of people who are just able to stand up and magically produce a government.”

Gingrich described Powell, who has not announced as a candidate, as “a very formidable contender” who would instantly become “the immediate chief rival to Sen. [Bob] Dole [R-Kan.]” if he entered the race.

In the TV interview, Gingrich also called on fellow Republicans to hang together in this fall’s budget fights, despite the growing cross-fire of presidential politics. The GOP presidential field already numbers several contenders, in and out of Congress.

On Sunday, Gingrich said he remains undecided on a presidential campaign but that he would be less likely to run if Powell joins the race.

In the meantime, “If we [Republicans] allow ourselves to get pulled apart in the next 30 or 40 days, we’re going to look like idiots and, frankly, we’re not going to elect anybody next year to the presidency, and we might lose the House and Senate,” Gingrich said.

He said an immediate priority is avoiding a fiscal “train wreck” this fall, in which a budget impasse would lead to a shutdown of some government services. He said the White House and the GOP have enough common ground to cooperate on such issues as balancing the budget, cutting taxes, reforming welfare and stabilizing Medicare.

The House Speaker declined to comment directly on allegations in Vanity Fair magazine that he had engaged in extramarital affairs in the 1970s. But he denounced the article by author Gail Sheehy as “trash journalism” and a “despicable hit piece by a person who has virtually no values.”

Gingrich was joined on the interview circuit Sunday by Senate Majority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.), as the Republican leadership directed attention to the proposals at the heart of its fall offensive in Congress. The sweeping Republican House package of Medicare reforms is planned for release later this week.

Lott echoed Gingrich’s interest in charging wealthy senior citizens more for Medicare coverage. “I would certainly give serious consideration to it,” he said on CBS-TV’s “Face the Nation.”

Under current law, recipients other than the very poor pay a monthly premium, now $46.10, for doctors’ services and laboratory work under Medicare Part B. That premium covers 31% of the true cost of such services, with a government subsidy covering the rest.

To maintain the 31% level, Gingrich said, beneficiaries may have to pay $7 more a month by 2002, beyond the routine annual premium increases.

“I think if you went to the average senior citizen and said, ‘Would you be willing in 2002 to pay $7 a month extra if that’s your share of helping Medicare survive?’ I think, frankly, virtually everyone would say, ‘Yes, that’s not in any way unreasonable.’ ”

The premium increase for the well-off who lose the whole government subsidy would be well over $100 a month.

Democrats have criticized the emerging Republican proposals as reducing the quality of care Medicare recipients would receive while charging more for it. The debate has remained vague, since neither side has yet put forward a detailed reform plan.

Both parties agree, however, that the program is on a path to bankruptcy by about 2002. The GOP plan, in aiming to slash the growth of Medicare costs by $270 billion, would exact a toll on beneficiaries at all income levels.

Gingrich confirmed earlier reports that the Republican plan would provide beneficiaries such options as keeping their current coverage, switching to health maintenance organizations and establishing special medical savings accounts.

Republicans are also considering an array of other cost controls on Medicare.

As the partisan battle over policy prepared to heat up in Congress, Lott took a swipe at Democrats who have been calling attention to the GOP’s strengthening bond with the Christian Coalition.

“What really concerns me is . . . how little religious activity you have going on in the Democratic Party,” he said. “That is something we should be worried about.

“I’m saying that they seem to have a religious intolerance,” he said. “They seem to say that people of religious faith should not be involved. That’s what upsets me.”

Republican candidates for President addressed the coalition’s annual conference in Washington over the weekend.