Ending Medicare Ryan-style Doesn't Save Any Money

[Bfgrn]

Apparently Romney has decided that he can't win a referendum on Obama and thus it's time to more explicitly hitch his wagon to the GOP's radical agenda to revive his campaign.

So it's worth taking a moment this morning to remember that his new Number Two's plot to voucherize Medicare and shift costs onto the backs of future seniors doesn't save any money. It's ideological drivel that doesn't actually solve any problems that haven't already been solved. Why not? Because per enrollee spending growth in the public health insurance programs has already fallen.

Medicare and Medicaid Spending Trends and the Deficit Debate | NEJM

With the per-enrollee spending growth in Medicare and Medicaid less than that in private insurance and close to the growth in GDP per capita, it's hard to argue that spending on either program, on a per-enrollee basis, is “out of control.” Rather, per-enrollee growth in both programs is near the target often advocated in debt-reduction proposals. Total spending growth, which also includes growth in enrollment, is faster than the economy's growth. But policies that are appropriate when the problem is per-capita spending growth differ from those that make sense when enrollment growth is such an important cost driver. Policy options such as premium support and block grants that entail indexing growth rates to some measure of economic growth will have a hard time achieving lower per-enrollee spending growth than is currently projected. CBO estimates suggest that both approaches may achieve savings for the federal government, but such savings shift Medicare costs onto existing enrollees and, in the case of Medicaid, onto the states as well.3

Rather than pursuing major restructuring of either program, then, we should continue adopting available strategies to contain costs within the programs' current structure, especially since many of those implemented in the past decade seem to be working, and many on the horizon appear promising.

I'm sure Ryan and his sidekick Mittens will defend their scheme by saying it's necessary. Unfortunately for them, that's demonstrably false. The alleged goals of their plan have already been achieved. Dismantling Medicare, throwing seniors into the private insurance market, and shifting costs back onto seniors isn't necessary for fiscal reasons, it's purely ideological.

I suspect we'll hear more about the folly of their ideological agenda in the coming weeks.

What do you do for a living? The reason I ask is because my living comes from helping providers get paid by Medicare so unless you have a comparable experience and knowledge base you are not as QUALIFIED as I am!

Therefore.. you tell me from your naive, amateur knowledge..
Are you in favor of continuing to pay Medicare for services that are in some NOT all marked up by the health care provider by almost 6,000%?

Case in point..
YOU evidently don't have access as I have access to a database of what Medicare paid 6,000+ hospitals for services like this hospital in Tampa.

Univ. Community Hospital in Tampa sent Medicare 2,110 times claims to do this service:
CAT scan - no contrast at $2,635 each claim.
It cost the hospital $43 to perform the service!
A 6,127.91% markup!

Why does Medicare WILLINGLY accept this GROSS overcharging?

Again, you being naive and obviously uninformed ... do some research before you make ANY comments about Medicare.. research that benign and benevolent ACT passed by Congress in 1986 known as EMTALA... then come back and defend Medicare's status quo!

Ryan's plan like any SANE rational logical person takes into consideration a simple concept:
COMPOUND INTEREST!

Again I'll go real slow for you...
Ryan et.al. want PEOPLE to control their destinies NOT the government!
And so if at age 25 entering the workforce instead of paying based on $40,000/year salary
the government to use the money and then payback at age 65.. the individual had the ownership of where that $250,000 in SS/Medicare payments the employer!! and employee paid in is invested.
I dare you to use this calculator of compound interest!
Simple savings calculator -- Bankrate.com

At 3% 40 years depositing $500/month equals $545,369.02 at age 65!

Out of which the employee now at 5% withdrawal,
gets as much as current SS/Medicare value!

Difference?
IT IS THE EMPLOYEE's MONEY to do with .. spend on insurance, what ever but NOT the government's right!

At 6% which is what the equities market has appreciated with dividends and appreciation for 40 years would provide:$1,048,122!

Why are people like YOU so against the ordinary worker accumulating a million dollars?
What gives you the right to control the ordinary worker's financial destiny??

You are a phony and a fraud. You don't even understand the basics of health care reimbursement. Medicare like insurance companies, not providers determine the price of everything.

the myth maker said:

Univ. Community Hospital in Tampa sent Medicare 2,110 times claims to do this service:
CAT scan - no contrast at $2,635 each claim.
It cost the hospital $43 to perform the service!
A 6,127.91% markup!

