shintao
Well-known member
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2011
- Messages
- 994
- Reaction score
- 195
- Gender
- Undisclosed
- Political Leaning
- Undisclosed
You haven't told me why it isn't redistribution? The semantics game: $Gov. subsidy - $employer - $insurance - $you & $dr.
Only personal insurance is voluntary, but so is Medicare. And the Obama plan required everybody to have some "type" of medical care. But regardless of these side issues, the redistribution occurs, so..................
You might be interested in this tidbit subsidy I help pay for as well.
The funding provided in George Bush’s Medicare D plan for Medicare Advantage plans is an example of corporate welfare which does not benefit patient care. Under the program, insurance companies are provided more money than it costs to care for patients under the government’s Medicare program, despite the insurance companies cherry picking healthier patients.
Who pays the medical bills of people who go to the hospital and can't afford to pay?
Who pays the medical bills of people who go to the hospital and can't afford to pay?
Who pays the medical bills of people who go to the hospital and can't afford to pay?
Do you agree that right now, with our current system, those with health insurance are covering the medical costs of those who can't afford to pay or don't have insurance?LOL!
you have to ask?
no more than the taxpayer is subsidizing the ghetto-like health care of those on medicaid
no more than the taxpayer is subsidizing the ghetto-like health care of those on medicaid
LOL!
it's NOT redistribution
except that it IS
meanwhile, reid and pelosi and weiner want OUT
obamacare's a pig
sorry
The Obama administration’s signature initiative to control health care costs is in danger of being crushed under its own weight.
In March, the administration released the long-awaited proposed rule on accountable care organizations — networks of hospitals and physicians that are supposed to work together to bring down costs by improving care. They’re the symbol of the Obama administration’s belief that driving providers to deliver better care will also eliminate large amounts of unnecessary spending.
They’re also a centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s health care reform law, which authorizes Medicare to set up ACOs as a permanent program — open to any group of health care providers that can meet the eligibility requirements — rather than just a pilot program.
Before the rule came out, it had been eagerly anticipated for months, with many providers signaling they would enroll as soon as there were details. At the time, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the department had spent months carefully digesting all of the feedback so it could write a rule flexible enough to allow many different kinds of providers to take part.
But now that providers have had time to digest it, even the most likely candidates have rejected it as written.
Their biggest concerns include the provisions that are supposed to keep the ACOs from potentially increasing Medicare spending — costing, rather than saving, money — if savings targets aren’t reached.
This is a necessary caution, given the potential scope of the program, according to experts on health and budget issues. But if this makes it unworkable for providers, the administration will have choked the goose that is supposed to lay the golden savings.
And whether the final version of the rule is stricter or looser than the current version, it’s not clear that the Obama administration can actually get the savings it wants.
President Obama's solicitor general, defending the national health care law on Wednesday, told a federal appeals court that Americans who didn't like the individual mandate could always avoid it by choosing to earn less money.
One of the key provisions in President Barack Obama’s health care reform law — his preferred method for getting Medicare costs under control — is facing a groundswell of opposition from unexpected corners. Several House Democrats have signed on to support a bill to repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a panel created by the law that is supposed to help control rising costs in Medicare. The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, a prominent supporter of the law, is now actively lobbying for its repeal, too.
The opposition puts some Democrats and a prominent advocacy group on the same side as House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) standing against Obama. Ryan has called IPAB a rationing board. The president, for his part, answered Ryan’s budget by proposing an even stronger version of the board than the health reform law created.
So far, the bill has seven Democratic co-sponsors. Sources tell POLITICO that others also have suggested privately that they would support the bill if it comes to the House floor.
The IPAB’s popularity — which has never been high, particularly among House Democrats — is on the decline just as the House’s budget has made the very suggestion of cutting Medicare a red-hot issue on the campaign trail. Republicans, led by Ryan, argue that the IPAB would ration care.
The White House and Senate Democrats are unlikely to support giving up the policy. Obama doubled down on the IPAB in April during his budget speech, after the House passed Ryan’s budget plan. “We will slow the growth of Medicare costs by strengthening an independent commission of doctors, nurses, medical experts and consumers who will look at all the evidence and recommend the best ways to reduce unnecessary spending while protecting access to the services seniors need,” Obama said.
The growing support among Democrats has Republicans who have put the IPAB near the top of their health repeal priority list questioning how best to use it. Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tenn.), the repeal bill’s House sponsor, has floated the idea of trying to attach the IPAB repeal to the debt limit. The House Energy and Commerce Committee is expected to hold at least two hearings on the IPAB — the first as soon as next week. Senate Republicans could get an opportunity to try to force a vote on an IPAB repeal amendment as soon as this week.
Gathering support among Democrats will be easier in the House than in the Senate, where the idea began. The House health care bill didn’t include the IPAB, and several dozen members expressed their opposition to the board to then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Health care provider groups have made IPAB repeal a top priority, too. If they can’t repeal the whole provision, they want to eliminate a deal made last year to keep hospitals out of the program until 2018. “We’re going to raise holy hell if IPAB happens without the hospitals,” a health lobbyist said.
Judges on a federal appeals court panel on Wednesday repeatedly raised questions about President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, expressing unease with the requirement that virtually all Americans carry health insurance or face penalties.
All three judges on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals panel questioned whether upholding the landmark law could open the door to Congress adopting other sweeping economic mandates. The panel is made up of two Democratic appointees and one Republican appointee.
The Atlanta panel did not immediately rule on the lawsuit brought by 26 states, a coalition of small businesses and private individuals who urged the three to side with a Florida judge who struck down the law. And it's never easy to predict how an appeals panel will decide.
But during almost three hours of oral arguments, the judges asked pointed questions about the so-called individual mandate, which the federal government says is needed to expand coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans. With other challenges to the law before other federal appeals courts, lawyers expect that its fate will ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Officials announced Friday that all applications for new waivers and renewals of existing ones have to be in by Sept 22.
That would remove a potential political distraction in the 2012 elections.
For the past year, Democrats have been mostly united on health care issues, especially in the face of Republican efforts to repeal President Barack Obama’s landmark law. But this week, House Republicans plan to fire their opening salvos against the Independent Payment Advisory Board — an issue on which Democrats are far from united.
Republicans plan to launch new attacks on the board in two congressional hearings. Democrats are divided over whether to support the health law at all costs or to allow Republicans an opening to repeal.
But some Democrats, as well as most Republicans and health care providers, argue the panel could arbitrarily cut services to Medicare patients and payments to providers with little congressional oversight.
New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone, [democrat ranking member] of the Energy and Commerce health subcommittee, has zero interest in defending the board.
“I’ve never supported it, and I would certainly be in favor of abolishing it,” he told POLITICO. “I’m opposed to independent commissions or outside groups playing a role other than on a recommendatory basis.”
In recent weeks, several health reform supporters — such as the American Medical Association, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, and Democratic Rep. Allyson Schwartz of Pennsylvania — have voiced support for a Republican plan to repeal the measure.
In fact, Schwartz will be one of the GOP’s star witnesses at the Energy and Commerce Committee hearing. She says IPAB puts Congress’s responsibility in the hands of an outside panel and could lead to arbitrary cuts to doctors, hospitals and other providers.
“It’s far better to achieve savings through reducing errors, duplication and waste and improving outcomes,” she said in a brief interview with POLITICO. “Simply cutting reimbursements is not the best way to go.”
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?