“President Obama often claims he wants to cut the budget smartly, using a “scalpel”—not a meat axe, machete, cleaver or chainsaw, to list a few of his favorite metaphors. He’ll need a more inspired term to describe what he’s now doing to Medicare Advantage, perhaps napalm or WMD. The Affordable Care Act drained $306 billion from this growing version of Medicare that 29% of seniors use to escape the traditional entitlement and obtain modern private insurance, but the Administration is imposing the cuts in ways that are even more harmful than the law requires.”
“The Pioneer accountable care organizations have asked the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to revise quality benchmarks the ACOs have to meet to qualify for Medicare bonuses, threatening to drop out of the program otherwise. The Pioneer ACOs note 19 of 31 quality measures were set without anchoring methodology, reflecting a lack of data, according to a letter sent Feb. 25 and posted online by The Washington Post.”
“But the quality measures built into ObamaCare’s ACOs aren’t working so well yet either. Indeed, last week, virtually all of the health providers that Medicare has dubbed ‘Pioneer ACOs’—the program’s leaders and examples—sent a letter to Medicare officials overseeing the program in which they threatened to drop out. The reason is that the Pioneers feel that the performance and quality metrics aren’t up to snuff—and the data doesn’t yet exist to determine what the metrics should look like.”
“Though Democrats denied it during the 2012 campaign, Obamacare cut Medicare by $716 billion in order to partially fund $1.9 trillion in new entitlement spending over the next ten years. A big chunk of those Medicare cuts came from the market-oriented Medicare Advantage program. Cleverly, the Obama administration postponed the Medicare Advantage cuts until after the election, so as to persuade seniors that everything would be just fine. But the election is over.”
“Cuts to Medicare Advantage will disproportionately hurt poor seniors and minorities, the health insurance industry said Thursday. America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) has pushed back hard against a proposed cut to private Medicare Advantage plans. The Obama administration proposed the 2 percent cut late last week.”
“Spurred by the Affordable Care Act, hundreds of pilot programs called Accountable Care Organizations have been launched over the past year, affecting tens of millions on Medicare and many who have commercial health insurance… We believe that many of them will not succeed. The ACO concept is based on assumptions about personal and economic behavior—by doctors, patients and others—that aren’t realistic.”
“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.”
“A coalition of medical specialties said Tuesday that it supports a bill to repeal the controversial cost-control board in President Obama’s signature healthcare law. The Alliance of Specialty Medicine — a coalition of specialty groups including brain surgeons, plastic surgeons and heart doctors — said it wants Congress to repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB).”
“The Obama administration is late in implementing several provisions of the federal health overhaul intended to improve access to care and lower costs. The programs, slated to take effect Jan. 1, were supposed to increase fees to primary care doctors who treat Medicaid patients, give states more federal funding if they eliminate Medicaid co-pays for preventive services and experiment with changes to how doctors and hospitals are paid by Medicare.”
“The American Medical Association praised the reintroduction Wednesday of a bill to repeal the controversial Medicare payments board in President Obama’s healthcare law. Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tenn.) reintroduced his bill to repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) — a panel of 15 healthcare experts with the power to cut Medicare payments to doctors if spending grows faster than a prescribed rate.”