Here's What Republicare Will Look Like
Here's what they're planning to replace it with, via The Hill:
The Republican plan will not preserve one of Obama’s most politically popular reforms: the requirement that insurers cover people who have pre-existing conditions. Some Republicans have said in the past that it would be difficult to walk away from that provision. But Pitts said the GOP will instead propose state-based pools in which the government would take over the cost of the sickest, most expensive patients, rather than requiring private insurers to cover them.
The rest of the plan Pitts outlined draws from long-standing GOP priorities. It will include limits on medical malpractice suits and allow the sale of insurance across state lines, Pitts said, while also expanding the use of health savings accounts.
Ask Susie Madrak how those state-based pools are working out for her. Yes, they're better than having nothing. But they don't help with high deductibles in the least. Selling insurance across state lines? Which state will race to the bottom to compete for the business? North Dakota? South Dakota? And health savings accounts? I've told you all about how those work until they don't.
I repeat: The Affordable Care Act was all about pre-existing conditions. Not mandates, not Medicare Advantage, not insurance exchanges, and not private versus public insurance. Pre-existing conditions exclusions have always been and will forever be the barrier to universal health care in this country. Now House Republicans have confirmed that.
But hey, at least they can call those pre-existing conditions plans a public option. I can hardly wait to see how states like Texas and Alabama would implement such a thing, can't you?
The only good idea to come out of Pitts' committee right now is decoupling employment and health insurance so individuals get the tax deduction for insurance rather than companies. Of course, it doesn't work as well with the Republican plan as it does with the Affordable Care Act.
Can we please stop hating on the Affordable Care Act and consider defending it now? Because what Republicans are proposing will do absolutely nothing at all to help people who need access to affordable health care. At least the ACA offers some government help toward that, and yes, it eliminates the pre-existing conditions exclusion, which established a level ground for everyone.
Bernard Avishai has a wonderful article in the February 13, 2012 issue of The Nation discussing Paul Starr's book about the development of health policy and passage of the Affordable Care Act. Of Starr, he writes this:
Starr’s great fear is repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which would not only deny healthcare to more than 30 million people but would cast doubt on whether “Americans will ever be able to hold their fears in check and summon the elementary decency toward the sick that characterizes other democracies.” Obamacare, in short, was healthcare reform’s best—and last—shot, and it would be unconscionable for liberals to remain cavalier about its defense, or Obama’s, for that matter. It’s past time to discard the misguided assumption that in a better economy, or with more of “a fighter” in the White House, something like a Canadian-style single-payer system might have been (or might sometime fairly soon be) enacted.
Indeed.
Actually no.
I hated it when it was Bob Dole Care & I hate it now.
The mandate to enrich private companies whose own legal mandate is to maximize shareholder value sticks in my craw. If you think this won't wind up causing some horrifying perversion of the intended purpose, you haven't been paying attention.
If, by some miracle, the individual mandate should be struck down & be severable, maybe we could get single payer out of it. Then, you might have something.
I'm no fan of Heritage Foundation Health Insurance either.
But do you really think we will get single payer (or anything remotely close to it) as long as the psychotic republicans have any power in D.C.?
As long as you have millions of unemployed people with no insurance, running around supporting and cheering guys like the Newtster and Mitten's - about 40% of voting public - SP is off the table and dead.
And no single bluedog (including Obama is going to do a thing to change that.
If I were a psychopath, I would join the republican party, and get in on the gravy train taking the Teabircher morons to the cleaners.
So roll over and give up? Is that your answer? Because the big bad Republicans won't play nice we are just supposed to give up on trying to get Medicare for All or universal single payer? Sorry, I can't fathom just giving up because of obstructionists. It is not in my nature.
Election 2012: Be Educated! Be Active! Vote!
www.PhoenixJustice.com
I don't think I said give up anywhere.
But the fact is, a large portion of the American public is so stupid, the rest of the people cannot get the health care they need or want.
Except for the brain dead Teabircher's however, I don't see running the same pro Insurance industry on steroids plan winning many votes. Personally, I think it is a big time loser for the GOP.
Right now republicans are disengaged (more than usual) from reality, because their bat shit lunatic imbecile base is constantly surrounding them.
