“Dr. Donald Berwick has his coming out party today in Washington. After President Obama snuck him into office during a recess appointment as the head of the second largest health insurance company in the world- CMS (Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services) without so much as a single hearing, Senators finally have an opportunity to meet him during a Finance Committee meeting.”
Medicare is facing a huge 23% cut to doctor reimbursements starting December 1. Doctors are panicking, and it will likely be overturned, but ObamaCare is paid for with the same type of across the board cuts to Medicare payments. “Breast cancer surgeon Kathryn Wagner has posted a warning in her waiting room about a different sort of risk to patients’ health: She’ll stop taking new Medicare cases if Congress allows looming cuts in doctors’ pay to go through.”
ObamaCare is planning to achieve significant savings in Medicare through creating Accountable Care Organizations to coordinate patient care. But these ACOs are unlikely to work because very few doctors and hospitals are equipped to set them up any time soon.
“Some Republicans may be willing to take their symbolic victory in the House and call it a day. They shouldn’t. There are many things they can do short of repeal that can begin the step-by-step dismantling of ObamaCare.”
Andy Griffith is running ads paid for the government to promote the benefits of ObamaCare for Medicare beneficiaries. “Hate to quarrel with a television legend, but we have two problems. First, there’s the curious timing of the ad. The Medicare changes don’t fully kick in until 2014, but the government spent about $3 million to run the ad in October alone, in the heart of the midterm campaign, Politico reported.”
“Until the next presidential election, the short-term tactical agenda for the new de facto majority in Congress remains mostly defund, delay, and debunk. Initiatives to reduce or cut off funding for implementation of the next round of ObamaCare need to be targeted narrowly to succeed… Trying to wind back the ObamaCare implementation clock so that it doesn’t get so dark so early is a more promising approach. Congressional appropriations riders could attach new conditions that must be met before proceeding further.”
“While hospital leaders admit the economy sparked this problem, it says the Obama Health Care Reform Act gave the hospital a one-two punch. While more people may soon get more health coverage, Obama’s plan cuts reimbursement dollars for hospitals at a time administrators say they could use them most.”
“Democrats and their media apologists just can’t bring themselves to believe that there is anything substantive behind opposition to Obamacare. And so, instead of engaging in serious argument, they offer up condescending nonsense — such as this New York Times editorial which supposedly debunks the myths being peddled on the campaign trail by candidates trying to stir up opposition to Obamacare.”
“The new health care law specifically targets reimbursement for new drugs and devices as a way to save money in programs like Medicare and Medicaid. These savings, in turn, are used to pay for new health coverage for the uninsured. But the legislation doesn’t take down drug and medical device prices directly. Rather, it creates a series of new agencies, boards, and authorities that separately will be empowered to construct new rules to impact how medical products are priced, as well as to restrict their use by defining when and if products are covered by insurance.”
The Washington Post performed a “fact check” on claims about the new health law. Many of their conclusions were less than factually based.