Why does Medicare WILLINGLY accept this GROSS overcharging?

Medicare does NOT WILLINGLY accept this GROSS overcharging. They pay a standard fee. If anyone is stuck with the bill, it is the PATIENT.

What an insurance company WILL do is this:

I can think of at least two reasons an insurance company might price services so outrageously high on certain policies. First, that would punish anyone who buys inexpensive insurance with a high deductible (both of these patients did). Second, they keep you from finding out how much (little) medical service really cost. Patients with high deductibles pay for most of their own medical care. The insurance companies make sure that these patients see a much higher price than the “real” price that they could pay. Just as with generic prescription drugs, insurance companies, not providers determine the price of everything. They can hide their real costs, and punish you for not buying a more expensive plan.

WHERE is the outrage at the hospital and doctors for gouging We, the People?



Healthcare - *Health Insurance: More Tricks of the Trade*By David Belk M.D.

 

[Charles_Main]

Too funny. Your own link provides backing for the Ryan plan, while convienently leaving out the fact that those over the age of 55 will not have to worry about this voucher system, while those under will be given a choice.

Perhaps you're missing the point. So let me help you by stating it again (although it was already made explicitly): there is no expectation or hope that voucherizing Medicare will lead to lower per capita spending.

Pushing someone out of Medicare (3.1% growth per enrollee) and giving them a coupon for a private insurance plan (5% growth per enrollee) doesn't get long-term health spending under control. Assuming that the same number of older folks is insured, which I suppose isn't a safe assumption--Ryan may well leave some with no insurance at all.

All it succeeds in doing is shifting costs onto the backs of seniors, it doen't slow spending growth.

It is a much better plan than simply gutting medicare to the tune of 500 billion dollars for a pie in the sky healthcare plan that has done nothing more than increase costs and stifle business expansion.

Better than? The Ryan budget retains the ACA's cuts.

It's kind of hard to score savings for a plan using a 10-year budget window when you propose a plan that ostensibly doesn't take effect for 10 years. Unless you stand on the shoulders of giants and claim Obama's cuts as your own.

Perhaps you miss the Point the that Vouchers allow people to shop around in the Private Sector, which leads to Competition and lower prices. It also gives people more choice.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Keep in mind, Romney is promising to repeal Obamacare on day one, or week one, or some one.

The Medicare provisions in Obamacare, which by some mindboggling flip flop double somersault with a twist the Republicans rail against as cuts,

extend the solvency of Medicare from 2016 to 2024.

So Romney and the GOP will immediately move Medicare back 8 years closer to insolvency before they turn it over to the boy genius Ryan to rescue?

lolol

Well, we've seen Joe Biden in action when it comes to crunching the numbers and putting out data that clearly shows his case.

Joe is going to get his ass handed to him in the debates.

Biden will easily win the debates with those that matter because the undecideds out there are moderates/centrists/independents from the middle of the American political spectrum who are much more Biden's people than they are Paul Ryan's. All Joe has to do is connect with them and make Ryan look like the soulless number crunching wonk he is.

 

[Listening]

Keep in mind, Romney is promising to repeal Obamacare on day one, or week one, or some one.

The Medicare provisions in Obamacare, which by some mindboggling flip flop double somersault with a twist the Republicans rail against as cuts,

extend the solvency of Medicare from 2016 to 2024.

So Romney and the GOP will immediately move Medicare back 8 years closer to insolvency before they turn it over to the boy genius Ryan to rescue?

lolol

Well, we've seen Joe Biden in action when it comes to crunching the numbers and putting out data that clearly shows his case.

Joe is going to get his ass handed to him in the debates.

Biden will easily win the debates with those that matter because the undecideds out there are moderates/centrists/independents from the middle of the American political spectrum who are much more Biden's people than they are Paul Ryan's. All Joe has to do is connect with them and make Ryan look like the soulless number crunching wonk he is.

Hahahahaha...

No, those would be the ass kissing non-thinkers that are already voting for Obama.

The thinking types will turn on Biden in heartbeat once Ryan shows them what a smoke and mirrors dickweed administration Biden helps run.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Ryan's budget is an attempt to fix the deficit that the GOP created.

 

[Charles_Main]

Ryan's budget is an attempt to fix the deficit that the GOP created.

Why does it matter who Created it? Not that I agree with your Simplistic and Dishonest assessment of how it was Created, But why does it matter.

