Posted on 07/29/2013 11:13:38 AM PDT by Olog-hai
Three times more doctors are refusing Medicare patients than three years ago, many citing Medicare's increasing rules and lowered payment rates.
According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which administers the program, even doctors who still see some Medicare patients are limiting the number of Medicare patients they will treat, reports The Wall Street Journal. …
The numbers of doctors refusing both Medicare and Medicaid payments won’t completely undermine Obamacare, health experts say, but some patients may have problems finding doctors who will accept their new coverage under the healthcare reform law. …
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
Oddly enough, because it was essential for Obamacare to kill Medicare, so Obamacare could live, the killing of Medicare has been the one thing Obamacare has been good at.
At this creates a superb opportunity. Medicare was already dying, because it could no longer continue to exist with its endless growth. It *had* to die. And if after Medicare is on its last legs, Obamacare is killed by the Republicans, that leaves America with *no* national health care.
And this is actually a problem for the Republicans.
The first, awful, inclination will be for the Republicans to try and resuscitate Medicare. This would be an unmitigated disaster, because Medicare cannot exist—it will bankrupt us, as deeply in debt as we are.
So the next idea is that there is NO national health care at all, of any kind, which will scare a bunch of senior citizens to near death.
This could be a political nightmare for Republicans.
So the best bet is for them, right now, to be planning on a massive privatization of national health care. And this must incorporate several very important ideas:
1) Routine medical care cannot be provided through insurance. This is because like the government programs, it drives the price of medical care through the roof.
So routine medical care must be entirely private: cash paid from patients to doctors and not reimbursed. If you can’t pay for it, you don’t get it.
HMOs and health co-ops can pick up a lot of slack, here, but they don’t get external payments from government to do so.
2) Catastrophic insurance and long term care insurance have to be created, possibly with a public-private partnership, because it is not profitable enough for an insurer to exclusively provide.
3) Medicaid still exists, but as block grants to the states, and left up to the states as how they use that money as long as it is exclusively for health care for the poor and public health. They can add to it with their own money, but they cannot divert funds for other things.
There will be a ton of other things that will take the place of Obamacare and Medicare, but the Republicans must have a plan from top to bottom ready to go.
People who are “of age” should be able to buy their own insurance in the private market.
Then a network of “VA” style hospitals should be established.
You want free medical care and are old enough, you go there. And that’s it. There would be no MediCare outside of that building. No jazzies, no free chair lifts, &c. After 35-40 years we shut that down, too, and cancel the whole debacle.
It’s not a pretty concept, but socialized medical care funded by the government in the pseudo-private sector does not work and we can no longer pretend that it can or will.
We will not begin the process of affordable health care until the Government gets completely out of it.
Folks.....sign the Lee/Cruz “www.dontfundobamacare” petition!!!
Thank you.
This thread got me to do some investigating and it seems that as long as the doctor is in the “network” of my insurance provider, they will accept Medicare plus the supplemental
Every Freeper, every Conservative, every Republican, every American should sign this great petition sponsored by Senators Mike Lee & Ted Cruz!!! Takes all of about thirty seconds. “www.dontfundobamacare.com” Do it!!!
I suspect you are correct, but that will lead to an even more booming off shore medical industry for those with the means. Places in the Caribbean, Costa Rica or Panama will provide quality care for a lot less than the US.
I know quite a few doctors....that will just close shop.
Ping for later ........................................................................................ FRegards
Or a DIY system like in those ads where the guy is holding a scalpel and is on the phone with a surgeon & saying “shouldn’t you be doing this?”
When Obamacare kicks in a Medicare card won’t even get you a discount dinner at Denny’s. Medicare patients will be waiting in line for their 10 minute visit with a nurse practitioner or physician’s assistant at some second rate government clinic just like the rest of us.
When I signed up for medicare, I was told that a secondary provider was not optional, I had to have one. My primary provider became my secondary provider.
Bump!
When I signed up for Medicare in 2010, there was no mention whatever of a secondary provider. My primary did become my secondary,but by my choice. I could have just as easily dropped it.
I remember now why it wasn’t possible to drop my secondary provider, formerly my primary. That provider is still my wife’s and two minor children’s primary provider and it’s a family plan.
Also, my secondary provider, which is my former employer, pays my medicare premiums, when my wife becomes eligible, they will also pay hers.
They don’t actually pay the monthly premiums but send me a check every 6 months to repay me for paying the premiums.
He intends to destroy the nation..
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