The Program ObamaCare Wants to Cut
Every few months, James S. Miller, a 68-year-old retired transit worker and jazz saxophonist, would arrive by electric wheelchair at North Philadelphia hospital emergency rooms, short of breath and with the swollen legs that mark his illness, congestive heart failure. … That went on for years, until Miller enrolled last September in a private Medicare plan, Bravo Health, with a financial interest in keeping him well. Today, he has swapped the woes of the ER for the advantages offered at the Bravo Health Advance Care Center on Lehigh Avenue, where there are flat-screen TVs, 10-minute waits, and medical care delivered by doctors whom his insurer employs at no cost to patients.
Full article on insurer-owned clinics.
This is one of the truly bizarre aspects of the Obama administration’s approach to health care. Almost everyting they say they want done is already being done by the Medicare Advantage plans and those are the plans they want to defund.
This is similar to clinics owned by large, self-insured employers. Visits are quick and easy — cost sharing is waived if using the employer clinic. The employer also has more control how care is administered. Provides will not profit from excess tests or unnecessary treatments. I suspect we will see more of this in the future.
It makes no sense until you realize that they have no sense.
I don’t expect consistency out of this White House.
Not only will Obamacare threaten to close off this option for Mr. Miller, but its Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) eliminates hospitals from future cost cuts until 2019, pushing pretty much all future cost cuts onto prescription spending. Of course, I don’t know what Rx Mr. Miller is on, but he may well lose access to one or more of the drugs to which he has access under Medicare Advantage. His likelihood of visiting the ER will be greater in the future than before he enrolled in Medicare Advantage.
I think this post must be out of date because Obama has not proposed to get rid of Medicare Advantage plans. Where’s your source? Did the Congress and the President cut overpayments to Medicare Advantage plans and save American taxpayers lots of money? Yes