But who really cares about ESL, abortion, make believe gun laws and other stupid wedge crap like that these days, except the most demented dumb ass GOPer base voter?
Rush Limbaugh is what a smart person thinks a stupid bigot sounds like.
If I were a psychopath, I would join the republican party, and get in on the gravy train taking the Teabircher morons to the cleaners.
been to pass the pre-existing condition clause without the mandate. Private Ins. would have fought hard to get rid of the pre's.
Michael Moore ~ Sicko
"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
. . . and government mandates were the only way to solve it
They weren't and aren't. Get a hold of your policy, if you can, and read the pages and pages of excuses for the insurance carrier to not pay. Pretty much all of those excuses were left intact by the Affordable Care Act by design.
Why would the health insurance industry have drafted the plan otherwise?
Also, remember that tying the mandate to covering pre-existing conditions is, in short: health insurance industry bullshit. A mandate is simply not necessary for health insurance coverage of pre-existing conditions. Every day, now and for many, many years past, health insurance carriers cover pre-existing conditions. They do so in employer-based group policies. This is nothing new; it's how millions and millions of people are insured. There may be a 30 day or so waiting period, but there is no mandate involved. The cost of the pre-existing conditions are simply absorbed into the group premiums.
It's what multi-billion dollar insurance companies are able to do. It's the very concept of health insurance: some folks will be sicker than others, and, as we spread the cost of the more sick among the less sick, it becomes affordable for everyone. Nothing all that complex; pretty basic really.
But with the Affordable Care Act we have the insurance carriers, and both their knowing and possibly unaware advocates, claiming that these multi-billion dollar enterprises simply can't afford to cover pre-existing conditions without a mandate. Why is that? These very same entities are covering these very same pre-existing conditions through their group policies. But they are unable to do so on their individual policies? Why? Because of an imaginary line they themselves have drawn between the two?
The Republicans, and their corporate backers are definitely rubbing their hands together at the thought of mandates, but unless you actually believe that corporations hate the idea of being given their very own taxing power (and why on earth would they?), they're rubbing their hands together at the thought of the government mandated money they can make.
And the thought of what other corporate taxation their shills in government can mandate should this be approved makes those hands rub together even more feverishly - that is, when they're not using those hands to mask the uproarious laughter they must feel coming on every time a lefty blog uses corporate supplied misinformation to defend a blatant corporate boondoggle.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
I abhor the idea that I will be forced by the government to support a private industry that I hate merely because I was born in this country. Car insurance mandates I understand. Property insurance mandates (if you have a mortgage) I understand. Health care mandates were passed by politicians who were paid by insurance companies for the benefit of insurance companies and I cannot abide by that. If the mandates survive the SCOTUS review, I will become a scofflaw. The only way to make sure everyone gets the health care they need in this country is to ELIMINATE private, profit-driven insurance companies. It's very clear.
another gift for the private insurers, and another reason to cut govt services
Isn't Pitts' proposal just a pre-emptive bail out for insurers? Think TARP for Aetna, et al - except that the gov is buying it before Aetna actually signed on to the risk. I thought the GOP-ers hated bailouts?!?!!!?!!
I find this one a little optimistic.
First, I doubt the Republican plan will, in decoupling insurance from employment, couple a pay raise requirement for employees to compensate for the loss of health care benefits. Thus employees who want to voluntarily purchase health care will be doing so from the pay they receive now.
Second, I doubt the Republican plan will couple changes in the tax code to decoupling insurance from employment, meaning those who buy insurance but do not itemize deductions (and most taxpayers don't itemize) will see nothing but the same pay plus a new health care bill plus pay the same in taxes. Even those who itemize will only recoup part of the cost unless the tax credit comes directly off the amount due
to IRS.
These two problems were the same problems facing any plan that purports to offer universal single payer
care. You have to adopt it with a provision which requires companies to offset the cost of insurance payment savings they derive by raising employee wages. Then you have to tax people to pay for the a mandatory government plan which may not be or may not look as good as the one they had through employer paid plans. Both these requirements present incredibly difficult political barriers which many on the left overlook when criticizing elected officials for what we ended up with.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
That's three times in less than 48 hours that we've agreed with each other. Is there a full moon?
to strike down the individual mandate.
