$ome thing$ are more important.
"Hospitals push hike in age for Medicare; Seek to avoid cuts in federal payments" September 30, 2011|By Tracy Jan, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON - As the deficit reduction supercommittee hunts for $1.5 trillion in additional savings, US hospital executives are so worried about having their payments cut that they plan to start lobbying Congress next week to shift the burden onto their elderly patients - specifically by raising the age of eligibility for Medicare.
The American Hospital Association is rallying hundreds of hospital leaders to descend upon the Capitol on Tuesday and urge legislators to consider increasing the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67 as one way to save money without reducing payments to hospitals.
I think the Wall Street protesters beat you to the spot.
That move is so controversial that President Obama, who once expressed a willingness to entertain the change in Medicare age eligibility, omitted it from his deficit-reduction proposal last week.
“Providers have been giving and giving and giving, and will give more. But the beneficiaries also have to be touched even though politicians feel like that’s a third rail,’’ said Lynn Nicholas, president of the Massachusetts Hospital Association. “We have to look at health care entitlements and not just payments. It’s pretty much a no brainer to raise the age of eligibility for future enrollees.’’
First of all, they are NOT ENTITLEMENTS like your feeling about tax dollars, scum. The TAXPAYERS of America have PAID FOR THOSE PROGRAMS and the GOVERNMENT STOLE the TRUST FUNDS!
Secondly, I'm wondering where all the giving has been given the ASTRONOMICAL PRICE-GOUGING in HEALTH CARE! Or did they mean giving and giving and giving to executive salaries and bonuses?
In addition to the eligibility age increase, which is projected to save the federal government $124.8 billion over 10 years, Nicholas said the state association would like Congress to consider other cost-sharing options within Medicare. Raising the elderly’s Medicare premiums for doctors’ visits from 25 percent to 35 percent, for example, would result in a savings of $241.2 billion over a decade, she said.
Yeah, HOW ABOUT ENDING the DEBT-DRIVING WARS and EMPIRE for starters?
One proposal Nicholas said the hospital association endorses would gradually increase the age of eligibility by two months every year starting with people born in 1949, until it reaches 67.
The nation’s hospitals face a potential 2 percent cut as part of a larger automatic Medicare reduction if the bipartisan supercommittee does not come up with enough savings over the next two months. Given that, it comes as little surprise that hospital executives would be trying to protect their bottom lines, health care analysts say.
Related: Defense Protection Commission
But some analysts and advocates expressed concern that the hospitals are watching their own backs at the expense of seniors, especially given pending court challenges to the federal health care overhaul signed by Obama last year, which expanded health insurance for millions of Americans. If the health care law is repealed and the eligibility age raised, hundreds of thousands of seniors could end up uninsured, said Paul Van de Water, a fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan organization in Washington, D.C., that analyzes how policies impact low-income Americans.
“I just find it rather unappealing that the hospital executives say, ‘Protect us,’ but throw the 65- and 66-year-olds to the wolves,’’ Van de Water said.
Van de Water authored a brief last month saying that raising the Medicare eligibility age by two years might save the federal government money, but it would actually increase the nation’s overall health care costs because Medicare is more efficient than private insurers. The extra costs would be paid by employers that provide coverage, the states, and seniors themselves....
“The hospitals would be walking away with a windfall because people would be covered privately, which pays a higher rate than Medicare,’’ said Robert Restuccia, director of Community Catalyst, a national nonprofit based in Boston that advocates for universal health care.
What are you to do when EVEN the HEALTH and EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS are RANK with CORRUPTION and GREED?
The executive director of another nonprofit organization supporting universal health care says the hospitals may be miscalculating the effect of the higher eligibility age on their profits and losses. “This is really self-defeating for the hospitals ,’’ said Ron Pollack of Families USA, “because ultimately a lot of these 65- and 66-year-olds will wind up joining the ranks of the uninsured. So when they go to the hospital and are unable to pay for it, it’s going to cause hospitals to eat those costs.’’
The move has been relatively under the radar, with most hospital chief executives declining to speak publicly about their efforts.
And it will drop back under after this report.
It is a “public relations disaster,’’ Restuccia said. “These are mostly nonprofit institutions. They’re supposed to be focused on caring for their community. This would not help their community, though it may help their bottom line.’’
For some reason, doc, I'm having a hard time RECONCILING NONPROFIT with BOTTOM LINE!
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Jon Kingsdale, former head of the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority and now a health care consultant helping other states develop their own insurance exchanges, derided the lobbying effort as “a pretty pure self-interested calculation.’’
It's an AmeriKa institution all right!
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And about those high costs:
"Health insurance costs rise sharply this year; Effect of new law on rates unclear" September 28, 2011|By Reed Abelson, New York Times
NEW YORK - Major health insurance companies have been charging sharply higher premiums this year, outstripping any growth in workers’ wages and creating more uncertainty for the Obama administration and employers who are struggling to drive down an unrelenting rise in medical costs....
They are NO BETTER than the f***ing BANKS!!
The unexpected increase in premiums raises questions about whether health care costs are, in fact, stabilizing at all, as people have postponed going to the doctor or dentist and have put off expensive procedures....
Unexpected by who?
Throughout this year, major health insurers have defended higher premiums - and higher profits - saying that their expenses would rise once the economy recovered and people believed they could again afford medical care.
I think someone needs to send executive managers to the doctor because they are $ick.
The struggling economy will probably keep suppressing demand for medical care, particularly as people pay a larger share of their own medical bills through higher deductibles and co-payments, according to benefits consultants and others.
After getting hit on all sides you need to go to a doctor in AmeriKa.
About three-quarters of workers now pay part of the bill when they see a doctor, and nearly a third have a deductible of at least $1,000 if they have single coverage, up from a ratio of just 1 in 10 in 2006, according to Kaiser.
Although demand for care appears to be growing relatively slowly, insurers and benefits consultants say prices for medical care continue to climb as prescription drug makers and hospitals charge more....
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Only one cure to the health crisis:
“The rising percentage of people putting off health care makes us wonder if we are really done with the recession,’’ said John Santa, director of Consumer Reports’ Health Ratings Center. “This is one of the most sensitive barometers of how people are coping with the financial pressures.’’
Who would want to go anyway?
"Medicaid provider accused of fraud; Allegedly billed for dead patients" by Patricia Wen and Brian Ballou, Globe Staff / October 1, 2011
FRAMINGHAM - A nonprofit agency that promoted itself as a compassionate organization devoted to helping disabled, indigent adults stay in their homes was accused by state prosecutors yesterday of running a cynical scam, billing the state for about 20 patients who had been dead for some time.
Prosecutors also said Adlife Healthcare - run by Sharon Richardson at locations in Framingham, Dorchester, Hyannis, and West Springfield - charged Medicaid for home health aid services rendered to more than 100 infirm patients even though its staff had not done the work.
These billing practices, as well as three other unrelated Medicaid fraud schemes in the state, siphoned a total of $10 million from MassHealth, the state’s Medicaid program providing health insurance for the poor, Attorney General Martha Coakley said yesterday in announcing the grand jury’s indictment of 10 individuals....
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