LOL! Another "short term" increase in the size of gubmint that never gets cut.
Translation: The Kenyan Clown plans to slash national defense, raise taxes, and vastly increase the size and influence of the nanny state.
“We are out of money” PING!
TO the meat of the matter....
“These savings will come from commonsense changes. For example – if more Americans are insured, we can cut payments that help hospitals treat patients without health insurance. If the drug makers pay their fair share, we can cut government spending on prescription drugs. And if doctors have incentives to provide the best care instead of more care, we can help Americans avoid the unnecessary hospital stays, treatments, and tests that drive up costs.”
1. If more Americans are insured... This saving will only occur if his new healthplan is passed.
2. If the drug makers pay their fair share... Drug makers lose their profits.
3. And if doctors have incentives to provide the best care instead of more care... That’s either penalties by the government for “excessive care” or tax money to the doctors for “approved care”.
I’m sure the AARP will scream and howl like they did at Bush, and this is far worse than what Bush proposed (limit Medicare growth to 7% a year was the proposal). I will not hold my breath waiting to hear from the AARP (a democrat subsidy).
BTTT
Just Another F*cking Lie by Hussein!
The new AmeriKans are lovin’ it.
“These savings will come from commonsense changes. For example, if more Americans are insured, we can cut payments that help hospitals treat patients without health insurance.”
What BULLSH*T! Translated, it means that the ones who are insured will have to pay for the 38 million illegals who are already getting treated, for free, in the ER, driving up the cost of health care to the payor. Every time that somebosy says we have “47 million of uninsured people,” you now know who comprises the bulk of that statistic.
What “payments” is he going to “cut?” Payments to the insured or to the provider? My guess is cutting payments to the insured, meaning lower reimburements and higher co-pays.
“If the drug makers pay their fair share, we can cut government spending on prescription drugs.”
WTF is their “fair share?” The government could lower drug costs by reducing the FDA’s regulations and red tape in getting generics approved for the market. The FDA does not use any of this time for testing purposes. They never have. They still leave it up to the drug manufacturers to do “clinical trials,” even when so many of them continue to fudge their test data.
The government could lower costs right now if they force drug companies to stop turning out “me, too” drugs that are simply combinations of existing ones, for example, pain medications to which Tylenol has been added.
“And if doctors have incentives to provide the best care instead of more care, we can help Americans avoid the unnecessary hospital stays, treatments, and tests that drive up costs.”
MALPRACTICE INSURANCE DRIVES UP COSTS and becomes more and more expensive for a doctor or provider to buy due to so many malpractice lawsuits brought for trivial reasons. To CYA, hospitals and doctors run more and more tests, so there will never be a reduction in testing without concomitant personal liability protection at a reasonable price and stricter limits and penalties placed on frivolous lawsuits.
When a hospital shells out $2 million for a new MRI, they don’t let it sit in a corner, gathering dust: they use it as much as possible on paying patients. Duh, that’s how they get recoup their costs.
And, it oftens pays off in spotting a disease earlier than if there wasn’t one available.
So much for the wisdom of cutting back on tests.
Note: Here’s a fact sheet that includes a chart. I can’t copy and paste the chart in the same format as the whitehouse.gov website, so you may want to view the chart there.
Note: The following text is a quote:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/MedicareFactSheetFinal/
Paying for Health Care Reform
$313 Billion in Additional Savings to Create a Deficit Neutral Plan
We have the most expensive health care system in the world, but do not get the best results. The rising costs of health care are a burden on our families and a drain on our long-term economic growth. If we continue on the course we are on, health care expenditures will reach 20 percent of GDP within a decade. Rapidly rising health care costs are leading our nation down a fiscally unsustainable path.
For the health of the American people and the health of our economy, we must act now to bring down health care costs and reform the health care system. It is central to the long-term prosperity of the United States. That is why the President is committed to passing health care reform this year. Guided by the principle that we should fix what’s broken and build on what already works, the President wants to pass health care reform that allows one to keep their health insurance and choose their health care providers, expands coverage to the millions without, and brings down the cost of coverage.
The President is committed to undertaking reform that is completely paid for and deficit neutral over the next decade. That is why he put forward in his FY 2010 Budget an historic $635 billion down payment on reform. Roughly half of this amount comes from revenue proposals, including limiting the value of itemized deductions for families making over a quarter-million dollars a year to the rates they were during the Reagan years, and about half comes from savings from Medicare and Medicaid.
Since making this proposal, the Administration has worked with Congress on other ways to offset fully the cost of health care reform through additional savings and revenues. To that end, the Administration is detailing today savings proposals that will contribute another $313 billion over 10 years to paying for health care reform, bringing the total scoreable offsets put forward by the Administration to nearly $950 billion over 10 years. Together, this would extend the solvency of Medicare’s Hospital Insurance Trust Fund by seven years to about 2024, and reduce beneficiary premiums for physician and outpatient services by about $43 billion over the next 10 years. The Administration hopes these suggestions will help Congress as it continues to draft legislation, and remains open to any other proposals to pay for reform that Congress may put forward.
Source
Health Care Reserve Fund
($ in billions)
10 years
FY 2010 Budget
- Medicare and Medicaid Savings
- Revenues
$635
$309
$326
Additional Medicare and Medicaid Savings
- Incorporate productivity adjustments into Medicare payment
updates
- Reduce hospital subsidies for treating the uninsured as
coverage increases
- Pay better prices for Medicare Part D drugs
- Other
$313
$110
$106
$75
$22
Total
$948
Reforming the health care system does not end at expanding coverage and making sure that it is paid for; we also must address the underlying problems in our health care system that impede quality improvements and raise costs. The President therefore believes that in addition to scoreable offsets, we must take steps to transform the health care system, such as investing in health care information technology, patient-centered quality research, prevention and wellness, and in creating a system that pays providers for providing better care not just more care. Over time, these steps will help to produce a health care system that works better and costs less.
