Administration Looks to Curb Growth of Medicaid Spending

[quaoar]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/20/politics/20medicaid.html?oref=login

By ROBERT PEAR
Published: December 20, 2004

WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 - Federal officials are sending auditors to state capitals across the country to investigate techniques used by states to shift hundreds of millions of dollars in Medicaid costs to the federal government.

Also, under a proposed federal rule, the Bush administration will require states to prepare annual estimates of total improper payments and calculate payment error rates for Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program. States will have to identify the cause of each error, address it and recover any overpayments to health care providers.

The moves come as the administration is considering a wide range of other new initiatives to curb the growth of Medicaid spending, crack down on improper payments and help states save money by restricting eligibility and benefits.

Federal investigators said Medicaid wasted hundreds of millions of dollars a year by overpaying for prescription drugs. Many states pay on the basis of inflated, fictitious list prices reported by drug companies. One of the initiatives would link payments to actual market prices, which are often much lower.

[rodeodance]

1. cuts on everything except spending for the war!!

[Robbien]

2. Just another ploy to push Medicaid costs back to states

as if the states are not embattled enough already.

[mourningdove92]

3. "help states save money by restricting eligibility and benefits."

Yeah, right. This means fewer people have access to health care. This means increased Emergency room visits for minor problems. This means increased revenue loss for your local hospitals. This means that more of the hospital costs get transferred to the rest of us in the way of higher co-pays and deductibles. This means...oh to hell with it. You know what it means.
Bush just so sucks.

[baby_bear]

10. It's called a tax increase on the middle class

Here in WA state, all those increased costs are borne by increased sales and property taxes, since we have no personal income tax.

Totally regressive, and regressing further - by design, not accident or necessity!!

b_b

[acmavm]

4. "Many states pay on the basis of inflated, fictitious list prices

reported by drug companies."

OMG! This statement just makes no sense on so many levels. Who is it that won't let people get prescription drugs from out of the country? Who is it that fucked up Medicaid in order to put more of the elderly and needy dollars in his supporters and donors pockets? Who is it that is running a scam on the taxpayer, coming up with a new scheme to rip them off daily.

This is like that scene in Animal House where that one frat rat is getting beat with a paddle and he thanks the guy who smacked him and asks for another one. "Yes pResident Unelected, please rape, pluder and pillage us some more. We never get tired of your sticky fingers in our pockets and your nose in our lives. Anything we can do to prop up your family and your buddies is all right with us."

[rodeodance]

5. "Bush is sidestepping a troublesome problem: Medicare," another story

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-medicare20dec20,0,2564229.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Medicare’s Troubles May Be Sleeping Giant
The program is running out of money and could be worse off than Social Security, experts say.


By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Times Staff Writer


WASHINGTON — As restructuring Social Security moves to the top of his agenda, President Bush is sidestepping a troublesome problem: Medicare, which provides health insurance for 41 million elderly and disabled people, is fast going broke.

Medicare is projected to exhaust its hospital-care trust fund by 2019, more than 20 years before Social Security is forecast to slide into the red. The day of reckoning could come even sooner, because Medicare's condition has been going from bad to worse.

The government's unfunded promises to future retirees under Medicare amount to a staggering $27.7 trillion over the next 75 years, according to Congress' Government Accountability Office. That dwarfs the $3.7-trillion liability over the same period for Social Security.

"The Medicare problem is about seven times greater than the Social Security problem, and it has gotten much worse," said Comptroller General David M. Walker, head of the GAO. "It is much bigger, it is much more immediate, and it is going to be much more difficult to effectively address."......

[Momof1]

7. I am not to sure about which one it is...

Medicaid or Medicare,

But 5 yrs ago they paid 80% of hearing aid costs. Now they pay nothing.

I remember reading also that they won't pay for chemo after the first of January.

I think that is a measure of a society. How they take care of their elderly.

And today...its sickening.

[Robbien]

9. Medicaid/Medicare

Try this to keep them straight

Medicaid - Aid is aid for the poor
Medicare - Care is care for the elderly

[iamjoy]

6. Maybe Frist Can Help (HA!)

I caught the "overpayment to healthcare providers"

We really must ask Senator Cat Killer about this. I'm sure he could provide lots of advice...

[Robbien]

8. Ha, overpaying for prescription drugs

and this is medicaid which is the much lower cost program.

The new huge medicare prescription bill they arm-twisted through includes a "non-negotiable" clause where we have to pay whatever the drug companies charge with no negotiation.

Bah!

[Sugarbleus]

11. Heard bobble heads talking about this on C-span a few days ago

I wish these panelists, think tankers, and political nerds WOULD SPEAK PLAIN ENGLISH. Their whole discussion was such a mess of gobbledy gook, I couldn't understand a damn thing they were talking about except I got the drift that they want to "do something" about medicaid........MEDICARE gutting wasn't enough I guess.

Medicaid management probably could be cleaned up; there is a lot of waste and mismanagement of funds at that juncture. The patients aren't to blame!!

Medicaid, as it is today, is already an inadequate delivery system. Every few months they send letters telling patients what they WON'T cover anymore. Generic drugs are the order of the day; even then they don't cover all of those either! Surgery must be next.

I use Medicare & medicaid (Medi-Medi)......I thought it would be a fairly decent combo...........NOT So many places want you to have one or the other; NOT BOTH. One program covers more medical visits and services but no drugs; the other program covers drugs but not so many services!

In the meantime, I realize that those carrying other healthcare insurance are paying through the nose! Services being denied or the costs skyrocketing. WHAT ARE AMERICANS SUPPOSE TO DO?

I cannot verbalize exactly how much I hate this present government. :nuke: