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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAdministration Proposes Cuts to Rates in Medicare Payments. Repukes Jump
to attack.
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Friday proposed cuts in Medicare payment rates for managed-care plans serving more than one-fourth of all beneficiaries, and Republicans immediately pounced on the proposal, which appears likely to become a significant issue in this year’s midterm elections.
The proposed reductions were larger than the administration had indicated in guidance given to the insurance industry in December. Jonathan Blum, a top Medicare official, cited the “historically low growth in Medicare per capita spending” as a reason for the proposal.
<snip>
Federal payments to managed-care organizations, known as Medicare Advantage plans, are based on a complicated formula that reflects how much it costs to care for Medicare beneficiaries, and those costs have been growing much more slowly than in the past. Experts often focus on the benchmarks used to calculate changes in Medicare payments to private plans. The administration proposed to reduce these benchmarks by 1.9 percent in 2015. Other factors in the formula will deepen the cuts.
Lawmakers from both parties had urged the White House to avoid any cuts, even though the reductions in payment were explicitly authorized by the 2010 health care law.
The announcement late Friday is likely to reverberate on Wall Street and on Capitol Hill, where insurers, employers and beneficiaries plan to lobby against the cuts. That effort was so intense last year that the Obama administration reversed itself, scrapped plans for a cut and increased rates instead.
<snip>
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/22/us/politics/us-proposes-cuts-to-rates-in-medicare-payments.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&wpisrc=nl_wonk&_r=0
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bullwinkle428
(20,629 posts)will be EASY-PEASY on the heels of Medicare cuts! 
cali
(114,904 posts)
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"and big benefit cuts for those in the military shoucl help too! Not."
...to join the RW spin that cuts in overpayments to insurance companies are cuts to benefits?
cali
(114,904 posts)that the repukes will use this to beat on dems in this election year, has no business commenting about politics, my dearest pro.
"right wing spin or not, anyone who doesn't grasp that the repukes will use this to beat on dems in this election year, has no business commenting about politics, my dearest pro."
...you agreed with the spin, but now you're saying it's only because "repukes will use"? Here's the thing: "Anyone who doesn't grasp" that pushing RW spin instead of debunking it is simply aiding the RW, shouldn't attempt to be condescending.
I mean, are you just discovering that the RW's goal is to distort proposals and protect corporate/insurers' profits?
By UWE E. REINHARDT
In a Dec. 27 lead editorial, “Government Advantage,” the editorial writers of The Wall Street Journal wrote:
Amid the larger ObamaCare meltdown, seniors are discovering their choices are fewer, costs higher and coverage poorer too. Liberals fear the increasing popularity of Medicare Advantage, and they’re starting to gut this market alternative to their original health care entitlement before the sand runs out on President Obama’s second term. About 14 million people or 28 percent of Medicare beneficiaries choose Advantage over the government option, which is why the Affordable Care Act steals about $156 billion from the program – even as enrollment has surged 30 percent since 2010.
A theft of $156 billion should catch one’s attention, especially if government is the thief. It warrants a closer look...what is the time frame of this $156 billion “theft”? Greater clarity on this point would have been helpful, lest readers think that this is an annual figure. In fact, it is the sum of projected future annual cuts off projected future total payments to Medicare Advantage plans over the decade 2013-2022 (see line 8 of Table 2, page 5 in this Congressional Budget Office projection).
That point aside, what the Affordable Care Act has done to the Medicare Advantage plans lies, like beauty, in the eyes of the beholder.
The story begins with the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003, which revamped the manner in which Medicare paid private health plans for Medicare beneficiaries who chose them in lieu of traditional Medicare. The program, called Medicare Risk when it was established in 1982 and rechristened Medicare+Choice in 1997, was reborn as Medicare Advantage.
I described and discussed the complicated administrative payment algorithm prescribed for Medicare Advantage by that law in a previous post. Those interested in the modus operandi of the payment system for Medicare Advantage before the Affordable Care Act of 2010 can read an official description by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission of Congress (known as Medpac), dated October 2008. A description of the current payment system is also available...on average, the payment method prescribed by the 2003 law, which took effect in 2006, has cost taxpayers substantially more per Medicare beneficiary who enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan than these beneficiaries would have cost taxpayers in traditional Medicare. That is because Medicare has paid private plans more per beneficiary than these beneficiaries would have cost in traditional Medicare.
- more -
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/03/medicare-advantage-and-the-theft-of-156-billion
Typical Republican scam: Undermine Medicare by diverting a substantial amount of Medicare funds to private insurance.
While the WSJ is attempting to push this bogus claim, the health care law also strengthened Medicare.
MEDICARE’S FINANCIAL CONDITION
Medicare’s financial condition is measured in several ways, including the solvency of the Part A Trust Fund, the annual growth in spending, and growth in spending on a per capita basis. Average annual growth in total Medicare spending is projected to be 6.6% between 2010 and 2019, but 3.5% on a per capita basis (assuming no reduction in physician fees).
The Part A Trust Fund is projected to be depleted in 2024— eight years longer than in the absence of the health reform law—at which point Medicare would not have sufficient funds to pay full benefits, even though revenue flows into the Trust Fund each year. Part A Trust Fund solvency is affected by growth in the economy, which directly affects revenue from payroll tax contributions, and by demographic trends: an increasing number of beneficiaries, especially between 2010 and 2030 when the baby boom generation reaches Medicare eligibility age, and a declining ratio of workers per beneficiary making payroll contributions (Figure 4).
<...>
http://www.kff.org/medicare/upload/7305-06.pdf
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024270235
cali
(114,904 posts)ProSense
(116,464 posts)cali
(114,904 posts)ProSense
(116,464 posts)"not grasping that spin is a HUGE factor in elections is moronic beyond belief"
Hey, but keep trying to help Republicans revive it.
cali
(114,904 posts)republicans control the house, pro. it sure as hell works a lot of the time.
gad. you really have lost it in your adoration hyper partisan construct.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)Do you friggin hear yourself? It didn't friggin work for Romney. No one is buying that shit, but you seem to want to.
"gad. you really have lost it in your adoration hyper partisan construct."
Your attempts at being nasty don't cover up the fact that you are desperately trying to validate bullshit RW spin.
cali
(114,904 posts)are substitutes. they are not, pro. people buy spin in every election, pro. that's a big piece of what they are, pro. everyone knows that, pro. pro, you know it too.
oh, and YOU are every bit as nasty to me, pro, as I am to you.
bye. pro. talk to you later, pro.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)
cali
(114,904 posts)just absurd assertions with nothing to back them up. Your cut and paste almost never does that, pro.
keep on with the partisan adoration, pro. You are good at that.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)
cali
(114,904 posts)
WorseBeforeBetter
(11,441 posts)The spin IS working.
In North Carolina, gullible voters believed Teabagger spin that Granny would be offed by soshulist1! Obamacare. Thanks to them "buying that shit" in 2010 and 2012, we now have a state completely under Republican control -- the first time in over 100 years.
Meanwhile in 2014, things are looking pretty dicey for Sen. Kay Hagan (D). A majority in this state HATE Obamacare and they will take it out on her. Obama needs to put on his comfortable shoes and get his skinny ass down here to sell his signature legislation, cuz Lord knows we don't want to lose the Senate now, do we?
As far as Medicare, these same dumbass voters are going to hear nothing but "CUTS," and it's politically naïve to think they're going to sweat the details. Hopefully Obama won't let Teabaggers/Republicans control the message again, like he did back in 2010 with the ACA.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)In North Carolina, gullible voters believed Teabagger spin that Granny would be offed by soshulist1! Obamacare. Thanks to them "buying that shit" in 2010 and 2012, we now have a state completely under Republican control -- the first time in over 100 years.
Meanwhile in 2014, things are looking pretty dicey for Sen. Kay Hagan (D). A majority in this state HATE Obamacare and they will take it out on her. Obama needs to put on his comfortable shoes and get his skinny ass down here to sell his signature legislation, cuz Lord knows we don't want to lose the Senate now, do we?
As far as Medicare, these same dumbass voters are going to hear nothing but "CUTS," and it's politically naïve to think they're going to sweat the details. Hopefully Obama won't let Teabaggers/Republicans control the message again, like he did back in 2010 with the ACA.
...sorry, I can't join the "be afraid of Republican" spin. I find it interesting that anyone would advocate abandoning doing the right thing out of fear that the "spin IS working." I mean, shouldn't that indicate that more forceful debunking is needed, not caving to RW spin?
"The spin IS working" says let the insurance companies keep squeezing Medicare for profits.
Also, I don't believe for a second that RW spin is working.
Morning Plum: Obamacare ‘horror stories’ fall apart under scrutiny
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/02/25/morning-plum-obamacare-horror-stories-fall-apart-under-scrutiny/
Pro-Medicaid GOP governors well placed for reelection
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/02/2016-election-medicaid-republican-governors-103892.html
Medicare OverpaymentS to Private Plans
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024561713
The Obamacare Hail Mary That Could Save The Senate For Democrats
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024555514
WorseBeforeBetter
(11,441 posts)I'm living in the reality of a Republican-controlled state, however, and don't have that blue-bubble luxury. A Republican-controlled state thanks, in part, to Idiot America buying rightwing spin about Obamacare.