Paying for Health Care Reform: New Savings
As was emphasized when the President’s Budget was initially released, the reserve fund represents a substantial down payment but is not by itself sufficient to fully fund comprehensive reform. The President has insisted that reform must be deficit-neutral based on real savings and revenue estimates as determined by impartial scorers. Thus, in addition to the proposals included in the FY 2010 Budget, the Administration is putting forward policy options to further rein in federal health spending, make the system more efficient, and deliver better quality of care. When combined with the Budget proposals, these new options would extend the solvency of Medicare’s Hospital Insurance Trust Fund by seven years to about 2024. These new savings include:
Incorporate productivity adjustments into Medicare payment updates. Productivity in the U.S. economy has been improving over time. However, most Medicare payments have not been systematically adjusted to reflect these system-wide improvements. We should permanently adjust most annual Medicare payment updates by half of the economy-wide productivity factor estimated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This adjustment will encourage greater efficiency in health care provision, while more accurately aligning Medicare payments with provider costs.
Reduce subsidies to hospitals for treating the uninsured as coverage increases. Instead of paying hospitals to treat patients without health insurance, we should give people coverage so that they have insurance to begin with. As health reform phases in, the number of uninsured will go down, and we would be able to reduce payments to hospitals for treating those previously uncovered. This would be done by establishing a new mandatory mechanism to better target payments to hospitals for unreimbursed care remaining after coverage increases. Beginning in FY 2013, payments would be gradually phased down so that by 2019, funding would equal 25 percent of Medicare/Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospitals (DSH) funding in 2013, and updated by inflation.
Pay better prices for Medicare Part D drugs. In its meeting with the President and subsequent communication, the pharmaceutical industry has committed itself to helping to control the rate of growth in health care spending. There are a variety of ways to achieve this goal. For example, drug reimbursement could be reduced for beneficiaries dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid. The Administration is working with the Congress to develop the most appropriate policy to achieve these savings.
Other Savings
Adjust payment rates for physician imaging services to better reflect actual usage. To provide more accurate payment for physician imaging services, the Department of Health and Human Services would increase the equipment utilization factor for advanced imaging (such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) machines) from 50 percent to 95 percent. This proposal – which is closely aligned with a Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) recommendation – would better reflect how these technologies are actually used.
Adopt MedPAC’s recommendations for 2010 payments to skilled nursing facilities, inpatient rehabilitation facilities, and long-term care hospitals. To bring down costs and maintain quality, we shouldupdate payments based on MedPAC’s consideration of multiple variables, such as quality, access to care, and adequacy of payment. Doing so would implement MedPAC’s 2010 payment recommendations for skilled nursing facilities, inpatient rehabilitation facilities, and long-term care hospitals.
Cut waste, fraud, and abuse. It is important that patients get the best care, not just more care. Unnecessary treatments are not only expensive, but also can harm the health of the patient. To discourage physicians from ordering unnecessary or excessive treatment, we should increase the scrutiny of physicians in high-risk areas or those that order a high volume of high-risk services (such as home health, durable medical equipment, and home infusion therapy) through additional pre-payment review.
Paying for Health Care Reform: 2010 Budget Proposals
The above savings would be in addition to the down payment for comprehensive health care reform of $635 billion over 10 years detailed in the FY 2010 Budget. The reserve fund is financed roughly half through proposals to generate more revenue, and half through efficiencies and savings from Medicare and Medicaid. Based on our projections, the Medicare proposals contained in the reserve fund would extend the solvency date of the Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund by two years and reduce beneficiary premiums for physician and outpatient services by about $33 billion over the next 10 years. As a result of these proposals, Medicare beneficiaries will also see an improvement in the quality of their services. The reserve fund includes a broad array of savings proposals including:
Reducing Medicare overpayments to private insurers. The establishment of a competitive system where payments are based upon an average of plans’ bids submitted to Medicare would save taxpayers close to $177 billion over 10 years, as well as reduce Part B premiums.
Improving Medicare and Medicaid payment accuracy. By strengthening program integrity efforts, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will address vulnerabilities that have led to billions of dollars in overpayments and fraud each year.
Improving care after hospitalizations and reducing readmission rates. A combination of incentive payments and penalties should lead to better care and result in fewer readmissions – saving roughly $25 billion over 10 years.
Expanding the Hospital Quality Improvement Program: By linking a portion of Medicare payments for acute in-patient hospital services to hospitals’ performance on specific quality measures, quality of care for beneficiaries will improve, and Medicare will save approximately $12 billion over 10 years.
Hospitals Resist Obama’s Proposed Medicare Cuts
Fox News Online | June 13, 2009
Posted on 06/13/2009 2:04:37 PM PDT by pleikumud
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2271228/posts
Mass. cardinal: No abortions at Catholic hospitals
Associated Press | Thursday June 11, 2009 | Steve Leblanc
Posted on 06/12/2009 10:39:57 AM PDT by presidio9
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2270534/posts
Dear Mr. President:
It’s about the economy, stupid!
I really have a hard time understanding how these people can tell such bald faced lines.
Government.....SAVINGS?
Any government savings is the same as a person gets that spends $1000 at a 10% off sale and talks about "saving" $100.
Government.....SAVINGS?
Any government savings is the same as a person gets that spends $1000 at a 10% off sale and talks about "saving" $100.