"Administration Offers Health Care Cuts as Part of Budget Negotiations"

[WinkyDink]

Before the talks led by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. broke off 12 days ago, negotiators said, they had reached substantial agreement on many cuts in the growth of Medicare, which provides care to people 65 and older, and Medicaid, which covers lower-income people. Those proposals are still on the table when Congress reconvenes this week, aides said, and are serious options that Democrats could accept in exchange for Republican concessions that raise revenues.

“Congress smells blood,” said William L. Minnix Jr., the chief lobbyist for nonprofit nursing homes.

Mr. Minnix, the president of a trade group known as LeadingAge, is urging nursing homes to “bombard your senators with the message that Medicaid cannot be cut by $100 billion” over 10 years, as President Obama and many Republican lawmakers have suggested.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/05/us/05deficit.html?_r=1

[mdmc]

1. the DLC is the new GOP

[nc4bo]

2. Those cuts were supposed to cut down waste and prevent fraud

and I'd assumed it was to mirror what's listed under The Affordable Care Act (http://www.healthcare.gov/law/about/index.html). The Act also states it will strengthen Medicare(http://www.healthcare.gov/law/provisions/rebate/index.html).

So it says - which is fine but I don't think there's anyway to get any real hard details on what exactly will be considered fraud or waste or what exactly will be changed to strengthen Medicare.

Details, specifics? There are none or if there is, it's not something that could be easily broken down into layman's terms.

A glimpse of some details from the NYTimes article:

Negotiators said they were seriously considering cuts in Medicare payments to hospitals for uncollectible patient debt and the training of doctors; steps to eliminate Medicare “overpayments” to nursing homes; a reduction in the federal share of some Medicaid spending; and new restrictions on states’ ability to finance Medicaid by imposing taxes on hospitals and other health care providers.

But what exactly is considered an overpayment? Is it because a nursing home provided some type of care to the patient that government deemed unnecessary even if it were legitimate?

They'll reduce the federal share of "some" Medicaid spending - ok so now the excess will be forced onto individual states? Many states are in the red! This is a time when they NEED more funds not less! So they want to finance Medicaid by higher taxes on hospitals, clinics and med. centers? Ok but who thinks that any of these providers are going to eat these higher taxes? They won't, they'll pass them on to the patients.


We're learning that any cuts to SS may be hidden and disguised as an adjustments to the way COLAs are calculated. This is also said to strengthen SS? What else will there be?

Pretty disingenuous and devious but real clever stuff and it'd be in all our best interests to pay attention to the details, the devil's in them.