Medicare and Medicaid At 50: One Is Going Bankrupt, the Other Is Bankrupting States

When President Johnson signed Medicare into law on June 30, 1965, he said , "If it has a few defects, I am confident those can be quickly remedied." --Fifty years later, a Government Accountability Office report found that an eye-popping $60 billion — fully 10% of Medicare's budget — was lost to waste, fraud, abuse or improper payments last year. Among the glaring defects, the GAO found 23,400 fake or bad addresses on Medicare's list of providers.

Read more at Investor's Business Daily
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Ahead of Senate vote, Ted Cruz & Co. stand athwart bipartisan ‘doc fix’

The Senate is set to take up a bipartisan bill Tuesday that will permanently end the Medicare "doc fix," a yearly legislative headache on Capitol Hill, but some of the Senate's most conservative members are threatening to oppose the legislation crafted last month in the House, citing its price tag.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday that he expected to bring the bill to the Senate floor later in the day, hours before Medicaid officials say they will implement a 21 percent cut to the rates it pays doctors treating Medicare patients. McConnell said there is "a bipartisan desire" to pass the bill before the midnight deadline.


Read more at the Washington Post
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Senate Dems threaten to oppose deal on Medicare doc fees

Democratic senators would oppose a potential House bipartisan deal preventing cuts in physicians’ Medicare payments if it doesn’t finance a children’s health program for four years, senior Senate Democratic aides said Sunday.

The aides issued the threat as House bargainers try preventing a 21 percent reduction in doctors' Medicare reimbursements scheduled for April 1.

Read more at the Associated Press
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Healthcare cuts canceled after Dem complaints

The Obama administration announced Monday that planned cuts to Medicare Advantage would not go through as anticipated amid election-year opposition from congressional Democrats.  The cuts would have reduced benefits that seniors receive from health plans in the program, which is intended as an alternative to Medicare.  Under cuts planned by the administration, insurers offering the plans were to see their federal payments reduced by 1.9 percent, which likely would have necessitated cuts for customers.

Read more at The Hill
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Cover Oregon Gets Federal Nod for Health Insurance Exchange

Yesterday the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) gave Oregon conditional approval for its plan to operate a health insurance exchange – called Cover Oregon – which will help connect thousands of Oregonians to health coverage. Oregon was among the first six states in the nation to receive conditional approval of its “blueprint” application. Read more at Cascade Business News... Read More......

Heritage/Morning Bell: How Obamacare Robs Medicare and Hurts Seniors

The rhetorical Medicare wars have heated up this week, after President Obama declared in his Saturday radio address that his proposed reforms "won't touch your guaranteed Medicare benefits. Not by a single dime." ✧ This is incorrect. Obamacare cuts $716 billion from Medicare over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and uses these "savings" from Medicare to fund other entitlement expansions mandated by Obamacare. Medicare becomes a cash cow for Obamacare, and the Medicare "savings" from payment cuts are not put back into making Medicare solvent. Such massive payment cuts do impact Medicare benefits, as well as seniors' access to those benefits. Read more at Heritage/Morning Bell... Read More......

TA: Why Hasn't Anyone Signed Up For the High-Risk Health Insurance Pools?

THE ATLANTIC, 6/2/2011 by Megan McArdle - I've predicted that lots of parts of Obamacare will not work the way they're expected to. But here's one I wouldn't have predicted: the high-risk pools, which were meant to tide people over until 2013, have signed up just 18,000 people as of March. ∴ There were supposed to be millions of people who were uninsurable because of pre-existing conditions. We heard lengthy testimony about their terrible plight. I don't think it's too strong to say that this fear--that you could get sick and no one would insure you, that's right, you, Mr. & Mrs. Middle-Class Voter--was one of the main reasons offered for the health care overhaul. It was estimated by Medicare's Chief Actuary that around 400,000 would sign up (the CBO estimated 200,000, but only because they assumed that HHS would use its authority to limit enrollment in order to stay within the $5 billion budgeted for the program). So where are all the uninsurable people? [Emphasis added] Read more at The Atlantic... Read More......

DeFazio Switches 'Yes' Vote to 'No' on Health Care Bill (unless...)

UPDATE: DeFazio voted "Yes."

FOXNews.com, 3/19/2010 - The vote tally on health care reform is starting to look like the Dow. ∴ Just when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi seemed to be one vote shy of the 216 she needs for health care reform to pass, a Democrat [DeFazio] who voted for the bill last year says he's switching his vote to no. ∴ [...] But he indicated he could still change his mind again.

"I'm a no unless they fix this," he said, referring to what he sees as insufficient Medicare spending in rural areas."

Read more at FOX...

Note: Rep. Boccieri (D-OH) switched his vote from no to yes. Try to keep up with the health care vote switching at National Journal's Hotline On Call. Read More......

WSJ: Obama Targets Medicare Advantage

WALL STREET JOURNAL/OPINION, 8/26/2009 by Karl Rove - President Barack Obama was wise to vacation this week on Martha's Vineyard. Not because it's one of the few places in America where his health-care plan is still popular, but because by getting out of Washington he gave staff time to repair his vaunted message machine, which was starting to break down.

(Excerpt) Medicare Advantage also has built-in incentives to encourage insurers to offer lower costs and better benefits. It's a program that puts patients in charge, not the government, which is why seniors like it and probably why the administration hates it.

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Change We Can't Believe In?

WASHINGTON POST, 8/12/2009 by Ruth Marcus - Candidate Barack Obama offered a lofty vision of how his White House would operate. When the details of health reform were being hammered out, he vowed, "We'll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies." ∴ The campaign even aired an ad singling out Billy Tauzin, the drug industry's chief lobbyist. "The pharmaceutical industry wrote into the prescription drug plan that Medicare could not negotiate with drug companies," Obama said in the ad. "And you know what? The chairman of the committee, who pushed the law through, went to work for the pharmaceutical industry making $2 million a year. Imagine that." ∴ Now, it turns out, the Obama White House has cut a backroom -- actually, Roosevelt Room -- deal with Tauzin: Drugmakers would ante up $80 billion in savings in return for a promise that Medicare wouldn't be allowed to negotiate drug prices. Read more at the Washington Post...

Hat tip: John H. Detweiler
John writes, "Change?" Read More......

Championing the Status Quo

WASHINGTON POST, 8/10/2009 by Robert J. Samuelson (Hat tip: John H. Detweiler) - "The status quo is unsustainable for families, businesses and government." -- President Obama, June 13

One of the bewildering ironies of the health-care debate is that President Obama claims to be attacking the status quo when he's actually embracing it. Ever since Congress created Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, health politics has followed a simple logic: Expand benefits and talk about controlling costs. That's the status quo, and Obama faithfully adheres to it. While denouncing skyrocketing health spending, he would increase it by extending government health insurance to millions more Americans. Read more at the Washington Post... Read More......

AARP Takes Seniors’ Money But Turns Back on Their Questions

Obama’s Health Plan would end Medicare for Seniors: CANADA FREE PRESS (CFP), 8/9/2009 by Jerry McConnell - AARP Takes Seniors’ Money But Turns Back on Their Questions

AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION (AFA), 8/7/2009 - Senior citizens who went to a meeting sponsored by AARP were left to themselves after the AARP hostess walked out. The seniors were trying to get answers concerning ObamaCare and why AARP would support a government controlled health system that many believe would lead to euthanasia and rationing of health care.Watch the video. Read More......