As a nurse, I’d say you’ve nailed it. First off, the Medicare-aged crowd (65-100) is more medically unstable to begin with, due to age.
And for years and years discharge criteria as been too stringent within this age group, with re-admission being the result. I’m actually surprised that the number isn’t larger than 18%.
OtOH, I’ve seen hospital step-down units defraud Medicare by over-stating medical need in order to have their unit census remain high. This was several years ago though, and Medicare has since cracked way down on this sort of thing, which was needed.
Lastly, I’ll only note that not only have I not missed Kennedy’s input on this topic, I find the original author’s adulatory comments about Kennedy and his “respected voice” to be quite laughable.
Like everything else the government gets it’s hands on, they make one size fit all.
You can bet that if ZerOcare comes to fruition some snot-nosed GS4 will be dictating who gets what.