Obama Budget Would Create $634 Billion Health-Care Fund

[Guest guest]

Great comments. Medicare pays crap. When my mother had cancer, Medicare pays so little that she would have ended up in the poor house if she didn't also have private insurance. For that matter, medicare alone would not pay for necessary treatments and medicines. Shoot, they wouldn't even pay for a simple wig even though she was getting chemo.

Cutting back on payments is one reason why so many county hospitals and rural doctors went under. Many patients were Medicare or Medicaide patients and the government paid so little and so slowly, that they just couldn't stay in business, particularly not with the malpractice insurance they had to carry. Hmm, maybe the Glorious State should take over malpractice insurance and court costs for doctors? Maybe then people would see one of the true causes for the increasing cost of medicine as their taxes were raised to pay for the lawsuits.

Yes, care is going to be cut, or at least covered things will be cut. That means more out of pocket expense and more people ruined by high healthcare costs. By that time, the government can't place the blame with anyone else but themselves, since it will be their own system hurting people.

Also remember that in general, government programs tend to cost more than 10 times as much as originally predicted. No one could have imagined the cost of Social Security or Medicare when they were proposed, and even the short term estimates were way off.

In a message dated 2/25/2009 5:42:35 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, no_reply writes:

My comments in RED. Get a jump start on your taxes. Find a tax professional in your neighborhood today.

[Guest guest]

If he can find the money for this, he should have no problem finding the money for social security as well.

My comments in RED.

Administrator

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/25/AR2009022502587.html

Obama Budget Would Create $634 Billion Health-Care Fund

By Ceci Connolly

Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, February 25, 2009; 4:22 PM

President Obama intends to release a budget tomorrow that creates a 10-year, $634 billion "reserve fund" to partially pay for a vast expansion of the U.S. health care system, an overhaul that many experts project will cost as much as $1 trillion over the next decade.

Obama would pay for the expansion by trimming tax breaks for the wealthy and tightening payments to insurers, hospitals and physicians, according to a senior administration official.

Tightening payments to insurers, hospitals, and physicians would increase insurances rates, hospital bills, and physicians' bills, thus forcing people into the system he is proposing, but causing increased co-pays and increased insurance premiums to the insured before that happens, and increasing out of pocket expenses for those who do not have insurance.

So this plan further imperils the average American, particularly the working class Joe, which just happens to be the broadest segment of the population which voted for Obama.

By first identifying a large pot of money to underwrite health care reform -- before laying out a proposal on who would be covered or how -- Obama hopes to signal his willingness to negotiate with Congress over the details of an eventual plan.

"We wanted to get this process going by putting some serious resources on the table," said the official, who was not permitted to speak on the record until formal release of the budget blueprint. "This is a reserve fund, instead of a 700-page plan. We learned the lessons of the past and want to work interactively with Congress. This is a first step."

Under the Obama budget blueprint, about half of the new "health care reserve fund" would come by limiting the tax break on itemized deductions for families with incomes above $250,000. The proposal would reduce the value of tax deductions by about 20 percent, a change which would generate about $318 billion over the next 10 years, according to administration documents provided to The Washington Post.

His plan is going to cost $634 billion, so where does he plan to get the rest of the money? And how does he plan to pay for the stimulus plan and everything else when the corporate taxes he is imposing are going to drive the largest tax base this economy has out of business, thereby eliminating that source of tax revenue?

Throughout the campaign, Obama promised to reduce the number of uninsured Americans, improve the quality of care in the country and save the typical American family $2,500 a year in medical costs. Despite an ever-weakening economy and skyrocketing federal deficit, he has remained firm to his pledge to press ahead this year.

That promise fails to take into account that the escalating price of medical care goes up by about $2,500 a yegar per person excluding the rate of inflation.

The budget "includes a historic commitment to comprehensive health care reform -- a downpayment on the principle that we must have quality, affordable health care for every American," the President said in his address to Congress Tuesday night. "It's a step we must take if we hope to bring down our deficit in years to come."

Many of the itemized savings are both familiar and controversial to segments of the health industry.

Nearly one-third of the reserve fund would be generated by forcing private insurers who sell Medicare managed care plans to undergo a competitive bidding process. Currently, the government pays the plans, known as Medicare Advantage, about 14 percent more than traditional fee-for-service Medicare coverage, according to estimates by the Congressional Budget Office.

"The administration believes it's time to stop this waste," according to the document. That provision is estimated to save $175 billion over the next decade.

Drug manufacturers and hospitals would face reductions as well. If the budget is approved, drug companies would be required to increase the rebate they now provide for medications sold to Medicaid patients from 15 percent to 21 percent. The proposal would likely spark a ferocious lobbying campaign by the industry, which has argued that the current 15 percent rebate is already cutting into profits.

They will offset this problem by increasing the anount of their bills to the uninsured.

The budget figures also represent significant shifts in how the United States will pay for medical care in the future.

For example, experts have identified hospital readmissions -- especially for elderly patients -- as a sign of inadequate care and unnecessary expense. About 18 percent of Medicare patients are readmitted to the hospital within 30 days of their original visit. The new approach would establish flat fees for the first hospitalization and 30-day follow-up. Hospitals with high readmission rates would be paid less.

And here is where the elderly get excluded from proper care. Look up the info with the AMA and you will find the elderly are prone to readmissions because their immune systems are weaker and they are in poorer physical shape than younger folks. Thus they get infections or complications that healthier individuals do not get. Hospitals would not want to readmit patients, so they would simply refuse to treat them, just like they currently refuse to treat patients with Medicare and Medic Aid due to poor reimbursement for services. (This brings up an additional point - if hospitals and doctors are denying Medicare and Medic Aid patients now, what's it going to be like when more patients are on it and Medicare and Medic Aid pays doctors and jospitals LESS for services).

So we will see an increase among deaths of the elderly, but that is okay by the Democrats because it means a consolidation of wealth from the elderly to the younger people who are spendthrift, and whome will supposedly invigorate the economy by frittering away their inheritance.

Spending on Medicare and Medicaid, the government's two primary safety-net health programs, currently consumes 5 percent of the gross domestic product, or $660 billion a year. Absent restructuring, the two safety-net programs will equal 12 percent of the GDP by 2050.

Earlier today, the Senate Finance Committee held a hearing to review possible budget changes with the head of the Congressional Budget Office.

Without changes in policy, said Elmendorf, the number of uninsured Americans will rise from 45 million to about 54 million over the next decade.

WITH changes in policy, insurers will be forced to raise premiums so high that even more people will wind up uninsured.

"We cannot afford to delay health care reform," Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said in opening remarks. "Delay will make the problems that we face today even worse. If we delay, millions more Americans will lose coverage. If we delay, premiums will grow even farther out of reach. And if we delay, federal health spending will absorb an even greater share of the nation's economy."