Medicare running out of money in 12 years.

[CrusaderFrank]

Anyone know what the rate of private insurance fraud is?

LOL

Good point.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

So let's start a nationwide healthcare system since we are running out of money just for senior citizens. Note they borrowed money last year to "reduce" the deficit in Medicare.
Only the government thinks borrowing money reduces debt.

Medicare funding runs short by 2024, trustees say - Apr. 23, 2012

We should just get rid of the system entirely and let seniors worry about their own health.

 

[auditor0007]

So let's start a nationwide healthcare system since we are running out of money just for senior citizens. Note they borrowed money last year to "reduce" the deficit in Medicare.
Only the government thinks borrowing money reduces debt.

Medicare funding runs short by 2024, trustees say - Apr. 23, 2012

The answer to all our problems is so simple. Just end Medicare completely. Let everyone figure out how they will pay for medical care on their own. Granted a lot of us won't be able to afford the care we need and we will die a few years sooner, but so what? This will actually be good for everyone. See, if our life expectancy drops by four or five years, then we won't have to pay out as much for Social Security, and everything will be fine. The other thing we really should do is promote euthanasia for anyone who wants to end their life early. Just think of the savings. In fact, an even better idea is to leave that decision up to the children. When they think it's time for Mom and Dad to go, they give the order.

We can save so much money by making certain people die sooner. There are many more things we can do too. The government could start a program to get all high school students to start smoking cigarettes. If everyone smoked, then everyone would die sooner. This would drastically reduce our healthcare costs, especially when so many couldn't afford it anyway. They would just die, making life much easier for everyone else.

 

[AquaAthena]

It was designed to go broke and pull America down with it

So true and as Donald Trump puts his spin on it, it really brings the reality home.



"Let me get this straight . . .

We're going to be "gifted" with a health care

plan we are forced to purchaseand

fined if we don't,

Which purportedly covers at least

ten million more people,

without adding a single new doctor,

but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents,

written by a committee whose chairman

says he doesn't understand it,

passedby a Congress that didn't readit but

exemptedthemselves from it,

and signed by a Dumbo President who smokes,

with fundingadministered by a treasury chief who

didn't pay his taxes,

or which we'll be taxed for four years before any

benefits take effect,

by a government which has

already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare,

all to be overseen by a surgeon general

who is obese,

andfinancedby a country that's broke!!!!!


'What the hell could possibly go wrong?'




TRUMP: We're going to be "gifted" with a health care plan we are forced to purchase and fined if we don't - feralpuppies's Blog - Blogster

 

[uscitizen]

Frank you are a right wing political parrot that cannot see the big picture. You only see the surface not what lies under it.

Medicare vouchers makes it virtually impossible for medical providers to be prosecuted for medicare fraud

Or "Overbilling" which is what the providers cronies in congress refer to it as.

I heard the left and right complain about fraud for years. Maybe its time to actually do something about it?

yeah all congress wants to do is pass laws requiring repayment of "overpayments" they are so controlled by the money that they do not even want to call it fraud or criminal.
They just want vouchers so that ripping people or the govt off will no longer be illegal.
Reward the criminals by legalizing what they do and give them all of the tax money instead of just the Medicare advantage part.

 

[uscitizen]

Frank you are a right wing political parrot that cannot see the big picture. You only see the surface not what lies under it.

Medicare vouchers makes it virtually impossible for medical providers to be prosecuted for medicare fraud

Or "Overbilling" which is what the providers cronies in congress refer to it as.

I see a program designed to fail and it well on its way to reaching its goal.

Yes congress has helped it along towards failure by passing the Medicre Advantage thing which costs 14% more than traditional medicare.
Should we not first get rid of the moneypit called medicare Advantage?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

It was designed to go broke and pull America down with it

So true and as Donald Trump puts his spin on it, it really brings the reality home.




Let me get this straight . . .

We're going to be "gifted" with a health care
plan we are forced to purchase and
fined if we don't,
Which purportedly covers at least
ten million more people,
without adding a single new doctor,
but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents,
written by a committee whose chairman
says he doesn't understand it,
passed by a Congress that didn't read it but
exempted themselves from it,
and signed by a Dumbo President who smokes,
with funding administered by a treasury chief who
didn't pay his taxes,
for which we'll be taxed for four years before any
benefits take effect,
by a government which has
already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare,
all to be overseen by a surgeon general
who is obese,
andfinanced by a country that's broke!!!!!



'What the hell could possibly go wrong?'