The Fact is Ryan is the only one with who is even trying to do anything about it. His Budget is far from Perfect, but it is the only credible one out there, that actually tried to address Entitlements and really do something about our Problems.

 

[Greenbeard]

Perhaps you miss the Point the that Vouchers allow people to shop around in the Private Sector, which leads to Competition and lower prices. It also gives people more choice.

Though Republicans seem to only acknowledge it selectively, exchanges will lead to lower costs (not lower relative to current costs, lower relative to future trends), yes. But lower than Medicare, almost certainly not.

As noted, we already have Medicare and we have a private insurance market. It's not difficult to compare their relative performances. Medicare costs are growing more slowly. Booting future seniors out of Medicare and dumping them in a private plan whose costs are already growing faster (and that's now, when their pools don't include the high-risk over-65 population) won't save a dime.

Ryan shifts costs around, he's given no thought as to how to actually curb cost growth in the long run.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Well, we've seen Joe Biden in action when it comes to crunching the numbers and putting out data that clearly shows his case.

Joe is going to get his ass handed to him in the debates.

Biden will easily win the debates with those that matter because the undecideds out there are moderates/centrists/independents from the middle of the American political spectrum who are much more Biden's people than they are Paul Ryan's. All Joe has to do is connect with them and make Ryan look like the soulless number crunching wonk he is.

Hahahahaha...

No, those would be the ass kissing non-thinkers that are already voting for Obama.

The thinking types will turn on Biden in heartbeat once Ryan shows them what a smoke and mirrors dickweed administration Biden helps run.

Ryan has a record, have you forgotten? He has 2 unfunded wars, an unfunded expansion of Medicare, and 2 budget busting tax cuts on his resume.

He has no credibility on fiscal/tax/budget issues to begin with, and he's politically tone deaf, by attacking Medicare, to boot.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Ryan's budget is an attempt to fix the deficit that the GOP created.

Why does it matter who Created it? Not that I agree with your Simplistic and Dishonest assessment of how it was Created, But why does it matter.

The Fact is Ryan is the only one with who is even trying to do anything about it. His Budget is far from Perfect, but it is the only credible one out there, that actually tried to address Entitlements and really do something about our Problems.

No budget that further cuts revenues is credible.

Politically, no plan that takes money away from Medicare to lower Mitt Romney's taxes is credible.

 

[Trajan]

Too funny. Your own link provides backing for the Ryan plan, while convienently leaving out the fact that those over the age of 55 will not have to worry about this voucher system, while those under will be given a choice.

Perhaps you're missing the point. So let me help you by stating it again (although it was already made explicitly): there is no expectation or hope that voucherizing Medicare will lead to lower per capita spending.

Pushing someone out of Medicare (3.1% growth per enrollee) and giving them a coupon for a private insurance plan (5% growth per enrollee) doesn't get long-term health spending under control. Assuming that the same number of older folks is insured, which I suppose isn't a safe assumption--Ryan may well leave some with no insurance at all.

All it succeeds in doing is shifting costs onto the backs of seniors, it doen't slow spending growth.

It is a much better plan than simply gutting medicare to the tune of 500 billion dollars for a pie in the sky healthcare plan that has done nothing more than increase costs and stifle business expansion.

Better than? The Ryan budget retains the ACA's cuts.

It's kind of hard to score savings for a plan using a 10-year budget window when you propose a plan that ostensibly doesn't take effect for 10 years. Unless you stand on the shoulders of giants and claim Obama's cuts as your own.

Perhaps you miss the Point the that Vouchers allow people to shop around in the Private Sector, which leads to Competition and lower prices. It also gives people more choice.

thats heresy bro. they need to have their hands on the mechanism.

people are to stupid , they need guidance, via our 15 experts who will decide whats what, you and I get to stand back and watch them blow this up, ala Medicare, which outran its budget by orders of magnitude, yet here we are once again being told we can do it, we can fix it, just let leave it to us......another gov. plan, see only they know what they are doing.


see how well they have done?

 

[Bfgrn]

I do. Medicare is in trouble and will fail soon unless we continue to throw bad money after good. The cost growth is NOT in line with acceptable growth. The growth that exists is very much like the growth of Social Security. It is smoke and mirrors, propped up by deficit spending.

Address that before you go after some parsed out section of the entire program.

