Fix Health Care Policy

Hospices Reveal Obamacare’s Impact

Two hospice care centers are struggling to make ends meet, and Obamacare’s cuts to Medicare are to blame.

Hospices—health care facilities for the terminally ill—along with other Medicare providers are facing Medicare pay cuts. Of the $716 billion in payment reductions, hospice care was hit by a $17 billion payment cut from 2013 to 2022.

Now, contrary to all of the misleading claims, this effect is already beginning.

San Diego Hospice recently laid off 260 workers, closed a 24-bed hospital, and has recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. San Diego Hospice’s financial condition is attributed mainly to reduced Medicare reimbursement, fewer patients, and a federal audit that hurt the center’s reputation.

Another provider, Delaware Hospice, had to lay off 52 workers, citing lower federal reimbursement as the cause. “The decision,” said CEO Susan Lloyd, “is a direct result of a consequential decline in census and the need to position the organization to meet additional changes and challenges that the hospice industry anticipates with health care reform.”

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: care, federal reimbursement, hospice care, low pay, Medicare cuts, ObamaCare, providers

SLIDESHOW: Obamacare’s Impact—in Pictures

As health care becomes an increasingly debated topic, it is critically important for every American to understand the impact of Obamacare. The Heritage Foundation’s newly updated “Obamacare in Pictures: Visualizing the Effects of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” shows through charts and graphs Obamacare’s far-reaching negative effects on all Americans. (continues below slideshow)

 Obamacare in Pictures: Visualizing the Effects of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act from The Heritage Foundation

Here are a few examples of what the chart series depicts:

• Obamacare’s cuts to Medicare. Obamacare cut $716 billion out of the Medicare program to pay for new spending in Obamacare. These cuts come from Medicare Advantage, hospice services, nursing homes, and more. Taking this money out of Medicare will have serious implications on seniors’ ability to access care. For instance, the Medicare Actuary predicts that by 2017, 50 percent of the seniors enrolled in Medicare Advantage—7.4 million—will have to leave their private plans and move into traditional Medicare—which offers less generous benefits, no cap on catastrophic costs, and separate plans for drug coverage.

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: Affordable Care Act, impact, Medicare Advantage, Medicare cuts, Obamacare in Pictures, slideshow

Obamacare’s 18 New Tax Hikes

Not only did the President and his partners in Congress take $716 billion out of Medicare to pay for Obamacare, but they also raise taxes by $836.3 billion to pay for it, with $36.3 billion hitting Americans in 2013 alone. Here’s the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Joint Committee on Taxation‘s (JCT) updated cost of the Obamacare tax hikes and penalties.

To read about more of Obamacare’s negative effects, click here.

Tags: Cadillac tax, Congressional Budget Office, employer mandate, Individual Mandate, Joint Committee on Taxation, Medicare cuts, ObamaCare, tanning tax, tax hikes

Top Five Reasons Obamacare Is Bad for Doctors

The Supreme Court’s Obamacare decision is expected next week, but it’s important to remember that the constitutionality of the law’s individual mandate isn’t the only concern. Several surveys have revealed that doctors have a negative view of the law and its impact on the practice of medicine. Here are five ways Obamacare will harm doctors:

1. Adds more patients to Medicaid. Beginning in 2014, Obamacare dumps an additional 19.6 million Americans into Medicaid. On average, Medicaid physician payments are only 56 percent of what private insurance pays. Lower payment rates already discourage doctors from accepting Medicaid beneficiaries, which has lead to access issues and hospital emergency room overcrowding. As more patients enroll in this broken program, it will place even more financial strain on physicians who treat them. Doctors will be faced with the decision to either discontinue treating Medicaid patients or accept even more patients at the lower payment rate.

(Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: doctor-patient relationship, doctors, harmful, IPAB, Medicaid Expansion, Medicare cuts, ObamaCare

New Congress Begins Fight to Repeal Obamacare and Get Health Care Reform

As the 112th Congress begins, the new majority in the House of Representatives has already unveiled plans to repeal Obamacare and start over with health care reform. Obamacare moves the United States health care system in the wrong direction, and to get reform right, Congress should start by repealing this onerous piece of legislation. Using a transparent process, the House will vote next Wednesday on a measure to achieve this.