So am I. I hope they find the individual mandate unconstitutional. Then maybe we can move to single payer rather than an Obama payoff to the insurance companies.
Although I have a group plan that covers me well, I still find it very hard to navigate this system that seems to be set up to be deliberately confusing and to stop the policy holder from collecting anything, if possible.
Single payer will take care of that and put back +20% of our payments back into the system for health care, not bonuses and profit for useless corporate pigs and their pig shareholders.
They'll repeal it and replace it with what I outlined in the post. And more people will either not have access to care or simply die.
It's a great goal. Repealing the ACA will not move us closer to it.
Anything to make life harder and more miserable on working people, the republican party will support.
If I were a psychopath, I would join the republican party, and get in on the gravy train taking the Teabircher morons to the cleaners.
Understanding the “Individual Mandate” and Stopping the Misinformation Campaign Against It.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
. . . with this "wonderful" article's notion: "Obamacare, in short, was healthcare reform’s best—and last—shot. . . ."
Not really a surprise, as ACA proponents abandoned "building" on the ACA pretty much as soon as it was enacted and instead have concentrated their efforts on defending the most insurance industry friendly element of the plan: the mandate.
We've been had . . . "indeed."
Corruption favors the wealthy.
I find the idea of paying a tax or tribute to any non-government entity intolerable, which is what the madate is. If a tax is necessary, then it should only be payable to the government, and the program those taxes support should only be administered by the government. I feel especoially strong about this for any matter that is, in my opinion, a human right and not a privilege. I also think tht it is unconstitutional, because there is no language in the Constitution granting Congress or the executive brach authority to establish taxes or tributes that are payable to private entities, this as an additional point to whatever arguments are being debated as concerns the Commerce Clause. JMO, but I think insurance companies have no constructive role to play in healthcare delivery.
I don't like the Insurance companies getting in on the action either , they should be eliminated , but welcome to reality and America the beautiful . When your life is on the line , you have no insurance , no money and no options , a mandate and the middleman are the least of your concerns , trust me , if you could get help you'd be damned thankful . If we're going to be all or nothing we are going to get nothing , guaranteed . I think Obama got what he could get , it's a start and more than we had before . If he didn't make concessions he'd got nothing , Obama care barely passed as it was . Hasn't done me any good but it's helped a lot of people . My bills for the last trip to the ER ? Totaled over six thousand dollars for an EKG and a blood test ( and laying on a table unattended for about an hour , waiting for test results ) . Would have cost less than three hundred dollars at the local clinic but when you're having every symptom of a heart attack you don't want to mess around ... and I know from experience what the symptoms feel like . This country is a damned disgrace , I don't see it changing anytime soon .
Insanity , it is what it is , there is no understanding it .
But it doesn't change that the government is the one who should be paying the tab, through taxpayer-funed universal system. I'm in the same boat with the people you mention. I've got insurance and you know what they pay? Zero. Every claim I've made comes back rejected. Thousands of dollars in bills, all rejected. None of it pre-existing, just for made up, bullshit reasons. And because I can't afford what they won't pay, I go without.
Obama, entered from a position of strength and bartered it all away before even being challenged. It wasn't a compromise, it was straight up give away to the benefit of the entities he's received so much money from. From my perspective he didn't even try - or made no credible effort, and by definition, anything that you refuse to even consider and subsequently refuse to attempt is impossible to achieve. What the People ended up with where table scraps and leftovers that were insignificant in light of the entire picture. I'm delighted that some small fraction of the population is getting help that they didn't get before, but that isn't good enough, and it doesn't, to my mind, excuse or make up for what a miserable and shameful failure the rest, the lion's share, of this act is. It's a travesty.
Nobody likes the deal the insurance companies got in the Affordable Care Act, but right now i think it boils down to this - What is more important to you; what takes priority, the deal you hate that the insurance companies got, or the deal that the American people got - people that are now covered and getting desperately needed health care for the very first time in their lives?