The Ryan plan is the best plan going right now that will extend and help medicare survive. It is not perfect, but it is much better than propping up medicare on the backs of people who won't have it available to them if nothing is done.

There is a very good reason cost growth is NOT in line with acceptable growth. We have a private insurance based health care system. It is a HUGE failure.

High health care costs
Who's to blame?

Health-cost trends shows that these players, in roughly descending order, contributed the most to rising costs:

Hospitals and doctors. Doctors and hospitals account for by far the largest share, 52 percent in 2006, of all national health spending. There's abundant evidence that some of that spending is unnecessary. Under the present system, hospitals and doctors earn more money by doing costly interventions than by keeping people healthy. And more medical care doesn't necessarily mean better care, according to research on Medicare expenditures by the Dartmouth Medical School's Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice.

Drug companies. Prescription drugs account for only one-tenth of total health-care expenditures. But drug spending has increased as a share of overall expenditures over the past decade.

Insurance companies. Health-insurance premiums have grown faster than inflation or workers' earnings over the past decade, in parallel with the equally rapid rise in overall health costs. Industry spending on administrative and marketing costs, plus profits, consumes 12 percent of private-insurance premiums.

Politicians and government regulators. Although the government directly controls only 46 percent of national health spending, many of its policies affect the bottom line of the health-care industry, for example, by setting Medicare reimbursement rates for doctors on which private insurers base their rates, or by regulating health insurance. Between 1999 and 2006, the health-care lobby spent more than any other business sector, according to a study by the Institute for Health & Socio-Economic Policy, a nonprofit policy and research group.

Lawyers. Malpractice-insurance premiums and liability awards account for less than 2 percent of overall health-care spending, according to a 2004 study by the Congressional Budget Office. Defensive medicine, the practice of ordering extra tests or procedures to protect against lawsuits, might add another few percentage points, according to some estimates.

Health-care consumers.

Health-care security, who is to blame for high costs

$600 billion a year in UNNECESSARY duplicate tests, etc.. all because of fear of lawsuits!
But again you are pushing the FALSE argument i.e. insurance premiums!
THAT's never been what the physicians, have complained about the $600 billion a year!

If 1,231 physicians...(90%) Ninety percent of physicians surveyed said
"doctors overtest and overtreat to protect themselves from malpractice lawsuits.
"Defensive medicine is when doctors order multiple tests, MRIs and other procedures, not because the patient needs them, but to protect against litigation based on allegations that something should have been done but wasn’t. according to the survey published Monday in Archives of Internal Medicine.

Besides more time-consuming appointments, patients are left with fewer services and less access to quality care as doctors either narrow their practices or leave the profession entirely."
http://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/Examiner-editorial-Obama-wont-take-on-trial-lawyers-in-speech-57953202.html

Lawyers. Malpractice-insurance premiums and liability awards account for less than 2 percent of overall health-care spending, according to a 2004 study by the Congressional Budget Office. Defensive medicine, the practice of ordering extra tests or procedures to protect against lawsuits, might add another few percentage points, according to some estimates.

MORE myths from the myth maker who is a phony and a fraud.

Medical Malpractice: Myths and Realities

By David Belk MD

Whenever I ask anyone "how much do you think I pay for my malpractice insurance?" the answer never fails to amuse me. People usually guess anywhere from $30,000 to $150,000 per year (as if I could afford that). When I tell them, they're usually shocked and some people have even gone so far as to tell me I must be wrong. I write the check each quarter. I think I know how much it is. Well, seeing is believing, so here is my malpractice bill for all of 2012.

Thats right, $2,947.48 for the WHOLE YEAR! (It says $3046.48 because there is a $99.00 yearly PAC contribution, which is optional, though they dont make that obvious on the bill.)

So, why so little? If medical malpractice is so incredibly expensive that its breaking the back of healthcare in this Country, why is my bill so low? Is it because Im such an outstanding doctor that my insurance provider long ago recognized that I would never be sued? Well, I'd like to think that were true but, no. I recently surveyed some of the doctors who practice near my office. Many of them have their accountant or biller take care of their bills for them so they were strangely unaware of what they paid and rather surprised when I got them to look at their bills.

I asked the nephrologist, who has an office one floor below me, to open her bill in front of me. She pays $2,953 a year. Six dollars a year more than I pay and she runs a dialysis unit.

