The medicare miracle

[JimH52]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/01/opinion/paul-krugman-the-medicare-miracle.html?smid=fb-share

The RW may now begin throwing rocks....

 

[sameech]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/01/opinion/paul-krugman-the-medicare-miracle.html?smid=fb-share

The RW may now begin throwing rocks....

Most of the seniors I know say that they are shifting more of the cost onto them, shortening hospital stays and forcing them to do a lot of things that would have been included in their hospital stay in the past as outpatient procedures before admittance or after discharge. Not so much a "blame Obama/PPACA" thing as a crappy way the medical industry is always finding a work around to anything that puts their Wednesday afternoon golf game at the country club in jeopardy.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

Some people still think Medicare is a giveaway. Its not free and the recipients pay for it.

 

[MeBelle]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/01/opinion/paul-krugman-the-medicare-miracle.html?smid=fb-share

The RW may now begin throwing rocks....

Most of the seniors I know say that they are shifting more of the cost onto them, shortening hospital stays and forcing them to do a lot of things that would have been included in their hospital stay in the past as outpatient procedures before admittance or after discharge. Not so much a "blame Obama/PPACA" thing as a crappy way the medical industry is always finding a work around to anything that puts their Wednesday afternoon golf game at the country club in jeopardy.

You got it!

If there is a readmission hospitals get fined big time.

It is a blame the PPACA thing because the rules are outlined in the ACA.

There is no recourse, that I'm currently aware of, to allow a readmission for the same condition within 30 days. So guess what happens?

It's like the 24 hour delivery.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

"For years, pundits and politicians have insisted that guaranteed health care is an impossible dream, even though every other advanced country has it. Covering the uninsured was supposed to be unaffordable; Medicare as we know it was supposed to be unsustainable. But it turns out that incremental steps to improve incentives and reduce costs can achieve a lot, and covering the uninsured isn’t hard at all."


Indeed.


Which should warrant considering implementing a single-payer system, which would be to expand Medicare for all.

 

[sameech]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/01/opinion/paul-krugman-the-medicare-miracle.html?smid=fb-share

The RW may now begin throwing rocks....

Most of the seniors I know say that they are shifting more of the cost onto them, shortening hospital stays and forcing them to do a lot of things that would have been included in their hospital stay in the past as outpatient procedures before admittance or after discharge. Not so much a "blame Obama/PPACA" thing as a crappy way the medical industry is always finding a work around to anything that puts their Wednesday afternoon golf game at the country club in jeopardy.

You got it!

If there is a readmission hospitals get fined big time.

It is a blame the PPACA thing because the rules are outlined in the ACA.

There is no recourse, that I'm currently aware of, to allow a readmission for the same condition within 30 days. So guess what happens?

It's like the 24 hour delivery.

It is the profit-motive involved. My mom was in 3 different hospitals in the last 6 weeks of her life. The first was a for profit that wanted her gone once Day 4 rolled around. We had to transfer her to another for-profit long stay hospital about an hour away that had so many beds set aside for longer-term patients but made up the difference by not being glitzy like the first but just being no-frills care oriented. After a post surgery complication, she was transferred to a large non-profit hospital that spared no expense in caring for her as aggressively as they could in trying to save her life. The billed charges for the last hospital was around $400K and we had to pay about $1K in uncovered charges. We had to pay the first hospital about $3K that bum rushed her because they got the co-pay plus they had done some stuff prior to her admittance as an outpatient that had an 80/20 copay.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

That's the way it was long before ObamaCare but don't let that stop you knee-jerk, low-info types from blaming Obama.

 

[asterism]

Some people still think Medicare is a giveaway. Its not free and the recipients pay for it.

They pay far less than it costs though.

http://blogs-images.forbes.com/chri...nefits-vs.-Payroll-Tax-Contribution-Chart.png
Have Seniors Really Paid for Their Medicare Benefits AEIdeas
http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/41...dicare-Taxes-and-Benefits-over-a-Lifetime.pdf

 

[asterism]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/01/opinion/paul-krugman-the-medicare-miracle.html?smid=fb-share

The RW may now begin throwing rocks....