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
for context, it should be highlighted that the expert (former clintonite) cited here, paul starr, has not been a champion of the public option--far from it. he spent a lot of effort in warning of the dangers of a public option.
not to say that he doesn't make some valid points (which are countered by his prospect co-founders, among others), but i think it is important to know just where he is coming from when he makes the claim that: "Obamacare, in short, was healthcare reform’s best—and last—shot"
http://prospect.org/article/debating-public-o...
http://prospect.org/article/perils-public-plan
raising what I believe are relatively calm, rationale and realistic observations about both the political and practical problems associated with universal single payer systems of any sort (not just health care) indicates he:
"spent a lot of effort warning about the dangers of a public option"
As I understood the quote, he is talking about Medicare for all, not anything that can be described as an option.
I ask this, by the way, as someone who favors a single payer system, which many around here who are new can be excused for not knowing, and those who despise my recognition and frequent restatement of the reality that it is not politically feasible forget.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
i posted what i did because, for me, i like to see where people stand on issue X when they profess their support/resistance to issue X. i was not familiar with paul starr before i came across his name (which is weird as i am very familiar with reich and kuttner) and when i saw some of warnings about a public option (which appear to be highly debatable even amongst his prospect-peers) they helped me put the above quote, from the nation excerpt, in better context.
like i mentioned, i don't think these are crazy-concerns, and a lot have merit. and it would behoove everyone with skin in the game, which is every american, to think long and hard about his warnings. i am by NO MEANS an expert on healthcare policy--i am simply a person with a very serious medical condition that is very frightened of my insurance-future (not to show too much of my hand), that has no faith that the for-profit health industry wouldn't work tirelessly to deny me service.
No need to worry about showing any part of your hand. Each individual's health situation helps define how they respond to this issue.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
who think the individual mandate is an unconstitutional imposition on your rights. Guess what? Everyone who lives in a jurisdiction with universal single-payer health care, as I do, receives required health care because we have an individual mandate. That mandate is to pay the taxes that pay for the health care system. So you pretty well have a choice here: give up the idea of universal health care and the mandate to pay for it or offer a workable plan that allows that goal to be achieved. No country in the world made it in one giant step. What makes you think you can? The highly regarded French and Swiss heath care systems also include just such mandates.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
We don't have an issue with the individual mandate if it is the government providing the health insurance, but in this case, it is private insurance companies. Why should I be mandated to fatten the wallets of private insurance companies just so as I can have medical insurance?
Election 2012: Be Educated! Be Active! Vote!
www.PhoenixJustice.com
But I expect you'll still want to be treated when you show up at a hospital without any health care coverage. This is clearly a necessary intermediate step in transition to anything at all resembling universal coverage and many of the best health care systems in the world use some sort of employer mandate or income mandate to buy private insurance. Your health care delivery system could not possibly be be translated into a Canadian style system in less than a decade and probably not at all. Most Americans would not understand why but I'll ask you a question: under your idealized version of Medicare for Everyone who gets their cancer treatment at the local county hospital and who gets to go to Sloan-Kettering? The same people who decry this horrible imposition of a mandate wouldn't stand the triage a true universal single payer, SINGLE STANDARD system requires for one second.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
As I understand it, with the help of Wikipedia, Canadian health care is funded by taxes, both general and dedicated, in a Medicare program. The government(s) both take the money in and pay the money out.
That is not, as Peter knows full well, what the Obamacare mandate is. These are not taxes; they do not go to the government. They go to a privately owned monopoly/oligopoly and include a guaranteed profit.
Don't you love it when people such as Peter (and Barack Obama himself) advocate a health insurance program they'll never have to be a part of?
Corruption favors the wealthy.
I rarely delve into my personal situation.
But I pay into a government run, self financed insurance system out of my own pocket. I elected to stay in this system because it was legally available to me and under the pre-existing conditions clauses when I made my choice I would be uninsurable in the private market for the things for which I am most apt to need health care. Call it my public option. ( I am not going to pretend it is exactly that.)
This plan is more, not less, affordable than private insurance because of coverage mandates.
Administrators negotiate with care providers in advance and on individual claims. Politicians
determine how much to fund the system and thus what my premiums, co-pays, deductibles and
eligible services will be based on the political climate they perceive rather than the economic climate and market position a corporation bases its decisions upon.
Funny. I don't feel any better. Or wealthier. Just a little free of the bitterness often expressed around here about private companies which would probably be directed at government were government the one making the decisions about how much to charge and how much service to deliver when your life is on the line.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
Very cool.