The negative effects of Obamacare will be felt by all Americans. The new law includes several new taxes and penalties for businesses that threaten to kill job growth and further damage the economy. Budget gimmicks and double counting of savings mean Obamacare will increase federal deficit spending significantly. (Read the rest at The Foundry…)

Tags: doctor-patient relationship, increased premiums, Medicaid, Medicare cuts, repeal Obamacare, uninsured

A New Year and a New Direction for Health Care Reform

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act became the law of the land in 2010, but debate over its existence and implementation will rage on in the New Year. The law’s serious policy flaws are already impacting health insurance and costs, but these are part of a deeper and broader issue: the proper role for the federal government in Americans’ health care. The public’s stance on this issue has been anything but settled in the wake of the new law’s passage.

As ramifications of Obamacare continue to play out, it becomes clearer that the changes made are the wrong ones. The new law cuts $575 billion from Medicare, but uses the savings to fund a new health entitlement, rather than deal with the financial insolvency that Medicare faces. “Bending the cost curve” was one of Obamacare’s original goals, but Medicare’s actuary reports that while the the new law indeed bends the curve, it is in the wrong direction: up, not down.

Furthermore, countless employers have said Obamacare accelerated increases in their health insurance premiums, prompting them to consider dropping coverage or pass more of the cost onto employees and their families. Mandates and new regulations are likely to further inhibit businesses’ ability to offer health insurance to employees, and also threaten to negatively affect the economy at large. Finally, when the law comes fully online and the true costs are accounted for, Obamacare is expected to significantly increase the nation’s deficit spending. (Read the rest at The Foundry…)

Tags: health insurance, market-based reforms, Medicare cuts, ObamaCare

Obamacare at Six Months

Yesterday marks six months since the passage of Obamacare. Here’s a quick review of what’s happened since then and what we have learned about the law:

1. Almost immediately after passage of the law, a number of major corporations had to take large write-downs against expectations of higher health care costs in the future. AT&T took a charge of $1 billion. Higher costs for companies mean fewer jobs.

2. The law will not lower national health care expenditures. The latest estimates by the government’s own actuaries now say annual per capita spending will actually rise by $265 when the law’s provisions are fully in effect. But those estimates assume draconian cuts in doctor reimbursement will take place; elsewhere, Medicare’s actuaries say those cuts can never happen without jeopardizing access to care—which is to say Congress will never let them happen. (more…)

Tags: higher health care costs, Individual Mandate, Medicare Advantage, Medicare cuts, ObamaCare

The Medicare Bureaucracy: Ready To Disrupt Seniors’ Drug Coverage

“If you like your health care plan you can keep it.” This was a mantra from President Obama throughout the health care debate. The President also promised that his health care overhaul would not affect seniors’ benefits.

But, despite all the promises, a new report from Avalere Health shows that, in addition to the upheaval caused by Obamacare, the Medicare bureaucracy is taking administrative steps to change the Medicare drug program that will have adverse impact on seniors’ choices. Millions of seniors will have to switch their prescription drug plans due to changes within Medicare. Avalere is a private research firm founded by a former budget official from the Clinton Administration.

Its analysis shows that more than 3 million seniors—roughly 20 percent of those enrolled in stand-alone drug plans—won’t be able to keep their current plan. According to the AP’s Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, some of seniors’ drug plans will be eliminated as “Medicare tries to winnow down duplicative and confusing coverage, in order to offer consumers more meaningful choices.” (more…)

Tags: Avalere Health, Medicare cuts, Medicare drug program, ObamaCare

Paying for Obamacare: Kicking the Can Down the Road to Future Generations

Health care reform was supposed to lower health care spending while expanding access for the uninsured. Instead, though Obamacare will cost taxpayers trillions, it will do little to address the rising cost of care. The government overhaul will not only have large and immediate negative effects for Americans of every ilk, but will have severe implications for future generations, amassing more federal debt to kick down the road to tomorrow’s taxpayers. In a recent paper, Heritage expert James Capretta lays out the several ways in which Obamacare will add to, rather than reduce, federal deficits:

– Omission of the “Doc Fix”: “The Obama Administration and leaders in Congress chose to use all of the tax hikes and spending cuts they could find to create another new entitlement instead of paying for a fix for Medicare physician fees.” According to Capretta, the cost of the doc fix will fall between $250 and $400 billion over a decade.

– Double-Counted CLASS Act Savings: The CLASS Act creates a long-term insurance program where enrollees must pay premiums for five years prior to receiving benefits. Writes Capretta, “premiums paid by enrollees build a small surplus—about $70 billion over 10 years according to CBO—which the health law’s proponents claim as deficit reduction. But these premiums will be needed in short order to pay actual claims.” (more…)

Tags: CLASS Act, doc fix, double-counting, Medicare cuts, ObamaCare, underestimated coverage loss