Cancel 2016.2
The Almighty
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/314261/spending-716-billion-twice-grace-marie-turner
The above is why people like Dung continue chirping how Obama care will lower the deficit. Because people like him want to pretend that the doc fix either won't happen or that if it does happen that the doctors will simply take the hit and not cease treatment of medicare patients.
This is why keeping Medicare 'as we know it' is a bad idea. 'as we know it' sucks for patients if fewer doctors will see you.
When you count the savings twice... what happens in reality to costs?
Yet if memory serves me, it is Medicare Advantage that Obama wants to slash. Can't have market forces showing up the government now can we?
The market model works. Competition forces efficiency.
The American Medical Association wants a permanent “doc fix” that would end the threat of these cuts, and the fix was the main demand the AMA made when it was at the negotiating table over Obamacare. The White House promised the fix, but reneged at the last minute. The doc fix was yanked from the bill, largely because of its $208 billion price tag. Astonishingly, and much to the dismay of doctors across the country, the AMA endorsed Obamacare anyway, giving the bill an important push over the finish line.
The above is why people like Dung continue chirping how Obama care will lower the deficit. Because people like him want to pretend that the doc fix either won't happen or that if it does happen that the doctors will simply take the hit and not cease treatment of medicare patients.
The president’s plan to “save” Medicare relies primarily on paying doctors and hospitals less and less by keeping in place the 1997 trajectory for spending cuts. According to Medicare actuaries, this would mean that 40 percent of providers eventually will either go bankrupt or stop seeing Medicare patients altogether.
This is why keeping Medicare 'as we know it' is a bad idea. 'as we know it' sucks for patients if fewer doctors will see you.
So now we get to the crucial dispute. Obamacare counts the same Medicare savings twice — once to allegedly extend the solvency of Medicare, and again to pay for Obamacare’s massive new subsidies for private health insurance through the exchanges.
Medicare actuaries have chastised the administration and its allies in Congress for this double-counting. Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius was asked about the double-counting during a congressional hearing last year. “Are you using [the Medicare savings] to save Medicare or are you using it for health reform?” asked Representative John Shimkus (R., Ill.). “Both,” Sebelius answered.
When you count the savings twice... what happens in reality to costs?
So here’s the bottom line: President Obama leaves the $716 billion in Medicare reductions in place, and he spends the money again to create a vast new Obamacare entitlement program. Paul Ryan doesn’t double-count this money. His budget leaves the BBA Medicare payment cuts in place, but also creates a plan to make the program more efficient by injecting market forces through competition and consumer choice. Ryan’s premium-support model would require health plans to compete for the business of future seniors by offering better benefits at lower prices. Seniors would be guaranteed coverage because Medicare would fully cover the premium costs of the second-lowest-cost plan or the cost of traditional Medicare, whichever is lower. Those who are older or sicker, or have lower incomes, would get additional help.
The market model has been proven to work in the Medicare Advantage and prescription-drug programs. Three Harvard researchers published a study in The Journal of the American Medical Association (you can find it here, but it requires a subscription) examining how premium support would have worked if it had been in effect in 2009. They found that, nationally, the benchmark plan bid an average of 9 percent below traditional Medicare costs.
Further, the Part D prescription-drug program in Medicare is saving taxpayers money and giving seniors better benefits. Seniors can choose the drug plan that offers them the best benefits at the lowest prices, and these smart shoppers have brought the cost of the program 42 percent lower than expected when the drug benefit was created in 2003.
Yet if memory serves me, it is Medicare Advantage that Obama wants to slash. Can't have market forces showing up the government now can we?
The market model works. Competition forces efficiency.