Most of the seniors I know say that they are shifting more of the cost onto them, shortening hospital stays and forcing them to do a lot of things that would have been included in their hospital stay in the past as outpatient procedures before admittance or after discharge. Not so much a "blame Obama/PPACA" thing as a crappy way the medical industry is always finding a work around to anything that puts their Wednesday afternoon golf game at the country club in jeopardy.

You got it!

If there is a readmission hospitals get fined big time.

It is a blame the PPACA thing because the rules are outlined in the ACA.

There is no recourse, that I'm currently aware of, to allow a readmission for the same condition within 30 days. So guess what happens?

It's like the 24 hour delivery.

It is the profit-motive involved. My mom was in 3 different hospitals in the last 6 weeks of her life. The first was a for profit that wanted her gone once Day 4 rolled around. We had to transfer her to another for-profit long stay hospital about an hour away that had so many beds set aside for longer-term patients but made up the difference by not being glitzy like the first but just being no-frills care oriented. After a post surgery complication, she was transferred to a large non-profit hospital that spared no expense in caring for her as aggressively as they could in trying to save her life. The billed charges for the last hospital was around $400K and we had to pay about $1K in uncovered charges. We had to pay the first hospital about $3K that bum rushed her because they got the co-pay plus they had done some stuff prior to her admittance as an outpatient that had an 80/20 copay.

She should be in a medicare advantage plan so that her deductible would decrease (or be removed entirely) and there would be no 80/20 copay.

 

[MeBelle]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/01/opinion/paul-krugman-the-medicare-miracle.html?smid=fb-share

The RW may now begin throwing rocks....

Most of the seniors I know say that they are shifting more of the cost onto them, shortening hospital stays and forcing them to do a lot of things that would have been included in their hospital stay in the past as outpatient procedures before admittance or after discharge. Not so much a "blame Obama/PPACA" thing as a crappy way the medical industry is always finding a work around to anything that puts their Wednesday afternoon golf game at the country club in jeopardy.

You got it!

If there is a readmission hospitals get fined big time.

It is a blame the PPACA thing because the rules are outlined in the ACA.

There is no recourse, that I'm currently aware of, to allow a readmission for the same condition within 30 days. So guess what happens?

It's like the 24 hour delivery.

It is the profit-motive involved. My mom was in 3 different hospitals in the last 6 weeks of her life. The first was a for profit that wanted her gone once Day 4 rolled around. We had to transfer her to another for-profit long stay hospital about an hour away that had so many beds set aside for longer-term patients but made up the difference by not being glitzy like the first but just being no-frills care oriented. After a post surgery complication, she was transferred to a large non-profit hospital that spared no expense in caring for her as aggressively as they could in trying to save her life. The billed charges for the last hospital was around $400K and we had to pay about $1K in uncovered charges. We had to pay the first hospital about $3K that bum rushed her because they got the co-pay plus they had done some stuff prior to her admittance as an outpatient that had an 80/20 copay.

Sounds like your talking about hospital care and long term care. Those are two different animals.

The non-profit was probably an acute care hospital which has different levels of reimbursement.

Sorry about your Mom and I hope you're doing well.

 

[emilynghiem]

That's the way it was long before ObamaCare but don't let that stop you knee-jerk, low-info types from blaming Obama.

In case you missed it, @Luddly Neddite,
Reagan and Conservatives were yelling about govt socializing medicine back in the 1960's



That message hasn't changed.
Whether they yell about socialists, Marxists, Liberals, Democrats, Big Govt, Welfare Handouts, etc.

The Constitutionalists I know do not believe in depending on Govt for health care
because it creates a Conflict of Interest. You cannot break out of that loop once you go there!

This HAS been their whole argument the whole time.

And YES the Republicans are now divided because so many voters even their own
are dependent on those systems, which has ruined the checks and balances with govt.

