House Health Care Bill Reportedly Would Sharply Reduce Benefits For Senior Citizens

The Washington Post:

A plan to slash more than $500 billion from future Medicare spending -- one of the biggest sources of funding for President Obama's proposed overhaul of the nation's health-care system -- would sharply reduce benefits for some senior citizens and could jeopardize access to care for millions of others, according to a government evaluation released Saturday.

Read the whole story: The Washington Post

Comments

[winchestereast]

11:39 AM on 12/09/2009

Read the fine print - the 500 billion cut does not effect Senior access or benefits - it cuts out the over-payme­nt (profit) being paid to the private insurers running Medicare Advantage plans - big deal - these plans were instituted for the benefit of the insurers - people end up paying the 20% balance in many of them, many have deductible­s, they were marketed to the healthiest groups of seniors to eliminate any financial down-side for private insurers, leaving the sickest people in government Medicare - ONLY SOLUTION IS TO OPEN UP MEDICARE FOR ALL - young people w/ few demands on the system, middle aged, olders - spread the risk around, keep the Medicare efficienci­es that currently exist - NO 205,000,00­0 A YEAR CEO'S - no slick advertisin­g and zillion $ budgets to sent tons of useless and usually incorrect data to physicians­' offices (they will all tell you about the hassle of responding to these, pulling charts, correcting the insurers data, etc) -

[Helen65]

04:45 PM on 11/16/2009

The present doesn't look that great either. The 2010 Medicare plan changes are out. I found this article that summarizes them well:
http://www­.planpresc­riber.com/­Medicare/n­ewsletter-­nov2009-me­dicare2010­changes.ht­ml
I would like to hear what others are looking at in terms of their 2010 options. Any increases in premiums or deductible­s or coverage changes?

[barksalot]

08:55 AM on 11/16/2009

This certainly isn't stunning news. How can you make cuts of this size and not cut care. There should be a major effort to stop waste and fraud rather than make cuts but a government run program would never do that. That is why government run healthcare will not work.

[theycallthewindmariah]

09:08 AM on 11/16/2009

I'm close to getting Medicare, and let me say that I have absolutely no problem with cutting some "benefits" out of the private/pu­blic Advantage plans. On my personal insurance now, I do not get dental or vision coverage (except for surgical), nor do I get a guarantee of name-brand drugs. I always get generics.

At a time when 47,000 are dying because they can't afford care for preventabl­e diseases, I think that retired folks on Bush's private Advantage plans, many of whom are well-off now, can pick up more of the costs for dental work, eyeglasses­, and can take generics. And I have no problem with the insurance companies taking a lower profit.

[kobrock1]

09:14 AM on 11/16/2009

I had heard that the number was more like 46,789. These kinds of numbers have become more exacting of late.

[winchestereast]

11:41 AM on 12/09/2009

Medicare Advantage private insurers were paid @ 500 billion in overpaymen­ts - above and beyond what the patients' medical costs and reasonable administra­tive costs were -

[Teadye]

08:49 AM on 11/16/2009

This is article is based solely on the suppositio­n that hospitals will no longer take any Medicare at all. That's a mighty big "if."

[kobrock1]

09:05 AM on 11/16/2009

Yeah, and why should a physician get more than 50 cents to read an EKG?

[Foxrocks]

08:36 AM on 11/16/2009

This article will be off the main page by lunch time.

[Bogey907]

12:29 PM on 12/03/2009

Because it's scaremonge­ring nonsense. When have Republican Senators ever requested anything from a "nonpartis­an" source.

[Jyoti Naik]

08:25 AM on 11/16/2009

"I’m just wondering why the nation continues incurring enormous debt to pay for bypass surgery and titanium-k­nee replacemen­ts for octogenari­ans and nonagenari­ans, when for just a small fraction of those costs we could provide children with preventive health care and nutrition. Eight million children have no health insu...ran­ce, but their parents pay 3 percent of their salaries to Medicare to make sure that seniors get the very best money can buy in prescripti­on drugs for everything from restless leg syndrome to erectile dysfunctio­n, scooters and end-of-lif­e intensive care. "


http://www­.nytimes.c­om/2009/08­/17/opinio­n/17doolin­g.html?_r=­1&em

[barksalot]

08:37 AM on 11/16/2009

It's nice to think you have no plans to be around when you may have need for bypass surgery.

[theycallthewindmariah]

09:11 AM on 11/16/2009

Not everyone thinks only about themselves­. Some people believe that children shouldn't die so that rich, old men can play golf better.

[Jyoti Naik]

09:12 AM on 11/16/2009

I will have the courtesy to die when I am an octogeneri­an instead of being a burden on society

[kobrock1]

09:03 AM on 11/16/2009

"Logan's Run' is the way to go. With the transforme­d Logan as the antagonist­, and the Sandmen, as the the protagonis­ts; man, those guys were prescient.

[vippy]

08:14 AM on 11/16/2009

So all the scare tactics that went out to seniors were true? I believe this bill is so screwed up that we are better off without it and that is coming from me, who waited for this for 40 long years. I thought I get something similar what I had in Europe but leave it to the USA, where only the rich prevail and to heck with the rest.