There are two cardiologists who share an office one floor below her. One does angioplasties; which are a very invasive and sometimes dangerous procedure. He pays $5,500 a year. The other one doesnt do that procedure so he only pays $3,800.

A pulmonologist, whose office is around the corner from them, pays $4,200 a year and he oversees an ICU and does bronchoscopies (another invasive and potentially dangerous procedure). Before getting him to look at his bill, he assured me several times that it was twice that amount.

An ophthalmologist I know pays $3,800 a year and does eye surgery, though he told me that his premiums were cut in half when he stopped doing complicated eye surgeries. Emergency Room physicians (who have a very high exposure to malpractice suits) pay about $12,000 a year. General surgery: $18,000, Orthopedic surgery: $20,000.

Of all the doctors I spoke to, only Obstetrics/Gynecology paid enough in malpractice premiums as to be a burden (surgeons make a lot even by a doctors standard so most can afford $18,000-$20,000 a year). The one Ob/Gyn doctor I asked told me he pays $40,000 a year (and he's never been sued).

Healthcare - Medical Malpractice

 

[8537]

Adding up the annual returns from 1975 through 2010, as shown in the Dow Jones Industrial average yearly returns chart, and dividing the result by 36, the number of years covered, you will learn that the Dow appreciated by an average of 9.28 percent annually.
!

Wait what?!?!?

The DJIA was about 825 in 1975.

Actually when I had my security's license in 1972 the BIGGEST fear the Howard Ruff of the Ruff letter WARNED of economic collapse as the DJI would drop from 800 to 400!!!
Thinking it would EVER break 1,000 was a laugh!!!

By the way the DJI highest was under GWB of 14,164.5 October 9, 2007.

Closing milestones of the Dow Jones Industrial Average - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

IS this your way of conceding that your previous post was complete bullshit?

 

[healthmyths]

Apparently Romney has decided that he can't win a referendum on Obama and thus it's time to more explicitly hitch his wagon to the GOP's radical agenda to revive his campaign.

So it's worth taking a moment this morning to remember that his new Number Two's plot to voucherize Medicare and shift costs onto the backs of future seniors doesn't save any money. It's ideological drivel that doesn't actually solve any problems that haven't already been solved. Why not? Because per enrollee spending growth in the public health insurance programs has already fallen.

Medicare and Medicaid Spending Trends and the Deficit Debate | NEJM



I'm sure Ryan and his sidekick Mittens will defend their scheme by saying it's necessary. Unfortunately for them, that's demonstrably false. The alleged goals of their plan have already been achieved. Dismantling Medicare, throwing seniors into the private insurance market, and shifting costs back onto seniors isn't necessary for fiscal reasons, it's purely ideological.

I suspect we'll hear more about the folly of their ideological agenda in the coming weeks.

What do you do for a living? The reason I ask is because my living comes from helping providers get paid by Medicare so unless you have a comparable experience and knowledge base you are not as QUALIFIED as I am!

Therefore.. you tell me from your naive, amateur knowledge..
Are you in favor of continuing to pay Medicare for services that are in some NOT all marked up by the health care provider by almost 6,000%?

Case in point..
YOU evidently don't have access as I have access to a database of what Medicare paid 6,000+ hospitals for services like this hospital in Tampa.

Univ. Community Hospital in Tampa sent Medicare 2,110 times claims to do this service:
CAT scan - no contrast at $2,635 each claim.
It cost the hospital $43 to perform the service!
A 6,127.91% markup!

Why does Medicare WILLINGLY accept this GROSS overcharging?

Again, you being naive and obviously uninformed ... do some research before you make ANY comments about Medicare.. research that benign and benevolent ACT passed by Congress in 1986 known as EMTALA... then come back and defend Medicare's status quo!

Ryan's plan like any SANE rational logical person takes into consideration a simple concept:
COMPOUND INTEREST!

Again I'll go real slow for you...
Ryan et.al. want PEOPLE to control their destinies NOT the government!
And so if at age 25 entering the workforce instead of paying based on $40,000/year salary
the government to use the money and then payback at age 65.. the individual had the ownership of where that $250,000 in SS/Medicare payments the employer!! and employee paid in is invested.
I dare you to use this calculator of compound interest!
Simple savings calculator -- Bankrate.com

At 3% 40 years depositing $500/month equals $545,369.02 at age 65!

Out of which the employee now at 5% withdrawal,
gets as much as current SS/Medicare value!

