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Medicare Overhaul Proposed
By NCPSSM | April 30, 2009
It’s not surprising that quality control and improving payment processes for Medicare were among the first items tackled by the Senate Finance Committee in their newly unveiled health care reform strategy, entitled “Description of Policy Options.“
Chairman Max Baucus told reporters:
“Almost all health providers agree that the we are taking the right approach…The concerns are implementation.”
The recommendations detailed in the committee’s report are designed to hold doctors and hospitals more accountable, slow the growth of Medicare, and improve chronic care for seniors in the program.
The New York Times summarizes the proposals this way:
- Medicare would increase payments to doctors who regularly exceed “national benchmarks” for the quality of care. Doctors who did not meet federal standards would be subject to financial penalties.
- Medicare would pay bonuses to hospitals that provide superior care for heart attacks, heart failure, pneumonia and selected other conditions. The cost would be offset by cutting Medicare payments to other hospitals.
- Doctors could receive extra payments if they hired nurses to manage follow-up care for Medicare patients who were discharged from the hospital after being treated for chronic conditions like diabetes, asthma, depression and coronary artery disease.
- The government would set national standards for the appropriate use of CAT scans, magnetic resonance and other diagnostic imaging techniques. Medicare would cut payments to doctors who drive up costs by overuse of imaging services.
- In addition, Medicare would make a single “bundled payment” for all the services provided to a hospital patient. The bundle would include payments for any nursing home care or home health services that a person received after leaving the hospital, an idea that made some providers uneasy.
Senators Baucus and Grassley believe improving the delivery of health care in the Medicare program will help drive the broader effort to overhaul our entire healthcare system. We here at the National Committee applaud these efforts but hope it won’t stop there. Congress should also reinvest at least some of the savings found in Medicare back into the program.
Topics: Medicare, healthcare | 6 Comments »
May 1st, 2009 at 2:34 pm
There is no question that Medicare can be improved. I don’t know that these are likely to be the most effective improvements. But it would be good to start.
I’d like to suggest that until the people understand that one way or another they are going to have to pay for their own medical care…. Medicare being the best way… it is going to be very difficult to “save” Medicare much less reform medical care.
The first reform to Medicare, oddly enough, would be to reinstate the cap so that “the rich” don’t have to be afraid of it. Then the people need to be shown that the tax rate necessary to pay for their own “expected” medical care in old age, while large, will always be much less than the increase in their own expected income. Such that even with the no-reform numbers projected by the Trustees, after you have paid the 6% Medicare tax in 2085, and your boss has matched that, you will still have twice as much money left AFTER paying for Medicare and Social Security as you have today. AND you will have paid in advance for a longer retirement at a higher standard of living and the better medical care that will make it possible.
May 4th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
I really don’t care if the “rich” are afraid of Medicare or not. They’re probably not worrying like the rest of us about how to pay that next prescription bill or monthly premium. I want the reforms that have been suggested because it’s a start on controlling costs and these are things we’ve been asking for since Congress passed that miserable Medicare Act in 2003.
May 30th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Yoiu are doing a disservice to the seniors of our country
We paid in to social security over a life time and diserve better than whatbyou are doing.
Don’t we have any say in what we have coming to us”
Put yourselves in our shoes
Why should you be given the cream of the crop and let us sink to the bottom
Medicare was designed originally for senior citizens
Why should the poor people be given more and more and we receive less and sess
Let’s be fair . Yes I mean fair
Im dependentedent upon medicare’
If you had not messed with my retirement I would be receiving a pension today
Give us a b reak!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
John R Warner
November 21st, 2009 at 9:02 pm
To Mr. Warner , The only way you will ever undestand the answer to your question is to live as poor as the people that you suggest are being unfairly compensated. Don’t forget,… I worked as hard for 44 years in two weks than most of the affluent have in two years and paid for the benefeits in place for the same duration. So try moving into a low income apartment complex for a couple of years and get by on a little over $1,000.00 a month and maybe then you will be able to answer your own question with some authority.
January 17th, 2010 at 8:30 am
I understand the new Medicare rules will pay less for IVIG infusions (plasma:gammaglobulin) and that RN care and tubing (both needed for an infusion in the home) are not covered.
A Kerry Wyden amendment to fic this error was killed bythe Senate.
I also understand a medically inappropriate trough level and test is required to get Medicare to cover this treatment ( for Primary Immune Deficiciency Disease- 250,000 people from infants to adults in USA alone).
If I am fully covered by my present insurance for IVIG treatment, why will I have to go through hoops to be covered by Medicare when I turn 65? It should be an easy transition.
And why do I have to have Medicare to get Social Security (1960′s law)? I would prefer to keep my present insurance; in fact, I have to coverthe costs associated with treatment of this disease (PIDD) .
There is no option to drop Medicare or not accept it- If I do, I lose my Soc Security. Needed to pay for my medical insurance.
Something is wrong here and I hope Congress will address these inequities.
January 17th, 2010 at 9:06 am
I certainly hope that in this last phase of the overhaul, the medicare IVIG access act to patients is finally fixed, this issue has been going on since 04. Patients with Primary Immune Deficiency Disease rely on this treatment to try to remain out of the hospital. Why is it taking so long to fix this issue,
and why is it that if you get Social Security you have to take medicare in the first place, not everyone is in that position, I for one can afford to pay my private insurance and don’t need medicare but do need the income. this needs to be changed and talk about saving money……now there is a thought