Tag: "Medicare"

Would Abolishing ObamaCare Increase the Deficit?

In a letter to John Boehner last week, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that abolishing the Affordable Care Act would increase the deficit by $109 billion over the next ten years. Is this estimate credible? The CBO is required to assume the ACA is implemented the way the law is written. But the law requires $523 billion in cuts to Medicare. These are cuts that the Office of the Medicare actuaries say will cause one in seven hospitals to close by the end of the decade and will keep seniors from having reasonable access to physicians. This outcome is so unbelievable that the CBO has published an “alternative report” showing much higher Medicare spending and the Medicare Actuaries Office not only publishes an “alternative report,” they are now including the alternative report in the official report.

Jul 31, 2012 | 9 comments | by

Does this Sound Like a Death Panel to You?

This is Suzy Khimm at Ezra Klein’s blog, where everyone is usually pro ObamaCare in a big way:

Under ObamaCare, the new IPAB’s recommendations to the Health and Human Services department will be binding, unless Congress explicitly decides to overturn them. The board’s mission is to “reduce the per capita rate of growth in Medicare spending,” and it will be reviewing new research comparing the effectiveness of different treatments. So it’s likely to be more skeptical of very expensive drugs with a spotty track record.

The concern is that it will end up shutting out valuable treatments in the name of saving money, prompting opponents to dub it a “death panel.” But letting Medicare go on paying for risky drugs can have deadly consequences as well.

Officials at the British National Health Service couldn’t have said it better. What this approach doesn’t allow for: individualized medicine.

Jul 24, 2012 | 5 comments | by

Happy Liberals vs Happier Conservatives, and Other Links

Conservatives are happier than liberals.

Patient “spends” 2.1 million Medicare dollars before he dies.

MRI scanners translate thoughts into messages.

Americans made about 160 million doctors visits per quarter before the recession; now it’s about 140 million.

Jul 10, 2012 | 6 comments | by

Increasing Health Care Spending, and Other Links

Just 6 percent of Americans cite health care as the issue as the most important problem facing the nation.

By 2020, health care spending will reach $13,000 per person per year.

Cost of waiting: C$1,144 for each individual awaiting a medical procedure in Canada.

Medicare takes a Lake Woebegone approach to pay-for- performance.

Jul 02, 2012 | 6 comments | by

CMS: ObamaCare Will Make Health Care More Expensive

A new report by the actuaries at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services finds that the Affordable Care Act will actually increase — rather than decrease — the nation’s health care spending:

…the health share of GDP is projected to rise from 17.9 percent in 2010 to 19.6 percent by 2021. During this period, the Affordable Care Act is projected to… to add approximately 0.1 percentage point to average annual health spending growth; and to add about $478 billion in cumulative health spending.

Jun 18, 2012 | 9 comments | by

Cigarette Taxes Backfire

Increasing the federal excise tax on cigarettes by 50 cents per pack would eventually increase Medicare and Social Security spending, because smokers would be healthier and live longer, according to a Congressional Budget Office report released Wednesday.

The report found that the tax increase would create short-term deficit reductions. However, by 2085, the costs associated with individuals living longer and consuming more Medicare and Social Security services would outweigh the health benefits and tax revenues, causing the deficit to increase slightly.

Source: California Health Line.

Jun 15, 2012 | 12 comments | by

Headlines I Wish I Hadn’t Seen

The bacteria count in men’s offices is 10 to 20 percent greater than in women’s offices.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services left $332.1 million on the table, which it didn’t collect on because of the statute of limitations on overpayment collections.

Have we declared war on Iran?

Jun 05, 2012 | 7 comments | by

Cost Shifting is Real

Roughly half of Medicare beneficiaries under age sixty-five are also eligible for Medicaid. These “dual eligibles” have been the subject of much research because of their low income and poor health status. Previous studies suggest that some states seek to shift costly health care services for this group out of state-run Medicaid programs and into the federally funded Medicare program—for example, replacing nursing home care with hospital care. Using state-level data on dual eligibles under age sixty-five, we found support for this hypothesis. In states with below-average per capita Medicaid spending, corresponding Medicare spending was above average. These state-level estimates also revealed a nearly threefold difference in total—Medicare plus Medicaid—price-adjusted spending per person, ranging from $16,309 in Georgia to $43,587 in New York.

Study on state spending on “dual eligibles” in Health Affairs.

May 17, 2012 | 4 comments | by

EHR SNAFU

In our analysis of a 2011 nationally representative survey of office-based physicians, we found that 91 percent of physicians were eligible for Medicare or Medicaid meaningful-use incentives. About half of all physicians intended to apply. However, only 11 percent both intended to apply for the incentives and had electronic health record systems with the capabilities to support even two-thirds of the stage 1 core objectives required for meaningful use.

Full Health Affairs study on federal incentive programs.

May 11, 2012 | 5 comments | by

More Hospital Cost Puzzles

In Los Angeles, for example, the average patient admitted to Los Angeles Community Hospital cost Medicare nearly $24,644 during the stay and in the month afterward, 37 percent above the national median. Across town, according to the data, an essentially similar patient admitted to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center cost Medicare $17,628, or 2 percent below the median.

Entire article by Jordan Rau in Kaiser Health News.

May 10, 2012 | 7 comments | by
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