Posted on 12/22/2013 5:53:22 AM PST by IbJensen
As if ObamaCare’s botched website, coverage cancellations, and higher costs were not bad enough, the Obama Administration has quietly dealt yet another blow – this time striking millions of the nation’s most vulnerable seniors. Specifically, the Obama Administration has decided to deeply cut funding for the Medicare program’s home health benefit as a way to help pay for ObamaCare.
The Administration made this announcement very quietly, waiting to do so until the very end of the last Friday before Thanksgiving, perhaps thinking that most people would not be looking.
To be sure, the timing of the Administration’s quiet announcement did keep it out of sight – for a while. That ended on December 12th, however, when the Washington Examiner broke the story in an article headlined “ObamaCare forcing 14 percent cut in Medicare’s home health program.” FOX News and the Daily Caller have also picked up this story, so full attention is now being paid to this unprecedented cut – and the harm it will do to frail seniors across America.
As the Examiner’s Richard Pollock wrote, “An estimated 3.5 million poor and ill homebound senior citizens will wake up on New Year’s Day to discover ObamaCare has slashed funding for their home health care program.” He’s right: on January 1st, the Obama Administration will sharply cut Medicare funding for home healthcare services.
Totaling a whopping 14 percent between 2014 and 2017, this cut is the maximum allowable under the ObamaCare law. The Administration had the discretion to cut less, or even to make no cuts at all. But they decided to impose the deepest cut made possible by the Affordable Care Act (shouldn’t we be calling this the “Horrible Care Act”?) legislation. And in doing so, they will shift billions of dollars from Medicare to ObamaCare.
This cut is not only unprecedented in its magnitude – it will have a direct and devastating impact on the millions of ailing seniors who want to stay in their homes and not have to move to a facility.
This year, Medicare home health services were delivered to approximately 3.5 million Medicare beneficiaries. According to the federal government’s own data, these seniors are older, poorer and sicker than the Medicare beneficiary population as whole. Many of these seniors also reside in rural communities, where home health care is especially important because other sources of treatment are often located many miles away.
The Medicare home health benefit is also of critical importance to younger Americans. Families across America depend on home health services to help them care for their aging parents. Having a skilled nurse come to their homes to deliver needed treatment not only means that Mom and Dad don’t have to go into a nursing home – it also means their adult daughters and sons can balance caring for their parents with raising a family and earning a living.
In light of its importance to millions of seniors and their families, the Medicare home health sector has been one of the nation’s leading creators of new jobs. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, thousands of Americans find employment every month in the home health field. Just as important, these jobs are being created by small businesses, which constitute more than 90 percent of all providers of home health services.
But all that’s about to change.
Hidden on page 117 of the regulation that the Obama Administration quietly released on that Friday evening is a stunning admission: “approximately 40 percent” of all providers of home health services face net losses as a result of this Medicare cut. Put more plainly, 4-in-10 of all the providers on whom homebound seniors depend face the threat of bankruptcy and closure as a result of ObamaCare.
To my knowledge, this is the first time that any regulation has been issued by any Administration with the knowledge that it would put nearly half of the people it impacted out of business. Indeed, this ObamaCare cut to Medicare is so severe that thousands of small businesses may be forced to close, and hundreds of thousands of quality jobs could be lost – directly impacting the millions of homebound seniors who depend on them.
The impact that ObamaCare’s Medicare cut will have on seniors, families and small businesses is widely projected to be severe. What is not yet known, however, is the impact this cut will have on U.S. politics. In 2010, the revelation that ObamaCare would slash Medicare funding so angered senior voters, that they helped give Republicans control of the U.S. House of Representatives. Now that these cuts are being imposed, the Democrats who voted for the Affordable Care Act face the possibility of losing their Senate majority when senior voters return to the polls in November.
Indeed, with Medicare so negatively impacted by ObamaCare, an important question will soon be put to the millions of seniors, families, and providers who care deeply about home health: what answer will they have to ObamaCare’s New Year’s Day surprise?
It’s even worse than we thought, because now as part of Lucifercare, if you’re not married, Big Brother is going to take your home and boot your ass out into the street!
With mid term elections coming will America wake up and oust all those in Congress who voted for this evil and stupid piece of garbage they call legislation? As each day passes we learn more how bad this LUCIFERCARE mess is going to impact our faltering nation.
