RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events A right to Health Care

They also passed the bailouts, which wasn't very popular with voters.

This bill doesn't seem to do what needs to be done to fix our health insurance system, which is what this is really about and not health care itself. As I've said before, how is taxing and adding fees to the insurance and medical suppliers going to reduce costs? I agree that citizens need to have the ability to sue negligent doctors and hospitals, but good doctors and hospitals need to be protected from an overly litigious society that we've seem to have breed here in the US. Tort reform doesn't necessarily mean that we'd close the doors on malpractice suits. Just that you'd prevent overreaching judgments and/or scam lawsuits. Short of dumping all lawyers on a deserted island and having them fight for survival on pay-per-view specials.

The whole truth about those Medicare 'cuts'
By MARTIN DeAGOSTINO

Perhaps understandably, the public debate around proposed fixes for our broken health care system has highlighted just a few themes and eye-popping numbers. After all, our health care financing and delivery systems comprise a huge swath of the economy, and proposed reform legislation runs to thousands of pages.

In the attempt to simplify, however, too much of the debate is merely simplistic. Pundits and special interests coat their claims and assertions with a veneer of truth, while ignoring underlying facts that undercut their claims.

Consider proposed Medicare savings of about $500 billion contained in both House and Senate legislation. According to a recent spate of TV ads from groups opposed to health reform, the savings will cut Medicare benefits, deprive beneficiaries of their choice of doctor and threaten access to a variety of health services.


That is simply not so, based on careful AARP analysis of every line of every page of the proposed legislation.

True, the House bill endorsed by AARP and the American Medical Association would trim Medicare spending by a net figure of $458 billion over 10 years (2010-2019). But our analysis suggests those savings are readily achievable, especially since they represent just 6.5 percent of projected Medicare spending over the next decade.

Would they cut care to older Americans? Again, thorough analysis says the answer is "no."

-Nothing in the proposed legislation cuts Medicare benefits or boosts beneficiary costs under Part A (hospitalization), Part B (physician care) or Part D (the prescription drug benefit). In fact, the House-passed bill adds significant new Medicare benefits, notably the complete closing of the Part D "doughnut hole" by 2019 and the immediate addition of cost-free prevention services such as cancer, diabetes and osteoporosis screenings.

-The House bill also includes a new, voluntary national insurance program for long-term care services and supports to help people remain at home as they age instead of being forced into nursing homes.

-The bill boosts Medicare reimbursements to primary care providers and, with companion legislation that ensures fair compensation for all Medicare physicians, it actually enhances people's ability to choose and keep their own doctor.

-It also adds $100 million per year to the Healthcare Fraud and Abuse Control Fund, which will greatly increase the government's ability to monitor and reduce Medicare and Medicaid fraud. The potential savings run into the billions.

But what about the planned spending reductions? Won't they have any effect on Medicare services and benefits?

Let's examine key elements of the proposed savings, as scored by the Congressional Budget Office.

A big chunk involves negotiated agreements with hospitals, the pharmaceutical industry and others that will slow the projected growth in provider reimbursements by more than $150 billion over 10 years.

It will save more than $9 billion by reducing preventable hospital readmissions. (According to a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine, more than 20 percent of Medicare patients were readmitted to hospitals within 30 days of discharge and 33 percent returned within three months.)

Perhaps most important for taxpayers, the legislation will phase out government overpayments to insurance companies that administer Medicare Advantage plans (Part C). That move alone will save more than $154 billion over 10 years.

It's important to note that nothing in the legislation eliminates Part C plans or benefits. Insurers can continue to offer Medicare Advantage plans at benefit and premium levels the market will bear. They just won't be able to bill taxpayers and all Medicare beneficiaries for their unwarranted subsidies, which cost 14 percent more, on average, than traditional Medicare.

No single column, article or ad can fairly capture all that health care reform entails. That's why AARP has and will continue to engage its members and the wider public with the key facts and contexts necessary to follow this crucial national debate. And to those who would skirt the facts in order to alarm older Americans against reform, know that AARP will engage you, too.