You need to work on your reading comprehension. Who, exactly, is advocating that we abandon "doing the right thing out of fear that the spin IS working"? Spend some time down with us in NC at Occupy and Moral Monday events, and we'll set you straight re: "fear." Obama has been hammered by "the left" because he comes across as too timid, unwilling to take on Republicans, unwilling to use the powers of his office, including the bully pulpit, his magic pen, etc. Five years into office, and he FINALLY seems to be getting it. Do you really want to get into who is really "fearful"?
You seem unwilling to acknowledge how successful rightwing spin can be. Again, 24 states v. 13 states. 2010 and 2012, and perhaps 2014. Obama and the Democratic Party need to head this Mediscare bullshit (and everything else, for that matter) off at the pass and control the message. This is pretty basic stuff.
cali
(114,904 posts)ProSense
(116,464 posts)WorseBeforeBetter
(11,441 posts)There's a lot of twisting going on in this thread, with more and more backup arriving.
I support these cuts, along with cuts to the military. My "issue" is that I don't want Cool Cucumber Obama hanging back like he did with his SIGNATURE LEGISLATION, letting Teabaggers control the message. I'll never forget Howard Dean and Jim Moran (VA) being hung out to dry at a raucous townhall, while Obama was nowhere to be found. Probably out golfing with industry execs...
As an NC resident, I've witnessed first hand what happens when voters buy Republican spin. And when it comes to MediScare, I mean Medicare, all they'll hear is "CUTS." Obama and the Democratic Party better be prepared to fight the spin... being "the only adults in the room" isn't enough. Nor is "chill the fuck out, I've got this" a sound strategy.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)I'm living in the reality of a Republican-controlled state, however, and don't have that blue-bubble luxury. A Republican-controlled state thanks, in part, to Idiot America buying rightwing spin about Obamacare.
You need to work on your reading comprehension. Who, exactly, is advocating that we abandon "doing the right thing out of fear that the spin IS working"? Spend some time down with us in NC at Occupy and Moral Monday events, and we'll set you straight re: "fear."
...your Senator is fighting back.
Koch brothers breaking all spending records to defeat Democrat Kay Hagan
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024493554
Kay Hagan slams the Koch brothers
A key part of the barrage against Hagan and other Democratic senators that Republicans perceive as vulnerable in 2014 is tying them to Obamacare, something Hagan defended.
“The people in North Carolina have the fifth-highest signup on the exchanges, after Florida, New York, California and Texas, it’s North Carolina, so they’re very interested in this,” Hagan said. “We want to show that the Affordable Care Act is something whose time has come. It’s going to really change how the cost of health care will not have these huge increases that we’ve been seeing every year.”
- more -
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/02/kay-hagan-koch-brothers-north-carolina-2014-103478.html
You know who is in "denial": Republicans.
GOP for and against Medicare cost-savings
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024562191
cali
(114,904 posts)desperately cutting and pasting.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)
WorseBeforeBetter
(11,441 posts)Obama needs to get his ass down here and help Hagan, promote the legislation he is staking his presidency on, assuage fears about "cuts" to Medicare, etc. DW-S arrives in Chapel Hill in March for a Lillian's List event, so that's a good start.
Unfortunately, NC will feel the ramifications of the anti-Obamacare vote for a long time. Obama and the Democratic Party need to pull out all the stops in saving vulnerable Senate seats, lest the rest of the country feel rather unpleasant ramifications as well.
phleshdef
(11,936 posts)I mean, you want us to keep overpaying into the PRIVATIZED part of Medicare just so we can win some elections? Hell, might as well let them put that pipeline in too while we are at it.
bullwinkle428
(20,629 posts)things like the F-35 fighter program are still considered untouchable?
"The president's proposed Defense budget is already putting congressional dainties in a bunch, but we'd like to point out that within that budget, the F-35 fighter jet -- aka, The Flying Swiss Army Knife, aka The Amazing Jet-Propelled Lemon Of The Skies -- has managed mysteriously to survive once more."
The budget plan does keep money for the F-35 warplane, a project which has been beset by delays and criticism over design flaws.