TRUMP: We're going to be "gifted" with a health care plan we are forced to purchase and fined if we don't - feralpuppies's Blog - Blogster

Yeah, that's starving the beast

 

[Greenbeard]

I heard the left and right complain about fraud for years. Maybe its time to actually do something about it?

They are. Congress put significant new anti-fraud tools on the books in 2010 (now being implemented: "Medicare, Medicaid Anti-fraud Provisions Set to Expand").

On the executive branch side, the Medicare Fraud Strike Force has been going gangbusters for the last few years, making some of the the largest Medicare fraud busts. For instance, one in 2010 taking down a $251 million operation and another in 2011 for $295 million in fraud.

Anyone know what the rate of private insurance fraud is?

Comparable to the rate for public payers (which are, after all, generally administered by private contractors):

WASHINGTON—Fraud is just as prevalent in the private health insurance industry as it is with public insurance, according to a report by the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, Department of Health Policy.

The report found that some of the most striking examples of fraud come from fraud committed directly by the private insurance industry itself. In 2007, the United States spent nearly $2.3 trillion on healthcare and public and private insurers processed more than 4 billion health insurance claims. That year, fraud was estimated to reach as much as 10 percent of annual health care spending.

 

[Gadawg73]

"Hey, we are going to pass a health plan where seniors can go to the doctor all they want the government is going to pay for it"
An open door for fraud and lines 10 miles long of doctors waiting and willing to take advantage of it.

 

[Gadawg73]

I heard the left and right complain about fraud for years. Maybe its time to actually do something about it?

They are. Congress put significant new anti-fraud tools on the books in 2010 (now being implemented: "Medicare, Medicaid Anti-fraud Provisions Set to Expand").

On the executive branch side, the Medicare Fraud Strike Force has been going gangbusters for the last few years, making some of the the largest Medicare fraud busts. For instance, one in 2010 taking down a $251 million operation and another in 2011 for $295 million in fraud.

Anyone know what the rate of private insurance fraud is?

Comparable to the rate for public payers (which are, after all, generally administered by private contractors):

WASHINGTON—Fraud is just as prevalent in the private health insurance industry as it is with public insurance, according to a report by the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, Department of Health Policy.

The report found that some of the most striking examples of fraud come from fraud committed directly by the private insurance industry itself. In 2007, the United States spent nearly $2.3 trillion on healthcare and public and private insurers processed more than 4 billion health insurance claims. That year, fraud was estimated to reach as much as 10 percent of annual health care spending.

Uh, ahem, doctors, hospitals and everyone else billing Medicare WOULD BE THE PRIVATE INSURANCE INDUSTRY.

 

[uscitizen]

So fraud costs healthcare more than malpractice suits?

Why no cry for tort reform on healthcare fraud from the right?

 

[uscitizen]

I heard the left and right complain about fraud for years. Maybe its time to actually do something about it?

They are. Congress put significant new anti-fraud tools on the books in 2010 (now being implemented: "Medicare, Medicaid Anti-fraud Provisions Set to Expand").

On the executive branch side, the Medicare Fraud Strike Force has been going gangbusters for the last few years, making some of the the largest Medicare fraud busts. For instance, one in 2010 taking down a $251 million operation and another in 2011 for $295 million in fraud.



Comparable to the rate for public payers (which are, after all, generally administered by private contractors):

WASHINGTON—Fraud is just as prevalent in the private health insurance industry as it is with public insurance, according to a report by the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, Department of Health Policy.

The report found that some of the most striking examples of fraud come from fraud committed directly by the private insurance industry itself. In 2007, the United States spent nearly $2.3 trillion on healthcare and public and private insurers processed more than 4 billion health insurance claims. That year, fraud was estimated to reach as much as 10 percent of annual health care spending.

Uh, ahem, doctors, hospitals and everyone else billing Medicare WOULD BE THE PRIVATE INSURANCE INDUSTRY.

Au contrare oh incorrect one.

that would be when doctors and hospitals bill BCBS or ETNA not the govt for medicare reimbursement.
Perhaps the privatized part of medicare known as Part C or Medicare Advantage might fall under that though.

 

[saveliberty]

Comparable to the rate for public payers (which are, after all, generally administered by private contractors):

WASHINGTON—Fraud is just as prevalent in the private health insurance industry as it is with public insurance, according to a report by the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, Department of Health Policy.

The report found that some of the most striking examples of fraud come from fraud committed directly by the private insurance industry itself. In 2007, the United States spent nearly $2.3 trillion on healthcare and public and private insurers processed more than 4 billion health insurance claims. That year, fraud was estimated to reach as much as 10 percent of annual health care spending.