I'm also guessing that it might be a bit more affordable because of the lack of a profit motive, and because of administrators who are motivated to bargain for lower costs with providers.
Unfortunately, under the ACA, for-profit insurers can have exactly the opposite motivation. The perverse medical loss ratio actually encourages them to spend more with health care providers as they know those costs can simply be passed on to insureds with a 15-20% profit tacked on.
Why bargain to pay only $1,000 for a covered MRI (justifying $150-$200 in profit) when negotiating for $2000 on that MRI can justify $300-$400 in profit)? It's even better if your subsidiary owns those machines. The system was designed to be gamed.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
up the co-pay to pump in a little more $ for the school kiddos or their teachers. Or because our demographics tend a little toward the plump side of life.
I agree that the system is designed to be gamed. Any system can be gamed even without design flaws. And any system will be bitched about because it is not going to treat everyone to their own level of satisfaction.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
I'm sorry I was under the impression that the private insurers did not keep all the money but actually spent some of it on health care and that the medical loss ratio constrained the insurers in ways never done before. Please feel free to wait for paradise to arrive before you give a second's worth of consideration to the consequences of not having insurance. Just don't do it. Don't get health insurance. No one is going to throw you in jail. No one frankly, will give a shit. Hey you can even start an off shoot of your beloved occupy movement for people who likewise decline to participate in this deal with the devil! You can call it Occupy Emergency Rooms! Oh wait you've been doing that for decades already.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
"No one is going to throw you in jail. No one frankly, will give a shit."
the govt will give a little shit, as they fine him for not having insurance
.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
. . . that the mandate kicks in in 2014. But we all know he knew that quite well.
Apparently even world class Canadian health care doesn't cover skeletal diseases like nothavinganhonestboneinyourbody.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
makinshitupagain out of reach?
On a more serious note I am pretending the Mayans are right, 2012 is the end, and we will go to the same unknown place those pagans disappeared to long ago. Their will be universal coverage and all Rainbow Warriors will be over somehwere. Finally my totallyfullofcrap will be cured.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
. . . in guaranteed profit because, of course, you'll never have to. That's not even including the cost spiral this plan encourages and perpetuates.
But go ahead and play your dirty, unemployed, Occupy moocher line . . . yet again. You predictably stick to the most basic of right wing American media talking points. It's not true, but let's not pretend that truth ever got in the way of your wingnut memes.
As for me personally: I am insured. And both my premiums and co-payments have gone up under Obamacare with no indication that they won't continue to do the same - and also no guarantee that my carrier won't leave me high and dry should I have to make a major claim.
You simply don't have those worries. Nor do you even appear to have the slightest concept of what it means. So pardon me as I extend a heartfelt "fuck you and the government sponsored, non-profit, horse you rode in on."
Corruption favors the wealthy.
...why don't you do something useful, such as supporting progressive candidates for Congress and the Senate, who would pass a single payer system, even if they had to go over Obama's head?
That's the way through this mess.
Too bad.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
One thing we Canadians do know, and Peter never mentions, is from birth to death we are 100% covered for everything. There is never any worry. No one is denied. No questions asked. If you're sick you get the help you need -lifelong- the end. Bill handed to health care recipient = $0.
I suppose it's easy to pontificate to others about their health care when you've got the above, lifelong.
(I can't figure out why he even bothers, unless someone is paying him to.)
far left loon >.<
employees healthcare.
With both personal and business taxes. And likewise they pay for mine.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
All Canadians pay taxes and we all get health care. See, it can be done.
Note: we pay more taxes than Americans, but that's fine with me.
far left loon >.<
Fiver, he's full of BS and won't not be right. The usual.
far left loon >.<
A person knows election season has finally arrived when rocked-ribbed democrats begin touting the strategic imperative of supporting the lesser of two evils.
how many times holding out for the perfect has worked.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
You mean this? It caught my eye. Holy jumpins.
far left loon >.<
..Newt & his gaggle of assholes have always loved the individual mandate...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2011/05...
So now the Republicans are waiting with baited breath for the Supreme Court to trash their own pet concept?
There are no words to describe how utterly loathsome Republicans are.
Since Obama is for the Republican invention individual mandate, Republicans would rather see people suffer & die than allow Obama this political victory.