Martin DeAgostino is associate director of communications for AARP Indiana.

Fascinating. What's your take on all of it?

G-man the terrorist pedophile is still a terrorist pedophile.

southbendtribune.com

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats have defeated a GOP attempt to eliminate $40 billion in cuts to home health care services in the health overhaul bill.

The 53-41 vote Saturday came during a rare weekend session to debate President Barack Obama's health legislation.

The vote was the latest Republican attempt to showcase the $460 billion in cuts to projected Medicare spending that Democrats want to make. Democrats plan to use that money to extend coverage to 30 million uninsured Americans over the next decade.

Republicans say Democrats are using Medicare as a piggy bank to create a vast new entitlement program.

Senate Rejects Republican Bid to Restore Home Health-Care Cuts
Share Business ExchangeTwitterFacebook| Email | Print | A A A By Laura Litvan

Dec. 5 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Senate voted to reject a Republican proposal to strip $42 billion in cuts to home health services from broad health-care overhaul legislation, turning back another attempt to alter the bill.

The measure, by Nebraska Republican Mike Johanns, is one of a series of proposals by Republicans designed to draw attention to the possible impact on patients of the health-care legislation, which is President Barack Obama’s top priority.

“These Medicare cuts will impact the quality of care for millions of American seniors,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican.

The Democratic-led Senate instead adopted, 96-0, a proposal by Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, prohibiting any cuts to home health care that would affect patients.

The votes came during a rare Saturday session as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid seeks to meet a deadline of passing legislation by the end of the year.

The Senate delayed until tomorrow a planned vote on a proposal to limit the tax deductions insurance companies can take on executive salaries.

The amendment from Arkansas Democrat Blanche Lincoln would cap tax-deductible salaries at $400,000 instead of the current national limit of $1 million. It would apply only to health insurers that get at least a quarter of their income from premiums generated by the bill’s new mandate to buy coverage.

The Democratic-led Senate instead adopted, 96-0, a proposal by Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, prohibiting any cuts to home health care that would affect patients.

Matter-eater Man argumentative User Fair Play!
7500+ posts 4 minutes 56 seconds ago Making a new reply
Forum: Politics and Current Events
Thread: Re: socialized medicine

It seems the more the GOP lies about it the more people start liking the idea

Asked about Obama's campaign trail promise (of open Health Care reform talks), Pelosi remarked, without elaboration, "There are a number of things he was for on the campaign trail."

By KATE PICKERT AND KAREN TUMULTY Kate Pickert And Karen Tumulty – Fri Jan 8, 2:50 am ET

As the battle enters its final stage in Washington, a rebellion is taking shape in the states, which are alarmed about the new financial burdens they will face in a revamped system. Governors of both parties are complaining that reform will drive their budgets into even deeper holes, with some feeling the effects far more than others. But just how much will be riding on the states? Here's a look at four changes that lie ahead.

• 1. A Bigger Medicaid Tab
  Of the 31 million uninsured people who would gain coverage under a revamped health system, about half would do so through a vast expansion of Medicaid - the state-and-federal health care program for the poor. The Senate bill would make eligible anyone earning up to 133% of the federal poverty level (for a family of four, an income of about $29,300 a year); the House bill would lift that threshold to 150% of poverty (or about $33,000 for a family of four).
  
  Congress is looking to expand Medicaid because in terms of raw costs, it is the cheapest and most efficient way to cover people of modest means. That's in part because Medicaid pays doctors and hospitals far lower reimbursements than private insurance does and in part because the states pick up some of the cost.
  
  Both House and Senate bills would pay the states' share of the cost of the new patients over the first two years and up to 95% after that. But states would still face an enormous new financial obligation. There is also the question of finding enough providers to care for 15 million new patients. "It is a huge load on the states at a time when we are still climbing out of the recession," Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen said this week in Nashville. His state - already facing $1.5 billion in budget cuts this year and next - has estimated that the Senate version would cost it an additional $735 million from 2014 to 2019 and that the price tag of the House bill would be nearly double that. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was one of the few prominent Republicans to favor the Obama health care reform effort. Now he is calling on Congress to "rethink it." In a Dec. 22 letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, he wrote, "When asked for my support, I was assured that federal legislation would not increase costs to California." Instead, a state with a $21 billion budget deficit is looking at what Schwarzenegger calls a "crushing new burden" of at least $3 billion a year. (See "The Year in Health 2009.")
  
