Obama Murdered Medicare

[medx]

The health care reform law enacted in spring will have a devastating impact on elderly and disabled Medicare enrollees if its provisions are not substantially changed.
The law creates a new mechanism to reduce the rate of increase in Medicare payments to doctors and hospitals. As a result, Medicare payments will fall below Medicaid rates before the end of this decade, and they will fall increasingly behind the rates paid by all other payers in succeeding decades.
To appreciate what that means, consider that Medicare currently pays about 20 percent below what private insurance pays. At those rates, hospitals lose money on Medicare patients. Under the spending cuts called for in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), payments will get worse in the future. Medicare Supplemental Plan
According to estimates from the Office of the Medicare Actuary, Medicare will be paying just two-thirds of what private payers spend by the end of the decade and just one-half as much by midcentury. Moreover, as Medicare rates fall increasingly below Medicaid rates, the elderly and the disabled will be the last patients doctors will want to see - if they have time for them at all.
Compounding these problems is the fact that the ACA will create a huge rationing problem systemwide. Although the law is expected to create as many as 34 million newly insured people, all funds to create new health care providers were zeroed out of the bill. Subsequently, the administration has promised new funds to increase supply, but they will be nowhere near the increase in demand...
American Seniors

SAVING & GOODMAN: Obama murdered Medicare - Washington Times

 

[G.Gordon]

We're going to fix this in 2012. Wait and see.

 

[VolAgent]

If you honestly believe doctors' payments under Medicare will be reduced in the next 3 or 4 years, I have a bridge that I'd like to sell you. It just looks good on paper to claim the savings in expenditures, it is how they helped to sell Obamacare. But as they have done year after year, they will pass a temporary fix. Just like the AMT. It is great to scare the middle class with, but as long as politicians want to be re-elected, it will be fixed.

 

[jbage007]

more funny numbers used by funny face (Pelosi) to sell her sob story to the unassuming and always believing (naive) American public

 

[padthaiforlunch]

Hey man, we have a deficit. Come January, the new Republican Congress and Mr. "Bi-partisan" are going to trim some spending. It won't be bank subsidies or tax breaks that will pay for the reduction, it will be entitlement programs.

The health care reform law enacted in spring will have a devastating impact on elderly and disabled Medicare enrollees if its provisions are not substantially changed.
The law creates a new mechanism to reduce the rate of increase in Medicare payments to doctors and hospitals. As a result, Medicare payments will fall below Medicaid rates before the end of this decade, and they will fall increasingly behind the rates paid by all other payers in succeeding decades.
To appreciate what that means, consider that Medicare currently pays about 20 percent below what private insurance pays. At those rates, hospitals lose money on Medicare patients. Under the spending cuts called for in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), payments will get worse in the future.
According to estimates from the Office of the Medicare Actuary, Medicare will be paying just two-thirds of what private payers spend by the end of the decade and just one-half as much by midcentury. Moreover, as Medicare rates fall increasingly below Medicaid rates, the elderly and the disabled will be the last patients doctors will want to see - if they have time for them at all.
Compounding these problems is the fact that the ACA will create a huge rationing problem systemwide. Although the law is expected to create as many as 34 million newly insured people, all funds to create new health care providers were zeroed out of the bill. Subsequently, the administration has promised new funds to increase supply, but they will be nowhere near the increase in demand...

SAVING & GOODMAN: Obama murdered Medicare - Washington Times

 

[Frank Stastny]

If you honestly believe doctors' payments under Medicare will be reduced in the next 3 or 4 years, I have a bridge that I'd like to sell you.

And, I would like to sell him the swamp land your bridge leads to.

The sky is not falling!

 

[VolAgent]

The sky is not falling!

Oh, the sky is falling, don't doubt that. It is just not falling where everyone sees it.

Congress is made up of politicians, and politicians like to be re-elected. You don't get re-elected by pissing off the one group of citizens that are known to vote consistently, seniors. Instead, Congress will continue to borrow and borrow, until people lose confidence in our debt.

Medicare and Medicaid cannot continue on the way they have been, costs have to be reduced. Either Congress can lower doctors' compensation for these patients, or require the patient bear more of the cost. I understand Rand Paul in Kentucky has gotten some flack for suggesting Medicare have a $2,000 deductible. I say, why not. Most seniors are on a MA plan or have a Medicare Supplement. Yes, premiums would increase, but they'd still pay less than the $2,000, and Medicare might live on a few more years.

 

[somarco]

suggesting Medicare have a $2,000 deductible

I don't have sales figures, but casual observation and discussion with those who have sold Medigap plans for years seem to indicate the high deductible plan F is not very popular.

Obamacrap is supposed to "fix" Medicare with cuts in provider payments, new Medicare taxes, ACO's and death panels. All of these together will piss off a significant portion of the voting public.

Time for the designers of Obamacrap to start over.

 

[VolAgent]

I don't have sales figures, but casual observation and discussion with those who have sold Medigap plans for years seem to indicate the high deductible plan F is not very popular.

Obamacrap is supposed to "fix" Medicare with cuts in provider payments, new Medicare taxes, ACO's and death panels. All of these together will piss off a significant portion of the voting public.

Time for the designers of Obamacrap to start over.

I believe you misunderstood what I said.

He suggested Medicare have a $2,000 deductible. People would continue to buy MA and Med Supp plans to cover that deductible. Your standard plan F would probably become much more popular as it would cover the $2,000 Medicare deductible for seniors.

Also, you would need to make MA plans either responsible for the first $2,000, or shift it onto seniors for Medicare to see the cost savings. I would assume the plan would pick up the $2,000, so they'd just raise premiums to compensate.

 

[somarco]

I did not misunderstand, but perhaps miscommunicated.

Plan F high deductible is not popular and neither will imposing a high deductible on Medicare. Requiring a $2000 deductible on Medicare is merely cost shifting . . . either to the Medicare beneficiary or the Medigap carrier.

This is simply rearranging the deck chairs and does nothing to make Medicare more cost efficient.

This kind of logic has already been applied in Obamacrap to make health care, and health insurance more affordable.

Reduce health care costs by requiring a litany of preventive tests at "no charge" to the consumer. Requiring health insurance companies to cover children up to age 26 under their parents plan and mandating GI for kids up to age 19.

All this does is drive up premiums and does nothing to lower the cost of health care or premiums.

And about that campaign promise to lower premiums by $2,000?

Achieved via taxpayer subsidies.

All smoke and mirrors and bullshi*t.