Difference?
IT IS THE EMPLOYEE's MONEY to do with .. spend on insurance, what ever but NOT the government's right!

At 6% which is what the equities market has appreciated with dividends and appreciation for 40 years would provide:$1,048,122!

Why are people like YOU so against the ordinary worker accumulating a million dollars?
What gives you the right to control the ordinary worker's financial destiny??

You are a phony and a fraud. You don't even understand the basics of health care reimbursement. Medicare like insurance companies, not providers determine the price of everything.

the myth maker said:

Univ. Community Hospital in Tampa sent Medicare 2,110 times claims to do this service:
CAT scan - no contrast at $2,635 each claim.
It cost the hospital $43 to perform the service!
A 6,127.91% markup!

Why does Medicare WILLINGLY accept this GROSS overcharging?

Medicare does NOT WILLINGLY accept this GROSS overcharging. They pay a standard fee. If anyone is stuck with the bill, it is the PATIENT.

What an insurance company WILL do is this:

I can think of at least two reasons an insurance company might price services so outrageously high on certain policies. First, that would punish anyone who buys inexpensive insurance with a high deductible (both of these patients did). Second, they keep you from finding out how much (little) medical service really cost. Patients with high deductibles pay for most of their own medical care. The insurance companies make sure that these patients see a much higher price than the “real” price that they could pay. Just as with generic prescription drugs, insurance companies, not providers determine the price of everything. They can hide their real costs, and punish you for not buying a more expensive plan.

WHERE is the outrage at the hospital and doctors for gouging We, the People?



Healthcare - *Health Insurance: More Tricks of the Trade*By David Belk M.D.

In 2008 Radiologists sent 151,703,266 claims for services to Medicare.
The total sent was $10.3 billion Medicare paid 78% of that or $8.02 billion!
FACT look it up as I DID!!! IDIOT

SOURCE: CMS/Office of Information Products and Data Analytics

So again explain WHY CMS (Medicare to you!) continued to report that the
they PAY 6,000% markups??

Tell me what city you live in and I'll show you what kind of markup that hospital charges Medicare!!!

 

[Bfgrn]

What do you do for a living? The reason I ask is because my living comes from helping providers get paid by Medicare so unless you have a comparable experience and knowledge base you are not as QUALIFIED as I am!

Therefore.. you tell me from your naive, amateur knowledge..
Are you in favor of continuing to pay Medicare for services that are in some NOT all marked up by the health care provider by almost 6,000%?

Case in point..
YOU evidently don't have access as I have access to a database of what Medicare paid 6,000+ hospitals for services like this hospital in Tampa.

Univ. Community Hospital in Tampa sent Medicare 2,110 times claims to do this service:
CAT scan - no contrast at $2,635 each claim.
It cost the hospital $43 to perform the service!
A 6,127.91% markup!

Why does Medicare WILLINGLY accept this GROSS overcharging?

Again, you being naive and obviously uninformed ... do some research before you make ANY comments about Medicare.. research that benign and benevolent ACT passed by Congress in 1986 known as EMTALA... then come back and defend Medicare's status quo!

Ryan's plan like any SANE rational logical person takes into consideration a simple concept:
COMPOUND INTEREST!

Again I'll go real slow for you...
Ryan et.al. want PEOPLE to control their destinies NOT the government!
And so if at age 25 entering the workforce instead of paying based on $40,000/year salary
the government to use the money and then payback at age 65.. the individual had the ownership of where that $250,000 in SS/Medicare payments the employer!! and employee paid in is invested.
I dare you to use this calculator of compound interest!
Simple savings calculator -- Bankrate.com

At 3% 40 years depositing $500/month equals $545,369.02 at age 65!

Out of which the employee now at 5% withdrawal,
gets as much as current SS/Medicare value!

Difference?
IT IS THE EMPLOYEE's MONEY to do with .. spend on insurance, what ever but NOT the government's right!

At 6% which is what the equities market has appreciated with dividends and appreciation for 40 years would provide:$1,048,122!

Why are people like YOU so against the ordinary worker accumulating a million dollars?
What gives you the right to control the ordinary worker's financial destiny??

You are a phony and a fraud. You don't even understand the basics of health care reimbursement. Medicare like insurance companies, not providers determine the price of everything.

the myth maker said:

Univ. Community Hospital in Tampa sent Medicare 2,110 times claims to do this service:
CAT scan - no contrast at $2,635 each claim.
It cost the hospital $43 to perform the service!
A 6,127.91% markup!

