Posted on 11/24/2017 12:37:43 PM PST by reaganaut1
ObamaCare has caused hard-to-quantify economic damage, but some of the laws regulations may be lethalliterally. Consider a Medicare hospital payment initiative, which a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association Cardiology suggests may have contributed to an increase in deaths.
Readers are likely familiar with ObamaCares mandate and subsidies to impel individuals to obtain health insurance. But the law also included monetary incentives and penalties aimed at inducing changes in health-care delivery and spending reductions. The government rolled out these payment models nationally without careful study, and they are having unintended side effects.
A case in point is the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program, which penalizes hospitals with above-average readmissions for Medicare patients. Readmissions are expensive, and the goal of the penalties is to encourage providers to take measures that reduce repeat hospitalizationsfor instance, providing patients with clearer discharge instructions and coordinating with primary-care physicians.
Hospitals are graded on a curve and dunned if their 30-day readmission rate exceeds the national average. Hospitals can thus be penalized even if they reduce readmissions. The penalties, which are assessed as a share of hospitals Medicare payments, have been applied to an increasing number of medical conditions including knee and hip replacements.
Liberals have touted data showing that readmissions have fallen since the penalties took effect in 2013, but the JAMA researchers examined whether quality of care has improved as a result. Their observational study examined 115,245 fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries hospitalized with heart failure across the U.S. in the four years prior to and first two years following implementation of the program.
Researchers found that the 30-day readmission rate (adjusted for patient risk) declined to 18.4% from 20% after the penalties were introduced. Yet the 30-day mortality rate increased to 8.6% from 7.2%about 5,400 additional deaths per year.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Who needs death panels when you can grade on a curve?
Death Panels by another name.
Obamacare - the gift that just keeps giving.
“Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program”
and this is precisely what was predicted at the time the Democrats were pushing it.
For the safety of every American the only answer is to get the government the ‘H’ out of our healthcare. Write laws preventing any future dalliance with our health by the Socialist-Democrats.
Sending men home with catheters right after surgery is a form of male sex abuse I thought I’d never see. Unfortunately I “saw” it when helping a family member.
5,400 deaths are an acceptable loss when you think of all the money that ObamaCare has saved everyone!
Right?
Bah...”Death Panels” don’t exist. Everybody knows that! — so sayeth every lib across the land. They were ignorantly looking for the “Death Panel” section in the bill or the door in the hospital with the sign “Death Panels - Woe to all who Enter This Portal.” Lib article after article couldn’t find a “Death Panel” anywhere. But here they are.
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet;
Or, in the O-Care case...
What’s in a name? that which we call a turd
By any other word would smell as shitty;
I got my $2,500 check. Didn’t you?
Damn——I couldn’t get the article-——and I’m on Medicare.
.
Fortunately I get all my health care at the VA Hospital.
Predicable, and unsurprising - accept perhaps to the outcomes analysis purveyors, who tend to be uninformed yet convinced.
This was the plan, wasn’t it?
Sarah Palin was right.
Lie. The effects are exactly what was intended.
I can hardly wait to see this be the lead story on ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN.
ObamaCare - the gift that just keeps on killing.
I had a relative in rehab and she was discharged, but needed more help. The rehab would not take her back because they didn’t want a readmission. So she went to the hospital where there was no rehab, just lay in bed.
Whoa, Jack! That means that HALF of hospitals are getting dunned all the time! And it is a no-win deal. If they cut their readmission rate, the average will drop, and they will still be dunning the HALF who are above average!
Government operations at their finest!
All these government people who designed this must have gone to Lake Woebegone High School. Nobody else could be this diabolical.
Yep, the hospitals are responsible for the patient’s bad decisions. If they decide not to take their insulin,
antibiotics, etc. the hospital is responsible. Just like teachers are responsible that there is no discipline or values taught at home.
Cradle to grave government control. Only the grave is coming much quicker these days. The Dems love it because they know that the older population votes R in huge numbers. When they get rid of those pesky old people, they will have little competition in elections. Just like in California.
“That means that HALF of hospitals are getting dunned all the time! “
Not necessarily——an average is not the same as a median.
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