313 billion in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid spending.

[madfloridian]

The response of doctors will likely be to just not take those patients anymore. Many refuse Medicaid now, and it is hard in our area to find a doctor who takes new Medicare patients.

Obama to outline $313 billion in Medicare, Medicaid spending cuts

Reporting from Washington -- Under pressure to pay for his ambitious reshaping of the nation's healthcare system, President Obama today will outline $313 billion in Medicare and Medicaid spending cuts over the next decade to help cover the cost of expanding coverage to tens of millions of America's uninsured.

Among the proposed policy changes outlined by the president are:

* Reductions in payments to providers to reflect increased efficiencies in the system, which the White House estimates could save $110 billion over the next decade.

* Cuts in federal subsidies to hospitals that treat large populations of uninsured patients, estimated to save $106 billion over the next decade.

* Cuts in how much the federal government pays pharmaceutical companies to provide prescription drugs to seniors and others, estimated to save $75 billion over the next decade.

So instead of helping hospitals who are overwhelmed with uninsured patients who only have the emergency room for their medical care....they are going to cut subsidies to them.

Cuts in payments to Medicare providers...they will rethink taking patients, I fear.

[DURHAM D]

1. Cut subsidies to hospitals treating uninsured? Counterintuitive.

What a plan. NOT

[SharonAnn]

13. Actually, with health care reform, hospitals won't have nearly as many uninsured.

Read the content of his plan before you jumpt to conclusions.

[Triana]

22. that's what I was thinking. If no one is uninsured (or few people) due to health care reform...

then those cuts won't matter because those subsidies are no longer needed.

[Orangepeel]

24. that particular aspect sounds more like a shift in money rather than a cut

the money that is spent subsidizing uninsured patients would be used to insure patients. Cutting reimbursements because of imagined efficiencies sounds like a bad idea.

[MauriceCobert]

2. afraid this might be a dividing point

Not many voters or anyone else want their healthcare benefits reduced just so the poor can have insurance

[John Q. Citizen]

4. Yep. that's why we need single payer. It's affordable and comprehensive unlike what we

now do, and unlike the so called public option.

[SharonAnn]

14. It's not about reducing health care. It's about reducing subsidies so that

we're not paying private insurance companies to compete with Medicare, thus leaving Medicare with the sickest. And not paying hospitals subsidies to cover uninsured care when they won't have nearly as many uninsured to cover.

Please, read the content.

[eShirl]

17. the poor don't want their benefits reduced so the poor can have insurance?

what?

[dem629]

3. Ridiculous. What a disappointment.

The idea, Mr. President, should be to expand these programs, not slice up the pie to put more people on shaky ground, coverage-wise.

Fuck that.

[SharonAnn]

15. It is expanding the programs with health care reform. The subsidies won't be needed.

[bobbolink]

18. Yet those of us who expected just this kind of crap were yelled at until we left.

OF COURSE this is happening.

It was expected.

"How many deaths will it take til they know that too many people have died?"

Does it matter?

[katandmoon]

5. More money for wars

[TheUnspeakable]

6. and the banksters

[emilyg]

19. And huge embassies.

[Hannah Bell]

7. so if medicaid/care funding is cut, & people choose the "public option,"

doesn't that mean they get less care than previously?

This is reminding me of the underfunding of Britain's NHS.

[MannyGoldstein]

8. Tell Me: Are Any Bankers Hurt By This?

No?

So why waste my beautiful mind thinking about such things.

[kenny blankenship]

9. Stunning.

[Cleita]

10. Maybe the idea is to make it un-viable for providers to take and thereby

make Grover Norquist's wet dream of drowning Medicare and Social Security in a bathtub come true. I didn't think it would be Democrats who would accomplish this though. Throwing grandma and grandpa under the train is very sad. I hope the Senate health committee comes to their senses and puts a stop to this.

[madrchsod]

16. ya..this grampa is`t going to be thrown under the train

it`s the death by a thousand paper cuts of medicare.

how stupid can he be? he`s feeding the right wing talking points machine.

i know we are old and in the way but we`ll hang around until the bitter end.

[madrchsod]

11. cutting to save?

he`s feeding the rightwing talking points machine.

another failure in delivery

[Autumn]

12. Can't we use the tarp money banks are returning? Oh

never mind.:nuke:

[Oregone]

20. This is all part of Obama's grand master plan...

He is going to deliver universal single-payer healthcare by masterfully getting the right wing on his side, which he will do by stripping social services and messing the medical field up over the next 8 years. He is a devious, but benevolent, master-minded genius. All you gotta do is have faith and hope you don't die in the meantime. Just, eh, trust me, right.

[WCGreen]

21. There are so many drugs about to become generic that the 75 billion

could be made up by just switching to generic versions of the drugs.

[madfloridian]

23. The BS argument that Medicare patients get too many procedures is starting...

again.

This just infuriates me.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/business/economy/14view.html?ref=business

"MEDICARE expenditures threaten to crush the federal budget, yet the Obama administration is proposing that we start by spending more now so we can spend less later.

This runs the risk of becoming the new voodoo economics. If we can’t realize significant savings in health care costs now, don’t expect savings in the future, either.

It’s not the profits of the drug companies or the overhead of the insurance companies that make American health care so expensive, but the financial incentives for doctors and medical institutions to recommend more procedures, whether or not they are effective. So far, the American people have been unwilling to say no."

They pulled the same crap when the AARP and AMA joined to get the Medicare D drug plan through.

It is hard to get procedures covered now, much less having someone spout too many are being offered.

We are going to run into real harm coming to patients because doctors fear to order when really needs to be done.