Why does Medicare WILLINGLY accept this GROSS overcharging?

Medicare does NOT WILLINGLY accept this GROSS overcharging. They pay a standard fee. If anyone is stuck with the bill, it is the PATIENT.

What an insurance company WILL do is this:

I can think of at least two reasons an insurance company might price services so outrageously high on certain policies. First, that would punish anyone who buys inexpensive insurance with a high deductible (both of these patients did). Second, they keep you from finding out how much (little) medical service really cost. Patients with high deductibles pay for most of their own medical care. The insurance companies make sure that these patients see a much higher price than the “real” price that they could pay. Just as with generic prescription drugs, insurance companies, not providers determine the price of everything. They can hide their real costs, and punish you for not buying a more expensive plan.

WHERE is the outrage at the hospital and doctors for gouging We, the People?



Healthcare - *Health Insurance: More Tricks of the Trade*By David Belk M.D.

In 2008 Radiologists sent 151,703,266 claims for services to Medicare.
The total sent was $10.3 billion Medicare paid 78% of that or $8.02 billion!
FACT look it up as I DID!!! IDIOT

SOURCE: CMS/Office of Information Products and Data Analytics

So again explain WHY CMS (Medicare to you!) continued to report that the
they PAY 6,000% markups??

Tell me what city you live in and I'll show you what kind of markup that hospital charges Medicare!!!

If CMS is your source, WHY don't you provide a link? Do you have copies of the bills sent to Medicare, because when you DO THE MATH...the average claim is $67.89

10,300,000,000 / 151,703,266 = 67.89570371

 

[freedombecki]

Dem's policy is future Seniors will not be able to see any Doctors or to be able to go to an emergency room.No health care at all.
Medicare is going broke and Dem's policy is rob Medicare of 500 billion in order to get 30 million people into their not affordable at all Health Care Plan.

You realize that Seniors do pay for Medicare as it is every month.
The voucher pays for quite a bit of that and future seniors will have a choice whether they want a private insurance or Medicare insurance.
I see no plan at all from the Dem's in how to keep Medicare going for the future generations of the country.
Something has to be done in order to keep Medicare and Dem's have done nothing at all about it.

Maybe the Demmies decided stealing posthumous estates was crass, and decided to go for the money before people died with Obamacare.

That way, Republicans can't gripe about them stealing estate money, which is as far from do-good-ism as one can get, and Nancy Pelosi can dip away for Democrat supporters in Califaraway.

 

[freedombecki]

Apparently Romney has decided that he can't win a referendum on Obama and thus it's time to more explicitly hitch his wagon to the GOP's radical agenda to revive his campaign.

So it's worth taking a moment this morning to remember that his new Number Two's plot to voucherize Medicare and shift costs onto the backs of future seniors doesn't save any money. It's ideological drivel that doesn't actually solve any problems that haven't already been solved. Why not? Because per enrollee spending growth in the public health insurance programs has already fallen.

Medicare and Medicaid Spending Trends and the Deficit Debate | NEJM



I'm sure Ryan and his sidekick Mittens will defend their scheme by saying it's necessary. Unfortunately for them, that's demonstrably false. The alleged goals of their plan have already been achieved. Dismantling Medicare, throwing seniors into the private insurance market, and shifting costs back onto seniors isn't necessary for fiscal reasons, it's purely ideological.

I suspect we'll hear more about the folly of their ideological agenda in the coming weeks.

well, if they're honest about what the GOP's mancrush really wants, then it will make for an interesting discussion.

if they aren't, it'll just be another rightwingnut shill's dream.

Romney, is a rightwingnut ? really?

and honesty is hard to come by, like we are getting that now? between Fast and Furious, disparate impact, the coffee shoppe lobbyists klatch, NO budgets for 3 solid years, you really have to be living in another universe to play that card honestly.

rightwingnut shill = jillian's favorite fleshwound against moderate Republicans.

 

[uscitizen]

Apparently Romney has decided that he can't win a referendum on Obama and thus it's time to more explicitly hitch his wagon to the GOP's radical agenda to revive his campaign.

So it's worth taking a moment this morning to remember that his new Number Two's plot to voucherize Medicare and shift costs onto the backs of future seniors doesn't save any money. It's ideological drivel that doesn't actually solve any problems that haven't already been solved. Why not? Because per enrollee spending growth in the public health insurance programs has already fallen.

Medicare and Medicaid Spending Trends and the Deficit Debate | NEJM

With the per-enrollee spending growth in Medicare and Medicaid less than that in private insurance and close to the growth in GDP per capita, it's hard to argue that spending on either program, on a per-enrollee basis, is “out of control.” Rather, per-enrollee growth in both programs is near the target often advocated in debt-reduction proposals. Total spending growth, which also includes growth in enrollment, is faster than the economy's growth. But policies that are appropriate when the problem is per-capita spending growth differ from those that make sense when enrollment growth is such an important cost driver. Policy options such as premium support and block grants that entail indexing growth rates to some measure of economic growth will have a hard time achieving lower per-enrollee spending growth than is currently projected. CBO estimates suggest that both approaches may achieve savings for the federal government, but such savings shift Medicare costs onto existing enrollees and, in the case of Medicaid, onto the states as well.3

Rather than pursuing major restructuring of either program, then, we should continue adopting available strategies to contain costs within the programs' current structure, especially since many of those implemented in the past decade seem to be working, and many on the horizon appear promising.

I'm sure Ryan and his sidekick Mittens will defend their scheme by saying it's necessary. Unfortunately for them, that's demonstrably false. The alleged goals of their plan have already been achieved. Dismantling Medicare, throwing seniors into the private insurance market, and shifting costs back onto seniors isn't necessary for fiscal reasons, it's purely ideological.

I suspect we'll hear more about the folly of their ideological agenda in the coming weeks.

The already privatized part of Medicare, Medicare Advantage costs 14% more than the traditional Medicare.
the proof is already there that privatizing Medicare will NOT save money.

 

[8537]

don't try that shit on me, you always seem to blow smoke when you cannot answer a question, just don't respond if you don't have an answer or man up and as in, I cannot point to a Democratic budget.

Hint: Obama has offered a budget each year. In none of those years has he offered a budget that ends Medicare, cuts taxes for the wealthiest and increases them for the middle class.

That's not smoke up your ass. That's a fact you need to learn to accept.

see how that works, kiddo?

ryan doesn't 'end' medicare. you apparently wish to start from a false premise, nice- since you can then fashion anything you want pivoting off that...not playing.

Turning medicare into a voucher program ends Medicare. It will be transformed from a medical insurance program to a hand out for the private sector. It won't at all resemble the program we call Medicare - because it won't be.

"obama's budget(s)" were/was shot down 97-0 and 99-0 in the senate, not that that mattered really. these were not proper budgets in any event as they never went thru the congressional budget process.

So when you said you wanted to see his budget from the past four years, you were just making shit up?

so back to square 1- show me a budget , a 2009 and 2010 budget crafted properly and put to a vote in either house....

I never said that. That's just you making shit up.

forget medicare, I am not discussing it with you so lets move on- taxes.

I'd run from the facts if I were you as well.

who is cutting taxes for the wealthy and raising them on the middle class?

Romney / Ryan. That's what analyses of both of their tax plans have demonstrated.

so what are you talking about?

 

[Greenbeard]

The already privatized part of Medicare, Medicare Advantage costs 14% more than the traditional Medicare.
the proof is already there that privatizing Medicare will NOT save money.

True, but the two schemes are opposites in some ways. Or rather, they're opposite approaches to heaping largess on the health insurance sector.

Medicare Advantage asks "how can we make Medicare more expensive, privatize it, and have the government pay for it?"

Ryan-Romney asks "how can we make Medicare more expensive, privatize it, and have seniors pay for it?"

Both conspicuously miss the more obvious question: how can we work on improving the popular, less expensive, more effective program we already have?

 

[Care4all]

The already privatized part of Medicare, Medicare Advantage costs 14% more than the traditional Medicare.
the proof is already there that privatizing Medicare will NOT save money.

True, but the two schemes are opposites in some ways. Or rather, they're opposite approaches to heaping largess on the health insurance sector.

Medicare Advantage asks "how can we make Medicare more expensive, privatize it, and have the government pay for it?"

Ryan-Romney asks "how can we make Medicare more expensive, privatize it, and have seniors pay for it?"

Both conspicuously miss the more obvious question: how can we work on improving the popular, less expensive, more effective program we already have?

I don't understand why those on the right can't comprehend this?