Posted on 04/03/2013 4:02:28 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Cancer clinics across the country have begun turning away thousands of Medicare patients, blaming the sequester budget cuts.
Oncologists say the reduced funding, which took effect for Medicare on April 1, makes it impossible to administer expensive chemotherapy drugs while staying afloat financially.
Patients at these clinics would need to seek treatment elsewhere, such as at hospitals that might not have the capacity to accommodate them.
“If we treated the patients receiving the most expensive drugs, we’d be out of business in six months to a year,” said Jeff Vacirca, chief executive of North Shore Hematology Oncology Associates in New York. “The drugs we’re going to lose money on we’re not going to administer right now.”
After an emergency meeting Tuesday, Vacirca’s clinics decided that they would no longer see one-third of their 16,000 Medicare patients....
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Seniors keep electing who? Seniors 50 and over voted against Obama both times.
You are correct.
That’s one of our demographic problems.
Every year 2.5 million (old, mostly white, majority R voting) people die and are replaced by (young, mostly minority, heavily D voting) people
You are correct: the original plan was, indeed, to strip Medicare Advantage in favor of traditional Medicare.
However, GOOD NEWS, as of Monday:
“The insurance industry won a major lobbying victory Monday after the Obama administration backtracked on an earlier plan to cut Medicare Advantage payments to insurers by 2.2 percent in 2014 and instead decided to give them a 3.3 percent increase. . . “
More at : http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Daily-Reports/2013/April/02/medicare.aspx and many other places if you want to google or bing it.
Looks like the insurance lobby and us voting old folks are being heard, at least for the moment. Just one battle in an ongoing war, so stay alert.
I just finished chemo for a very treatable and curable (not just remissable) cancer.
It took 2 months and I’m done. The chemo was horrible, but I’m alive.
How dare you take such an attitude of who cares about trying to cure disease. How dare you. Sick.
If I were 80 my attitude would be different, but I’m 29.
I guess you would have rather me curl up and die from something that was easily cured.
That's a lie!
My brother-in-law, who is an oncologist, had to drop out of his speciality group over a year ago because he was spending more on his chemo drugs than he was getting reimbursed from Medicare...........
He ended up signing on to the hospital as a staff Oncologist and went on salary.........
Im not sure how they are geting away with blaming the sequester.
If they had enough money before April they have enough money after April.
This has got to be an Obamacare issue, that the media is just lying about.
Forcing someone to provide a service or equivalent there to for free to someone else(AKA slavery) makes my blood boil.
A man has the right to spend every cent he owns and ever cent someone else is willing to give him on anything he likes including prolonging his own life.
But he ain’t entitled to steal that money or services from someone else. Now because your FIL was given that money(effectively) he didn’t do no wrong. His fight for life till the very end in my mind could be regarded as admirable.
You of course are entitled to a different opinion in regard to your own life. My family has faced similar issues, and most of us seems to have come to much the same conclusion you have. There is a point where it is better to go be with God than to continue to fight it at any cost.
From the aspect of the elderly who were forced to pay into Medicare for their old age healthcare, throughout their entire lives, those insurance premiums have already been pre-paid in full.
All the while they were paying a little bit extra every week for their future “retirement years” medical needs, they also paid the daily going rates for health insurance.
They stupidly trusted government and Insurance company promises.
So now, you think those old men and women who paid in advance for healthcare, are greedy for wanting to use it?
Did you pay for your care?
Does it bother you at all that illegal immigrants can get the same amount of care without paying anything before, during or after?
Does it even occur to you how much the world demands of the USA CDC, that only USA citizens pay for?
What about the glib promises of multiple decades from the government to fund advanced medical research and medical schools via Federal payroll taxes on USA citizens for their future benefit?
Glad you aren't dead at 29.
Sorry you think elderly sick people should die before they reap the full benefits from their lifelong medical care investments.
What age should I die at, in your opinion?
I have cancer too, and can't afford current insurance premiums at my age, 55.
If I make it to 62, my prepaid medicare premiums will kick in, and I might get treated-—as long as you aren't on the board of rationing.
I had advanced ovarian cancer and chose surgery and 15 months of chemo and am alive, kicking and have had the best five years, no regrets and easier than what people say.
Dreadful disease but very treatable but if I were very old, I domt know.
This is true? Obama ordering the MURDERING of American citizens? He’s been doing this for five years with one group or another and now this? When are ..what, ....hell, Lord Help us!
I was not saying I would support rationing, only that my outlook toward my own cancer would be different if already old. I hope you beat it....that chemo is horrible stuff....and you are young still.
You must have some old parents somewhere that you are building up the nerve to off. Go ahead ad do your part and get them off the dole.
At some point you have to stop feeling sorry...
According to Fox's 2012 exit polls, the cotton heads went for Romney 56% to 44%.
That's a good question.
But it's not the question of the thread. Which is, Does Obama, Pelosi, Reid or their successors know? Is your treatment, should you suffer a relapse at whatever age, any of their god-damned business?
And of course, in all its “wisdom”, government will probably pass some new law declaring it illegal to turn away patients, rather than lower the cost or get them more money (nevermind we technically don’t have any period).
And I think it speaks volumes about where we are as a country that people will complain about this and expect them to provide their services whether they can afford it or not.
Thank you for your thoughts.
I agree with everything you wrote.
When my parents and relatives do get to that age, I am ideally gonna be looking to take care of their medical needs along with healthy relatives - and hope that those in my family who can afford their own medical care when they get to be senior citizens will go ahead and pay for it themselves. As I will ideally plan to do in 40 years from now when i get to be that age. You still haven’t answered abotu choosing between having the gov’t cut back seriously on Medicare and Social Security or severely cutting back on military, national defense and on military anti terror operations (for example that could take place in Iran). Since again, at some point something will simply have to give, that is all there is to it.
Are you ok with the US letting China take over the role of leading superpower so that we can have medical care for all senior citizens - whether they can afford it or not?
I agree and the point I was making is just that
Only I have any business deciding if my life is worth prolonging, not even my family has that right.
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