  2. New Regulatory Burdens
  Can states enforce the dramatic new health insurance regulations called for in reform legislation? States already oversee commercial health insurers, but few have rules as restrictive as those expected under federal reform, which would bar insurers from setting premiums based on health status and require them to sell coverage to anyone who applies for it.
  
  State legislatures may have to act to give state commissioners power to enforce the new rules, a process that could be complicated by political squabbling - not to mention the many Republican state legislators who have already said they plan to challenge the constitutionality of federal health reform. But even if states adopted the new federal rules, most state insurance departments would need to bulk up staff at a time when many are experiencing layoffs because of already strapped state budgets. "We would certainly argue that we're cut to the bone right now," says Kevin McCarty, head of Florida's Office of Insurance Regulation, which cut 14 positions in the 2009 fiscal year. New staff members could be charged with rooting out insurers who continue to cherry-pick healthy customers and making sure plans stay solvent despite the crush of new, previously uninsured customers.
  
  What's the alternative? The Federal Government could enforce the new national rules, but this would require creating a sizable new regulatory bureaucracy, even though one already exists at the state level. The states don't want that to happen. If the federal bureaucrats assumed regulatory control, says Sandy Praeger, Kansas' insurance commissioner and chair of the health insurance and managed care committee of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, "we'd just be left to mop up the mess. We wouldn't have any authority, but we'd just deal with all the consumer complaints. That, to me, is the worst-case scenario."
  
  3. Insurance Exchanges
  Perhaps the least understood aspect of federal health reform is how private insurance would be sold on the open market if and when the legislation becomes law. Under the Senate bill, states would be responsible for creating and running new insurance marketplaces, also known as exchanges. There, individuals and small businesses would purchase private health insurance, receiving federal subsidies if they qualified. The House bill would establish a national exchange, which states could opt out of if they had the capacity to run their own.
  
  Exactly what states will have to do remains unsettled. But it's likely to be a lot. States may be required to vet some insurance plans to make sure they meet new federal standards. They may have to determine who is eligible for federal subsidies; they may have to build websites to market and rate plans. All that would require expertise and manpower. Massachusetts, which set up an exchange after enacting health reform in 2006, did so quickly and effectively, but Jon Kingsdale, who runs the program, says, "We had a 10% or less uninsurance rate. It's a well-to-do state. It's a progressive employer community. And ... the fact that a Republican governor championed this was a huge advantage." In states where some 25% of the population is currently uninsured, like Texas, setting up exchanges could take longer and cost more. And, Kingsdale warns, in states where there is "sustained and organized hostility" to reform (as in red states in the South and Midwest), "that in and of itself could turn a good program bad."
  
  4. A Fight for Federal Aid
  Around the capital, the special deal that Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson got to secure his vital, filibuster-breaking 60th vote for the health care bill is now known as the Cornhusker Kickback. Even as political favors go, it's a whopper: if reform passes, the Federal Government will pay all of Nebraska's new Medicaid costs forever. And it's fueling envy and outrage in the other 49 states. Led by South Carolina's Henry McMaster, the attorneys general of 13 states - 12 Republicans and one Democrat - have signed on to a letter contending the Nelson deal is unconstitutional.
  
  But that's not the only issue causing friction among states. Another is the fact that some good deeds will be punished under the health reform measures: states that expanded Medicaid coverage on their own - say, to include low-income childless adults under 65 - will get less federal aid than those that have been stingier with their Medicaid programs.
  
  Because liberal and heavily Democratic states have traditionally been more generous in their Medicaid programs, they are likely to be the ones shortchanged. The biggest beneficiaries, arguably, could be states like Texas, whose lawmakers have waged the strongest rearguard campaign against reform. That may be reform's biggest political irony of all.