If watching a child starve to death before their eyes would benefit Republicans politically, Fixed News would place a live video feed on the child so all the Republican demons in the nation could gather round like a bunch of vultures & watch the kid perish.
When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in excess body fat & carrying a misspelled sign.
Obama told Today Show host Matt Lauer that "when you actually look at the bill itself, it incorporates all sorts of Republican ideas. I mean a lot of commentators have said this is sort of similar to the bill that Mitt Romney, the Republican governor and now presidential candidate, passed in Massachusetts. A lot of the ideas in terms of the exchange, just being able to pool and improve the purchasing power of individuals in the insurance market, that originated from the Heritage Foundation. ..."
http://youtu.be/mqdfENMNrsQ
thanks for posting that
this is the type of video that i assume the president would really prefer not to be viewed by progressives/liberals--wherein he is trying to defend the lack of republican votes for the ACA by explaining just how couched in conservative ideas the plan is.
At this time, we have two choices. Obamacare, or nothing. There isn't a third one. Not now, not yet.
When there are progressive majorities in the House and Senate I'll be right there with you fighting for single payer. But we are not there. We do not have them. In fact, we'll be really lucky if we hold the Senate by a hair and flip the house to a centrist majority, not a progressive one.
So consider that when you're thinking about where this country is headed.
And if I knew where the damn moon was I'd explain the Tides.
Bill O'Reilly would proclaim me devine. Newt would colonize my backside and grant my ass statehood.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
"I think what happened is they [the Republicans] made a calculation, which, if you are thinking in terms of short-term politics, you can see the argument, that their attitude is, 'look, if we stop this bill, if we stop this president here, then that will give us a lot of political benefit in November.'"
So in other words, the Republicans were going to oppose it no matter what. Why, then, didn't Obama start with a Medicare-for-all plan and make the Republicans oppose that. Then he could've negotiated down to something with a public option and broader coverage. The answer, of course, is that the real opposition came from Republicrats like Mary Landrieu and Blanche Lincoln and Evan Bayh, et al. That, therefore, should be the focus of so-called progressive blogs like C&L, not the Republicans. Everyone here, with a couple notable exceptions, already knows the Republicans are worthless. Criticizing Republicans is like saying water is wet. We know it already. What sites like C&L and progressives in general need to do is stop this rah rah sisboom bah Gobama Gobama cheer leading bullshit and start demanding a Democratic return to Democratic values.
In other words, if you don't fight for us, we're not going to fight for you. Anything less than that is just driving over the cliff, albeit at a slightly slower speed than the Republicans would do it.
Ted Kennedy just about got through the Senate before he ditched it in favor of a primary challenge to Carter.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
gas, electricity, water, gas (phones been shut off for the past few weeks) car insurance, workers comp. payments, state and local fees (fire, air quality, water etc...) - and I'm sure there's much more. I can't wait for the mandate to be passed. Just one more thing that will make me miss more meals.
I've been through this already (healthcare debacle) and all I can hope for is when I die it's at least not painfull.
A. Raise the Medicare entitlement fee to 2% of total income including wages, salaries, bonuses, interest, dividends, capital gains and other forms of income. Those paying more than $2,000.00 will receive a tax deduction.
B. Allow Federal government to negotiate with PHARMA industry to lower drug prices.
C. Allow VA Hospitals to care for low income non-veterans.
D. Carry out the Medicare/Medicaid cost reductions mandated by the Affordable health Care Act so that the growth can be slowed. Putting these provisions into action fully and as soon as possible is the best way to reign in spending.
E. Allow Medicare to bundle payments for several standard procedures nationwide phase in over the next four years payments for all procedures and primary care completely replacing ‘fee-for-service’.
F. Implement competitive bidding for durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics, laboratory tests, pharmaceutical and other medical supplies.
G. Require electronic eligibility, claims processing and payment as well as centralized physician credentialing.
H. Do not pay extra for technologies that are more expensive but no more effective than other available technologies.
I. Allow all citizens a under the age of 60 a choice between a Medicare Public Option or private health insurance. All over 60 would receive Medicare.
care at the VA than he ever would have through private insurance.
Woah woah woah. They're against government, against government spending, but would rather the state spend millions, not because it's the right thing to do, but so corporations won't have to?
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