Posted on 02/24/2014 8:38:05 PM PST by Seizethecarp
The Obama administration on Friday proposed cuts in Medicare payment rates for managed-care plans serving more than one-fourth of all beneficiaries, and Republicans immediately pounced on the proposal, which appears likely to become a significant issue in this year’s midterm elections.
The proposed reductions were larger than the administration had indicated in guidance given to the insurance industry in December. Jonathan Blum, a top Medicare official, cited the “historically low growth in Medicare per capita spending” as a reason for the proposal.
But Republicans said beneficiaries would suffer as a result of the cuts, which they traced to the Affordable Care Act.
Lawmakers from both parties had urged the White House to avoid any cuts, even though the reductions in payment were explicitly authorized by the 2010 health care law.
The announcement late Friday is likely to reverberate on Wall Street and on Capitol Hill, where insurers, employers and beneficiaries plan to lobby against the cuts. That effort was so intense last year that the Obama administration reversed itself, scrapped plans for a cut and increased rates instead.
Before Congress passed the health care law, independent experts said the government was spending more for patients in the Medicare Advantage program than it was for similar patients enrolled in traditional Medicare. Mr. Obama said private insurers were “overcharging massively” for the care they provided to Medicare beneficiaries.
In issuing its proposal on Friday, the administration said it was continuing its effort to “reduce overpayments to Medicare Advantage plans.”
The federal health care law squeezed substantial savings out of Medicare, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and the money will help offset the cost of subsidizing coverage for people who were uninsured.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
This will leave a mark on the Dems prospects for the mid-terms in FL. Gov. Scott was on Greta tonight complaining about how FL seniors were upset by having their Medicare Advantage benefits cut.
Isn’t it already getting hard to find doctors who accept it?
The hits keep coming.
gravy train is over.....get ready for it....unless you’re a sanctified civil servent govt worker, you better watch out...because its more important to the govt statist to keep their little pot a boiling than to protect benefits for all those “others”....
***Lawmakers from both parties had urged the White House to avoid any cuts,...***
Yeah, I’m sure they pulled out all the stops. Maybe they went so far as to draft a strongly worded letter.
Barack Maduro is at it again.
“Isn’t it already getting hard to find doctors who accept it?”
My family member had her shrink of 5 years dump her and all other Medicare patients who can’t afford to pay cash...in Florida! There are so few shrinks in Fort Myers he can find enough cash-paying seniors and non-seniors to keep his practice going. He said he couldn’t make any money with the reduced Medicare payments combined with the pile of onerous, time-consuming paperwork that prevented him from exercising his best medical judgment.
Dirty little secret is that the cuts never happen - they will be restored down the road in some several billion dollar “Docfix” supplementary bill, which will be tasked on to the federal debt - but it will give Obama a chance to use fantasy accounting to keep the coat on paper of Obaacare down and to crow about how he’s reducing the deficit, and how he looks is what really matters......
“Maybe they went so far as to draft a strongly worded letter.”
Seniors have high turnout in the mid-terms, so I expect most congresscritters to be in a genuine panic!
Keep tearing the mask off that monkey.
true!
bump
The “cuts” are restored to who? I don’t think the doctors get it.
I had a relative who felt bad enough to go to the hospital ER waiting room... filled out the paperwork... 3 hours later they gave up and left without seeing anyone.
Medicare or Medicaid (taxpayers) got a bill for more than $3,000 for that.
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I think the reimbursement rates are usually reset to close to what they originally were; they’re coming down, but not as quickly as the politicians pretend....
Who cares!...or an other way to put it IS:
WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE NOW?.../S
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