“The new health care law is supposed to fix the problem by guaranteeing access to affordable coverage for all. But many nursing homes and home care agencies, alarmed at the cost of providing health insurance to hundreds of thousands of health care workers, have started a lobbying effort seeking some kind of exemption or special treatment.”
“Even before Obamacare was enacted, the nation’s most difficult long-term economic challenge was runaway entitlement spending. Obamacare is more gasoline on what’s already a raging fire. The law included no real reform of Medicare or Medicaid. It simply doubled down on the failed model of command-and-control payment rate reductions. Those have never worked before to make the programs sustainable, and they won’t work this time either.”
“One of ObamaCare’s main goals is to cut costs — President Obama has said so repeatedly. Because Medicare is such a big dog in health care, and the government’s single largest toe-hold in the industry, Obama was counting on using it to shape providers’ behavior in the direction of cutting costs. So far, their efforts do not seem to be appreciated.
This initiative is all the more important because Obama did not go for the low-hanging fruit in medical cost-savings — malpractice reform.”
“Basically, hospitals will not be able to provide seniors with the same kind of services they provide younger patients. To survive, we may see hospitals specialize in Medicare patients and provide far fewer amenities. In some cases, they may offer reduced access to expensive technology. A private room paid for by Medicare may be replaced by four- or six-bed wards. Menu choices may be replaced by the civilian equivalent of meals-ready-to-eat. Hospitals that accept Medicare patients may have access to MRI scanners, but not PET scanners.”
“Despite the fact that the three-judge appeals court panel was comprised entirely of Democratic appointees, he said there was a positive surprise for opponents of the law.”
“An astounding 93 percent of physician group practices surveyed by a key trade organization warned that they would not join a new healthcare reform program to reward quality of care unless it’s thoroughly reworked.”
“Beginning in 2014, the Affordable Care Act will expand the mandatory population and require that states make Medicaid available to all individuals, married or single, under the age of 65 with incomes at or below 133 percent of poverty. Although the federal government will provide funds for states to cover this newly eligible population, it will increase the fiscal burden on many states, particularly those that do not already cover expanded optional populations.”
“The nation’s highest-profile health care centers—think of the Cleveland Clinic, the Mayo Clinic, Intermountain Healthcare or the Geisinger Health System—are the models for the Obama administration’s accountable care organization (ACO) proposal. But officials at those tightly organized institutions have so many concerns with the proposed rule to create ACOs that they doubt that they will participate.”
“Today, the Fourth Circuit became the first appellate court in the nation to enter the Obamacare fray. It heard two very similar cases back-to-back, Liberty University’s, in which the government won in the district court, and the Commonwealth of Virginia’s, in which Judge Henry Hudson struck down the individual mandate back in December.”
“The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act aims for a delicate balance that even its champions acknowledge as highly challenging: Making medical services affordable for tens of millions of uninsured Americans, and yet restraining the expenditures needed to vastly expand coverage so that it shrinks, rather than swells, the looming deficits.”