In a new report for the Center for International Policy, William Hartung claims the number of jobs created by the F-35 is more like 50,000 to 60,000, and that the number of states in which it supports job creation is also far lower than Lockheed would have us believe. According to Hartung, Lockheed uses a much larger ratio of so-called "indirect jobs" - jobs created by companies that supply materials or other services for the F-35, or jobs created when those working on the F-35 spend their wages - than the academic literature warrants. Applying a more realistic ratio brings the job creation estimate down considerably. (Lockheed, of course, contests Hartung's numbers.) "The bottom line is that the F-35 creates fewer jobs and affects fewer communities than Lockheed Martin and the other producers of the aircraft claim," Hartung wrote. "This means that Congress and the executive branch can feel free to debate the future of the F-35 based on its strategic merits, not pork barrel politics."
"This, of course, is for a plane that doesn't really work.
The same people doing the math here are the people doing the math for our old friend, the Keystone XL pipeline. Maybe they, too, are counting the strippers."
Read more: Budget Sequestration - The Feast Of Fat Things - Esquire
Follow us: @Esquiremag on Twitter | Esquire on Facebook
Visit us at Esquire.com
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/budget-sequestration-022414
ProSense
(116,464 posts)joeglow3
(6,228 posts)My wife works as an RN for an OB/GYN office that is phasing out all medicare patients. There are procedures they do where the reimbursements are less than the cost of the supplies (not taking into account the labor of people involved).All this does is jack up the costs privately insured people have to pay because they now how to subsidize the costs. Cutting that even more will do nothing but cause more clinics to refuse to accept medicare. So, yes, expect old people to get pissed when they have medicare, but no one will accept it.
Autumn
(45,103 posts)Just Obama cutting Medicare Advantage, a program that helps Seniors. Short on details, long on Obama cutting. 
This will go over well
jsr
(7,712 posts)
DURHAM D
(32,610 posts)the other 75% of seniors, plus everyone else who contributes through their paychecks to the government, help pay the inflated bills received from the private insurers.
Fuck Medicare Advantage.
cali
(114,904 posts)this (http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024561713) will help you if you ever decide to debunk the spin instead of worrying that the "potential political ramifications" of RW distortion are more important.
Autumn
(45,103 posts)DURHAM D
(32,610 posts)The truth is that most of the people that have Medicare Advantage coverage do not even know it. They think they have regular Medicare. I deal with this all of the time given that I am of a certain age and like to talk policy.
For example - During the 2012 general election I volunteered at Obama headquarters doing data entry. Several of us who did this work were older women. Three of them were or had just turned 65 so they were constantly talking about the ins and outs of their various plans. One of the women was getting the info from her employer, one of the women was getting the info from her husband's employer and the other one was doing it on her own and meeting with various insurance agents.
One night I started asking them a few questions about the particulars of their coverage. From their responses I could tell that ALL of them were or were about to be in Medicare Advantage plans. After listening to them describe the particulars I shrugged and commented that they were in Medicare Advantage plans, not regular Medicare.
They went ballistic and informed me in no uncertain terms that Medicare Advantage plans were no longer legal. I tried to make a gentle response but they were adamant that they had regular Medicare and that the ACA made Medicare Advantage illegal. I tried to explain why this was not true but it went absolutely nowhere.
The bottom line is that employers and insurance companies were lying to them. There was really nothing I could do so I just backed away from the conversation. After that they all sort of stopped chatting with me. I think they thought I was some sort of enemy mole. I doubt if they know to this day that they have Medicare Advantage, not regular Medicare. So yes, the messaging is really really difficult.
OilemFirchen
(7,143 posts)when the route keeps reversing course and trampling its followers.
The gripe, we're told, is that Obama is not leading from the left. So here he is nibbling at the edges of a Bush-era sop to the insurance companies and he's being "criticized" because... it's an election year. Because the Republicans will use it to their advantage.
Ditto cuts to the DoD: Right move, wrong time. Fuck principle, now you're all about pragmatism.
BTW, the Republicans are going to use whatever the hell they want to their advantage including, and certainly not limited to, lying through their teeth. Nonetheless, this is the plaint du jour.
FTR, those of us on the sidelines get it. We're not exactly amused, but we are laughing our asses off.
Response to OilemFirchen (Reply #29)
Cali_Democrat This message was self-deleted by its author.
Cali_Democrat
(30,439 posts)by any means necessary.
They really have no other objective at this point.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)cali
(114,904 posts)geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)cali
(114,904 posts)and something YOU do a lot of.
Ugh.
phleshdef
(11,936 posts)Response to cali (Reply #39)
Cali_Democrat This message was self-deleted by its author.
