Posted on 07/12/2011 5:05:23 AM PDT by tobyhill
This summer, most of the public's political attention is focused on the tug-of-war over the debt ceiling and government budget. Yet another important drama is also unfolding in Washington.
This week, Congressional leaders will hold a hearing on the IPAB: the Independent Payment Advisory Board, which could be a first step to the board's repeal This board, created by the Affordable Care Act (“ObamaCare”), is one of the lesser-understood provisions in the 2000-page law, but it is a critical aspect, exemplifying how ObamaCare would control Medicare costs. If the public learns more about IPAB, the movement to fully repeal ObamaCare will gain important momentum.
Lawmakers created the IPAB in the Affordable Care Act to help solve Medicare's significant financial problems. The average couple will pay $140,000 into Medicare during their working years, but will get nearly three times that amount back in health care services through Medicare. This pattern has led the program to a $79.4 trillion “unfunded liability” or budget hole, and that figure grows each year.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
While eliminating Obamacare by educating the public about the IPAB, it should be used as a springboard to dismantle the entire Ponzi-scheme of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
“Independent Payment Advisory Board” aka “Death Panels.”
Ping.
We need to make sure us peons and peasants know the names of those serving on these “Advisory Panels”, for future reference.
SOP for the nomenklatura is to insulate themselves from the consequences of the policies they enforce on others.
The names of the panel members will probably be more secret than the actual nuclear codes.
That is interesting. If you invested that $140 K across your work span you would hope to get more than that back after 30+ years of working. Entitlements are a ponzi where you might have 1+1/2 worker paying for that $140K where as before it was 3 workers paying $140K each or a total of times 3.
Cutting medicare is definitely the live rail of politics as Democrats learned last year.
The article had the key to the entire problem buried at the end, “…costs…fueled by government regulation.”
The very first place to start is dismantling the elaborate regulatory structures and costs. Every one of those has its own constituency. Companies love regulation. It cuts down on competition and holds prices high. Regulation is to keep those who are already in the business rolling in money and those who aren’t out.
We could do for the medical industry what Reagan did for the phone industry. Reagan broke up the monopoly and threw open the phone industry to competition. In short order we had cell phones and the industry exploded with options that would never have been available otherwise. If not for Reagan we’d all still have big black plastic phones wired into the wall and a pay phone at the end of the block. One place to start might be enabling nurses who can write prescriptions to open their own practices. Not everybody needs to see a doctor or a surgeon.
Know I’ll get flamed for this, but I find it intellectually dishonest when people say the cost of Medicare has to be restrained, but then oppose any measure to actually cut costs. There is really no way to cut cost without:
1. Increasing the enrollment age
2. Cutting benefits (e.g., prescription drugs)
3. Limiting the procedures covered
4. Cutting payments to providers
5. Eliminating fraud (for real)
If Medicare were eliminated tomorrow, people would have to rely on their own insurance or savings to fill the void. Likewise, if something is rationed, people would do the same. Not sure I see the problem with this.
If you disagree, then tell me how YOU would restrain Medicare costs.
Whenever you see a leftist being “inconsistent” or “hypocritical”, take a step back and find the consistency.
In the case of the left, it’s always the furtherance of communism and the opposition to Christianity.
if you get a new health insurance plan no more free physicals.
I asked my BCBS agent if I should pre-qualify all treatments before doctor visit. None of the tests during my physical where covered and my bill $600.00
I have no problem with cutting back on Medicare and allowing people to make their own arrangements for health care services.
A major problem with Medicare is that seniors are given no choice about it. Once they reach 65, they have to take Medicare. That just isn’t right.
You are of course 100 percent correct. I've been saying here for years that most of what pays for today's Medicare benefits are the taxes of younger working Americans, and they should be IN FAVOR OF MEDICARE RATIONING, providing that it's done openly and that patients have the option to pay for the rationed items with their own money.
I get tremendous flamage from the I Paid In And The Government Promised Me crowd of course.
Many of that crowd can be found as members of this "conservative" site, which causes me to despair that the public at large will ever accept the demographics facts about Medicare.
Until the program crashes and burns of course, at which time acceptance will be universal.
If there's one thing I've learned over the past couple of years, it's how bloated these government programs really are. Definitely, cutting waste, fraud and abuse is part of cost savings.
Also, I would structure healthcare into different classes of treatment. If you are a low or no-income person with no means of financial support and have not paid into the system, you would get basic treatment but noth much else. No fancy hospital stays, and when you do, it would be in a barracks-style building; I'd also consider an HMO-style setup where you'd need a referral before pursuing specialty care. Instead of hospital emergency rooms for weekend, non life-threatening aches and pains, I'd create redi-medi infirmaries with nurse practitioners.
I'd also employ some use of health savings' accounts, and I'd open state lines so individuals could obtain better rates for group insurance.
I would also look to the free market, and get government largely out of healthcare. I would definitely look to streamline malpractice lawsuits without cause.
Those are only a few ideas, but surely they're a start.
As long as legislators load mandates on insurance coverage, costs will not go down. Even if a person does not want to see a psychologist or a chiropractor, he must help pay for those who do. There are cheerleaders for every test, condition, provider, and disorder (real or imagined) who lobby politicians (bribe and/or threaten) until they pass laws forcing insurance companies to cover these things. That means we all pay higher premiums, because we are actually being forced to pay somebody else’s bills.
In other words, we already have socialized medicine, and that is why costs are skyrocketing, there are shortages and longer wait times, and the quality of care is declining.
One thing I never understood is why people are forced onto it. My dad had a very good job, and thus had a very good retirement plan. My parents was on his company’s insurance as a retiree, but at 65 were forced on to medicare. They didn’t want it and could afford to stay on the private plan. Why not let people opt out and do their own thing if they can afford it? Wouldn’t that help get some of costs down? I sure as he!! don’t want to be on it.... (let alone FUBO-care)
This is an interesting point. The system they are setting up creates a big class of people with nothing left to lose. I would not be surprised if some of them take it out on the ones that set it up or are running it.
The result will be that the person that makes your no-treatment decision will be annonomous. It will be a faceless killing machine.
Definitely, cutting waste, fraud and abuse is part of cost savings.
Some of your other suggestions are good. The problem is selling them to the general public.
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