Last week, the Washington Post printed an article that highlighted a possible decrease in Medicare benefits if the Health-Care bill passed the Senate. Now I don't know if the $500 Billion that was eluded to had closure of obsolete and duplication of service dictates attached to it, but I would like to know more about what the negatives are without having to stoop to the depths of Fox Noise to find out.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services put out the initial report that the paper built the story on. They claim that Medicare cuts contained in the health package are likely to prove so costly to hospitals and nursing homes that they could stop taking Medicare altogether. A little far reaching, but still a worthy question. Mind you this is based on whatever information they were looking for when compiling their facts. (It is the Washington Post)If there is such a large amount of funding missing from Medicare and the startling revelations from this report are true, then there's a problem. If the Senate was to alter, seek other sources or increase the final tally...there will be some explaining to do.
Adding 30 - 50 million more people to the already stressed public health program known as Medicare is expected to cost more and we are well aware of the Trillion dollar price tag that our Congress has saddled on the American taxpayer. At the the same time; this is understood as a bitter, but necessary pill to take in order to close the holes in our embarrassment of a national health system.
To remain solvent, Medicare spending per beneficiary would have to grow at roughly half the rate it has over the past two decades to meet the measure's savings targets. Considering the population age bubble and the mere fact that this increase in availability of that same care will extend the very lives of those in the system...it sounds wholly unrealistic. Don't you think?On the flip side; we've been told that Out-of-pocket spending would decline more than $200 billion by 2019, with the government picking up much of that. The President has also been on the record that there will be no decrease in Medicare spending as a result of this reform. I want to believe him. This country needs to free itself from the grip of the private insurance companies. Like I said before; it all depends on what you're looking for in your research.
The individual stories of pain and suffering because of the cold and heartless bureaucrats in some Insurance HQ in Connecticut cutting needed services to their own clients has pounded this need for reform home in a very real way.What I want to know is the very real way we are going to pay for this reform and will the Public Option actually provide the desired pin we need to pop the ballooning expenses we've been subjected to for so long?
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MediCare fraud is basically out of control very apparently based on reports from AARP. The big-Schnoz in the state attorney general's office has been fighting fraud in MedicAid. There is no magic bullet to stop such fraud but what is also true is that these wars against fraud catch up unfairly those not involved in such fraud.
The embarrassment of health care is multi-faceted:the costs are ridiculously high, the quality on some objective measurements does not seem commensurate with such costs. the access is limited, and there is no force to counter professionals who do not maintain a relationship with the latest knowledge nor is there any requirement to maintain such knowledge updates. In one objective measure, infant mortality, we are embarrassing on that statistic as an industrial nation. Such issues will remain long beyond the political fix that is coming our way relatively soon it seems.
Moreover, the greatest agriculture workers in the world, also known as the political footballs which come under the grand political heading of immigration, have mostly lain idle because of the extant takeover of most of agriculture by conglomorate agribusiness, which is concerned more about maintaining food shelf life than maintaining human life. We therefore could institute real reform in this very basic way by reinstituting the production of actual food instead of the long shelf-life food adulterated with all kinds of things that likely are giving people things like cancer, which then would represent going a long long way toward instituting real reform.
We do not see this yet. I hope we do.
Mike what give with the IRS? Problems with w2's and 1099's???
Healthcare reform needs to address tort reform first. As long as injury/malpractice attorneys exist there will always be a case for them to sue even with government issued or regulated insurance plans. Until then, physicians will continue to do test after tests just to be sure there will be nothing an attorney can hook his claws into to generate some cash settlement for the "victim". It is a regular pyramid: a) lawyer sues for patient b) Dr. will do more tests the next time to be sure his butt is covered. 3) Dr. now passes that cost on to malpractice premiums. 4) Malpractice passes cost onto physician in higher premiums and now physician passes it on to the health insurance companies and the non insured patients. So where does it all end? All players have to be at the table. Lawyers, pharmaceutical companies, physicians, hospitals and insurance companies. Notice that I listed lawyers first. For the record, AMA does not represent all of the physicians who are in private practice. So for the AMA to say that physicians " go along" with the proposed healthcare reform is bogus. I bet if you did a survey of Doctors practicing in the Hudson Valley you would find that most do not belong to the AMA.
And for one last question, If this plan is so good for America why is it that the Senate & Congress, the President and his dependents will be exempt? What is good for the goose should be good for the gander!!!
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