Younger Americans mustn't be fooled by the sophomoric rhetoric from this administration and its puppets as this ridiculous mess isn’t going to go away any time soon and you will also be caught in the catch 22 of paying more for your health care or even losing some facets of reasonable cost health care altogether. Vote out all that signed this mess without even reading it whereby they'd perhaps see the disastrous fallout from it,
The EXEMPT US Congress has abandoned Americans.
Did not see this in the 2014 Medicare book.
Home Health was always troublesome issue for the policy “experts” like Peter Orszag.
Now, they make the problem go away.
Don’t get angry at the nice black man, Mrs. McGillicuddy.
Rip it out by the roots.
yep, and many others. The American People though is another story.
What??? Wasn’t AARP, that progressive voice for the senior citizens, right there at the table with their fellow Democrats when ObamaCare was hatched? Every senior who has an AARP membership or insurance policy ought to dump it tomorrow morning. They have been sold out in this mess.
In light of the reluctance of young adults to sign up and pay through the nose for care they don’t need, perhaps the plan is to shunt all the expensive elderly into ObamaCare so they can be disposed of in order to make the numbers look better. Leftists are utilitarians, who believe you have to “break a few eggs to make an omelet. “ (Ex. Stalin.)
I like that.
Still more legislation by fiat, from the executive branch. Where the hell are the congress-critters who should be leading the marches on the white hut?
The Founders are spinning in their graves. And, this grand experiment creeps perilously close to its demise.
We need to oust everyone associated in the midterms and reder the boy king null and void. Impeachement is not an option making him useless, defenseless, a court jester until he’s gone is. The only way out of all of this is a concerted effort by the American people
Now you don't even have visit a death panel to learn you are going be left to die...
These guys are cutting edge in controlling expenses.../ S
Actually, home health and DME are rife with Medicare and Medicaid fraud, waste and abuse. But as always, rather than step up investigative and prosecutorial efforts at the federal and state levels, the government punishes everyone (including beneficiaries) in the name of doing what’s right. Besides, Obamugabe couldn’t care less about the elderly because they tend to be more conservative.
The 2014 Medicare book was obviously written before they had a chance to read the ObamaCare bill to find out what was in it.
I used to work in home health. It certainly is a massive money saver, keeping people out of nursing homes. For example, a post-op knee replacement would need physical therapy and an RN to check labs and incision. No need to be institutionalized.
You have to see the plan.
The plan is to stop care in the homes, take the patient to a home where they slowly kill them and cut off their prescription and give them the blue pill to keep them quiet until they die.
This way we save on health care and Social Security.
What it amount to is report to the Government for treatment as Soylent Green. Only you wont get to watch the nice video like they did in the movie.
“”Did not see this in the 2014 Medicare book””
They’ll have to issue a correction to the 2014 book.
Just how the heck did this escape everyone’s attention until 12/12 when it was issued by his highness the Friday before Thanksgiving?
How did the provision for doing this in the health care bill escape attention? Right - no one read it. Some of us spent a lot of time TRYING to get through it but didn’t find much meaning in the words - insert/delete/substitute/and/but/or. Sure didn’t find the words STICK IT TO THE VERY SICK AND HOUSEBOUND ELDERLY CITIZENS!
..and they slammed Sarah Palin when she warned against death panels.
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FYI---Sen majority leader, Harry Reid, 74, recently said that enrolling in O/Care costs him about $4,500 more than before. But Harry says that's OK b/c the increase is "age-related.”
"Tolerant and compassionate" Obama knows that the most expensive h/care is delivered the last three years of life...so oldsters HAVE to pay more .
Heck, socking Harry w/ a massive increase could even save money. For sure, decrepit Harry will necessitate expensive medical care for diseases of old age including the ones he's being treated for now--- senility, Alzheimer's, dementia, arthritis, osteoarthritis, heart problems, heart attacks, stroke, kidney failure, prostate enlargement, osteoporosis (brittle bones)....etc.
Course, just in case ol' Harry hangs in there, Obamacare's I-PAB kicks in to ration medical care when stubborn old buzzards like Harry insist on getting more healthcare than his lousy $4500 per month entitles him to.
Actually Harry's darn lucky he represents Nevada. Under I-PAB, if Harry represented Alaska, he be on the ice floe w/ the rest of the older Eskimos, floating off into the Arctic Ocean.
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