10% is HALF the rate mentioned for Medicare. Hardly comparable in the sense you meant it.

 

[Avorysuds]

I'm convinced that Medicare can be expanded to include preventative care for all citizens and in doing so we can begin to repair our economy. It's all a matter of priorities.

Bring the troops home:

Let China and Japan police the Korean Peninsula;

Let Germany, France and England police Europe;

Let the middle east solve their own problems or continue to kill each other;

Let the Taliban murder their own citizens;

And bring our troops home and provide them with jobs to:

Repair our roads and bridges, expand light and heavy passenger rail - within urban centers and between urban centers - protect our borders, replace the electrical grid; build flood control canals & create water transportation and recreational waterways and prosecute and imprison white collar criminals (i.e. pols, doctors, lawyers and government contractors).

Here is the problem...

1: You're a progressive.

2: Taking money from defense will only amount to so much, not all of defense spending is unconstitutional.

3: You either pretend or just don't pay enough attention to know that saving lets say you cut 300 billion a year in defense spending, it will not balance the 3.6 Trillion annual deficit we run.

4: You then take that "savings" and immediately blow it on other projects, roads, HC, bridges, infrastructure.

5: I know you're a Dem and an Obama supporter, why didn't they do what you said???

6: You either pretend or just don't pay enough attention to know that the welfare state, SS, MC, MC, UE, Education, subsidies and so on are what makes up about 80% of our deficit spending already while all of these programs are unconstitutional.

So again, how does cutting only 300 billion from the defense budget fix the problem of you still having to print or borrow 3.3 trillion instead of 3.6 trillion to keep the unsustainability of welfare programs going? How does making new and bigger welfare programs fix the problem?

Don't get me wrong, Republicans are no better as they don't want to do away with any unconstitutional military spending and hardly want to scratch the surface of welfare spending. Fixing problems means you can’t run off them later.

 

[Greenbeard]

10% is HALF the rate mentioned for Medicare. Hardly comparable in the sense you meant it.

OIG puts the error rate in Medicare payments (of which fraud is a subset) at just over ten percent. Notice that the privatized portion of Medicare, Medicare Part C, actually has a higher error rate than traditional fee-for-service Medicare.

In 2010, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) reported Medicare improper payments totaling $47.9 billion. Of that total, $34.3 billion is attributable to Medicare Fee-for-Service (10.5-percent error rate) and $13.6 billion is attributable to Medicare Part C (14-percent error rate).

Some but not all improper payments are the result of fraud. Improper payments can also result from medically unnecessary claims, miscoded claims, eligibility errors, or insufficient documentation. Examples of improper payments include payments made to an ineligible recipient, duplicate payments, or payment for services not received. For example, my office recently identified $3.6 million in improper Medicare Part D payments on behalf of deceased beneficiaries.

Estimating the exact amount of fraud in the health system is difficult, both for public payers and for private payers. But those who've tried have come away with the finding that the proportions are comparable. Again, even within Medicare, the percentages of improper payments (not just limited to outright fraud) made by the privatized portion and by the un-privatized portion are comparable, with the privatized portion actually doing slightly worse.

 

[saveliberty]

Interesting, because another source has already been used and puts Medicare fraud at 20%. Actually, yours adds up to 24.5%, so your really not helping yourself.

 

[Greenbeard]

Interesting, because another source has already been used and puts Medicare fraud at 20%. Actually, yours adds up to 24.5%, so your really not helping yourself.

10.5% of three-quarters of a program plus 14% of the remaining quarter is not 24.5% of the total program, it's 11 percent of the total program.

 

[saveliberty]

In fact, Medicare fraud - estimated now to total about $60 billion a year - has become one of, if not the most profitable, crimes in America.

Medicare Fraud: A $60 Billion Crime - CBS News

 

[Greenbeard]

In fact, Medicare fraud - estimated now to total about $60 billion a year - has become one of, if not the most profitable, crimes in America.

Medicare Fraud: A $60 Billion Crime - CBS News

Pop quiz: what percentage of $555 billion in total program expenditures is $60 billion?

I don't think you're going to like the answer.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

I'm convinced that Medicare can be expanded to include preventative care for all citizens and in doing so we can begin to repair our economy. It's all a matter of priorities.

Would you want a liberal Soviet style monopoly in all industries or just health care??

As a liberal you lack the IQ to understand capitalism, sadly