So you are yelling about the SAME HYPOCRISY that the Republicans are yelling at their own leaders for.
Selling out and letting the liberal politics dictate election campaigns and votes.

Now it's become everyone's problem how to deal with Govt
when these dependent relations have exceeded the checks and balances.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

In case you missed it, @@Luddly Neddite,
Reagan and Conservatives were yelling about govt socializing medicine back in the 1960's

In case you missed it Emily, ObamaCare is the opposite of "socialized medicine" and, to my knowledge, the @mention no longer exists. Instead, we have "alerts", of which, since I don't read them, I currently have 481.

 

[JimH52]

482.

 

[jwoodie]

90% of a person's lifetime medical expenses occur during his/her last six months. Who, exactly, is benefiting from this?

 

[emilynghiem]

In case you missed it, @@Luddly Neddite,
Reagan and Conservatives were yelling about govt socializing medicine back in the 1960's

In case you missed it Emily, ObamaCare is the opposite of "socialized medicine" and, to my knowledge, the @mention no longer exists. Instead, we have "alerts", of which, since I don't read them, I currently have 481.

Yes and Yes.
A. the part that opponents use "loosely" to mean government CONTROLS the administration and policies
is very much in place, and thus the opposition. The opponents want direct accountability, not politically hijacked through corporate and partisan finagling of government where there is not direct and balanced check on the system, spending and decisions made.
B. I understand that Socialism literally means the govt owns it directly, which of course is not the case.
Here we have a HYBRID of mixing private insurance with govt mandates, and that is why it is so convoluted and FU
where it cannot be easily checked: if you try to check it using free market, the govt mandates and process block that; if you try to check it through govt, but it's not directly through govt entities, you still get stuck with corporate bureaucracy without accountability or representation that answers directly to the people. So it bypasses checks.

C. what the people REALLY want who want equal public access
WANT it to be in the hands of govt that answers to people and is NOT manipulated by corporate business interests.

The problem is
1. one set of people who want health care to be freed of corporate corruption
want to achieve this by going through govt
2. one set of people who want health care to be freed of abuse, waste and poor management
want to achieve this by giving it back to the people and out of govt bureaucracy that gets party politics entangled

So we all want to free the system up from whatever crap is causing the abuse and waste of resources.

Some people call giving this "back to the people as managing it through govt as the people"
Others feel the people are more directly represented if health care is managed by the free private sector.

The common factor is to respect the WILL and CONSENT of the people.
Let people use whichever system represents them as "the people"
whether state or federal govt, or schools or businesses in the private sector.

What is causing these circular conflicts and arguments
is imposing one way and DISMISSING or EXCLUDING other ways that people believe in!
So this is discriminatory, and goes against human nature and free will to force things on people
against their beliefs.

I see that we need to address that first.
How to respect whichever system works for different people to represent them.
And make sure the solutions we put together RESPECT those ways, and not go against people's beliefs.

We need to start with an agreement of respect, and we don't have that yet but the opposite defensiveness
going on because people feel attacked for their views. This is a shame, and we need to have an
understanding that we cannot force people's views to change, especially not by mandating through govt.

We've lost a sense of respect until we finish going through this stage of growth and
coming to a better understanding than where we are now. This approach goes against human nature
and natural laws of governance and what motivates people in society.

 

[Greenbeard]

I'm not sure that column emphasizes enough that the "miracle" isn't just that spending has slowed so much more than anticipated and the budget picture has improved substantially as a result (though both are true). It's this:

Per Capita Medicare Spending Is Actually Falling

Medicare spending isn’t just lower than experts predicted a few years ago. On a per-person basis, Medicare spending is actually falling.

If the pattern continues, as the Congressional Budget Office forecasts, it will be a rarity in the Medicare program’s history. Spending per Medicare patient has almost always grown more rapidly than the economy as a whole, often by a wide margin.

I doubt anyone would've been bold enough to predict this 4 or 5 years ago but here we are.