Now Its Medicare Under The Knife

[turbinetree]

By Jillian S. Ambroz

While Trump and the Senate whip the nation into another frenzy over another effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, high-flying Tom Price and his Health and Human Services Dept. (HHS) are quietly floating plans to significantly alter Medicare and Medicaid.

The new proposal? A move toward privatization, of course. Allow doctors to charge more money for their services and make the elderly and poor pay the price.

The agency’s policy center, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI), put out a Request for Information last week as it prepares to “lead the Center in a new direction” and unveil potentially drastic changes to the federal programs that provide healthcare insurance for more than 130 million Americans, including children. CMMI, which has broad authority over some $1 billion annually, was created by Congress in 2010 to examine and test new models to pay for and deliver healthcare.

Medicare’s main trust fund is projected to run out of money in a decade and Medicaid is the second-largest line item in most state budgets, according to Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), who wrote an op-ed piece for The Wall Street Journal selling the new ploy to overhaul the federal insurance plans a day before the agency filed the document.

https://www.dcreport.org/2017/09/25/now-its-medicare-under-the-knife/

Fuck this BS.....................and as for Seema Verma....

[pangaia]

1. Seema Verma, go fuck yourself...you slippery little shit...

[SamKnause]

2. These slimy fuckers can never answer a simple yes or no question.

Why don't they have the courage to come out and say what they mean.

They don't give a fuck about people, only profits.

Say it out loud you slimy fucks !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[mitch96]

8. Why don't they say what they mean.

Ahh the classic pivot or bridge trick... use a bit of the previous question to legitimize the answer and change the answer to something else... Stephanie Ruhle (MSNBC) used a pivot on a pivot with Rep Tom Reed with great effect. She took part of his answer.. to make it sound like she was replying to HIS statement and then just asked her question again.. Frustrated the shit out of him.. So how would Ms Verma deal with somebody asking her the same question over and over??
These politicians spew shit and don't want to answer a question that would really say what they mean...YMMV
m

[Laf.La.Dem.]

3. No problems here -

They need the savings to pay for the tax cuts

[DK504]

4. They don't give a shit if people start dropping dead.

When the rubes in the red states realize they will not get chemo or dialysis or be able to buy their perscriptions they may get what the hell their "saviors" in the Congress have done to them. Won't hold my breathe, but ....

[spanone]

5. how do you think they will pay for their tax breaks for the rich?

they love the 'access' word, as if that makes it affordable

[Hoyt]

6. As much as I despise Tom Price, this is not new. In fact, much of it came out of Obama's ACA and

Clinton's Administration (1997).

Much of that article and Request for Information is about alternatives to the fee-for-service system that most people blame for much of the uncontrolled Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance expenditures. Obama was a big proponent of alternative payment mechanism that promote quality, not more services that physicians and hospitals profit from.

Physicians have been able to opt-out of Medicare for years through so-called "private contracts." Very few do. I think the rules were first established under Clinton in 1997. Most that do opt-out are Ron/Rand Paul types who are philosophically opposed to government programs -- in other words they are so stupid you wonder how they became physicians. Some cater to the wealthy. But it's less than 10,000, and personally, even if I could afford it, I would not want to see them. Physicians who have opted out have to clearly notify patients -- through very specific, written contracts -- that they are opted out and Medicare will not pay anything toward their care with that physician.

We've talked about getting the profit out of health care. This is one way to do it, by designing reimbursement systems that incentivize cost efficient, high quality care.

To even think about a sustainable Medicare-for-All, with no copays or deductibles, free choice of any provider, picking up millions of uninsured, etc., we are going to have to change the payment mechanism that allow doctors to order tests they profit from that are questionable.

[From another thread -- https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=9632185]


Here is what CMS is actually doing -- https://innovation.cms.gov/Files/x/newdirection-rfi.pdf

Again, it pretty much comes out of Obama's Administration and ideas advanced during Clinton's terms.

[global1]

7. Jusr Raise The Cap......