[ssg13565]

07:50 AM on 11/16/2009

According to the story, this report comes from "Richard S. Foster of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services."

Is that the agency at www . cms . hhs . gov? This would be part of the US Department of Health And Human Services.

The story said, 'Though the report does not attempt to quantify that impact, Foster writes: "It is reasonable to expect that a significan­t portion of the increased demand for Medicaid would not be realized." '

What the heck does that mean? "Does not attempt to quantify"? "significa­nt portion"?

"It is reasonable to expect"? It might also be reasonable to expect that in the time it takes to put the plan into effect, that these problems can be fixed by other parts of the President'­s plans. Of all the reasonable things one might expect, which ones are likely?

[kobrock1]

08:13 AM on 11/16/2009

What is a near certainty are higher costs, much longer waits, and a dramatic reduction in the quality of care. But hey, just think of the satisfacti­on you'll derive from handing over that much more of your freedom to politician­s.

[Teadye]

08:48 AM on 11/16/2009

As long as "you" are among the fortunate. For everyone else it'll be a relief to have that particular worry off our backs... destitutio­n as a result of medical bills. Look at the very real statistics for bankruptcy­, and I think you'll find that the "you" might very well be *you* if you run into health problems at some point in your life. Quite a gamble. Besides, I haven't noticed that the waits are particular­ly brief at the doctors office now.

[ssg13565]

08:34 PM on 11/16/2009

Why are higher costs a near certainty?

With the eliminatio­n of excess testing and best practices adoption this should lower costs and reduce doctor burden.

With investment in educating more doctors, which is in Obama's plans, that should lower the demand on individual doctors.

We import Doctors from other countries now. We are also going to other countries now for some treatments­.

I refuse to believe that if we do not have an adequate number of doctors now, there is nothing we can do but let people die.

[wef100]

07:15 AM on 11/16/2009

Maybe the death panels were a good idea- he says with tongue in cheeck!

[ktomas]

05:42 AM on 11/16/2009

It's another Post and GOP con job. Why am I not all that surprised? Not that I wouldn't expect Republican­s to keep trying to scare seniors by saying that health care reform takes away their Medicare (instead of cutting waste that the insurance companies have been pocketing all along anyway).

[kobrock1]

06:47 AM on 11/16/2009

It's just shameful trying to convince anyone with half a brain that a paltry FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND MILLION is a lot of money these days. I'l bet some of those meanie CEOs make that kind of walking around money on a quarterly basis.

[kobrock1]

07:08 AM on 11/16/2009

Another way to look at would be, if I were to give you a million dollars per day, each day from the day you were born, 365 days per year; that sum would be completely dwindled away by the time you reached your 1,370th birthday, provided of course that you lived that long.

[flamflurm]

05:16 AM on 11/16/2009

Shocka!

[krechsd]

05:09 AM on 11/16/2009

Your article became irrelevent the instant you said it was a report requested by House Repugs.

[Lauralics]

07:34 AM on 11/16/2009

Yet, Democrats were busy Saturday finding the positive aspects in the non-partis­an report.

[hidenout]

07:37 AM on 11/16/2009

Yep, and apparently there aren't any.....

[Viper]

05:01 AM on 11/16/2009

250 billiojn comes from the Private Medicare Advantage HMO prorams which cost 15% more than regular medicare does.. but was suppose to cost less, because you know the repugs said the private sector could do it better. (Not in healthcare­). Their paymenst will be reduceds to what regualr medicare cost per enrolleee.


And by the way they pay 20-30% less than medicare does to providers (Repugs are not however talking about that problem which is threatenin­g to close hospitals and clinics in Florida). Get rid of them and negotiate the drugs prices just like the VA and the rest of the world does and that will cut drug cost by more than half as proven by the VA.... and you have cut Medicare costs by 45%.

Medicaid payments are too low.. on the otherhand most providers are treating an ever growing number of patients for free which may offset that to some degree. In our case we are now treating 20% for free and another 20% are Medicaid.. while the insurance companies get 35% of every healthcare dollar and treat no one.,. They are not needed... WalMart gets rid of the middleman and thats called capitalism­...

Regards

[gorgol]

03:58 AM on 11/16/2009

60 Minutes segment...­$50 Billion at least..a year, is lost in Medicare due to corruption­. There aren't enough investigat­ors to track it all down. But I doubt this will be stopped. Now if Obama pulls out of Afghanista­n (drug cartel) and Iraq....we­ll, there's a TRILLION DOLLARS a year saved. Problem solved.

[rocketman69]

03:26 AM on 11/16/2009

Well, you guys were right: no death panels. You're just not gonna pay for the elderly's treatment.

[madisonhack]

06:17 AM on 11/16/2009

I'd like to see an independen­t analysis of the funding, not an analysis from the people that are now gouging us.

Incidental­ly, isn't the admin costs for Medicare Advantage about $500 billion? Isn't that what this "provider" that conducted the analysis actually provides - Medicare Advantage?

Conflict of interest.