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Medicare "drifting towards disaster": U.S. official
Reuters via Yahoo! News ^ | 4/29/08 | Reuters

Posted on 04/29/2008 7:08:28 PM PDT by libertarianPA

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Medicare is lurching toward disaster and it is too late for the Bush Administration and Congress to do anything about it, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said on Tuesday.

He said the next administration will have to act to stop rising costs and get control of the $400 billion federal health insurance plan for the elderly, which now covers 44 million people.

"Higher and higher costs are being borne by fewer and fewer people. Sooner or later, this formula implodes," Leavitt said in a speech to the right-leaning Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute think-tanks.

"There is serious danger here," he added. "Medicare is drifting towards disaster."

Leavitt's speech echoes repeated warnings from other federal government officials who have noted that Medicare spending is projected to be 3.3 percent of gross domestic product in 2009.

A separate report released on Tuesday from the National Cancer Institute estimated that Medicare spent $21 billion on cancer alone between 1999 and 2003.

"The disaster is not inevitable. If we act now, we can change the outcome. In health care, the core problem is that costs are rising significantly faster than costs in the economy as a whole," Leavitt said.

But the administration of President George W. Bush and the current Congress are out of time, Leavitt said.

"So, given the strong possibility this won't get fixed in the next 266 days, I would like to add some general advice on the creation of a political construct for action and a general strategy to solve the problem," Leavitt said, saying he was speaking as a Medicare Trustee and not as a government official.

Leavitt said paying for each medical action separately is wasteful and "it often results in bad referral decisions, sloppy hand-offs, duplications, fraud, and poor quality of care. The result is inappropriate care and unnecessary cost."

Last week the Government Accountability Office blamed HHS in part for this, saying the agency had not used its powers to force hospitals to provide better care and less waste.

"It troubles me that this matter is not receiving more attention in the presidential candidates' discussions. The next president will have to deal with this in significant part," he said.


TOPICS: Health/Medicine
KEYWORDS: bankruptcy; disaster; entitlements; federalspending; genx; healthcare; medicare; seniors
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To: steve86

If you haven’t saved enough to pay for your own medical care by the time your in your 70s well then its time to slip away quietly.”

What about all the money you paid into SSI that you’re never going to see?


21 posted on 04/29/2008 10:50:46 PM PDT by philetus (Keep doing what you always do and you'll keep getting what you always get.)
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To: Cedar

And how many years did the world survive before Medicare and hospitals?

Do you think the world is the same place now?


22 posted on 04/29/2008 10:54:12 PM PDT by philetus (Keep doing what you always do and you'll keep getting what you always get.)
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To: philetus

Last time I looked it was still earth.


23 posted on 04/29/2008 11:04:08 PM PDT by Cedar
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To: Cedar

Last time I looked it was still earth.”

Wow, great non-committal, non- answer.


24 posted on 04/29/2008 11:05:54 PM PDT by philetus (Keep doing what you always do and you'll keep getting what you always get.)
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To: philetus

Sorry, at this time of night I don’t have the strength for great debates. I’ll be heading for bed soon.


25 posted on 04/29/2008 11:11:44 PM PDT by Cedar
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To: Cedar

The world survived, but a lot of people died young.


26 posted on 04/29/2008 11:14:22 PM PDT by Richard Kimball (We're all criminals. They just haven't figured out what some of us have done yet.)
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To: Richard Kimball

I guess enough lived to carry it on. :)


27 posted on 04/29/2008 11:21:29 PM PDT by Cedar
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To: utherdoul
If you haven’t saved enough to pay for your own medical care by the time your in your 70s well then its time to slip away quietly.

So your suggesting everyone should have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars for their old age health care?

Thanks for the laugh.

28 posted on 04/29/2008 11:30:44 PM PDT by dragnet2
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To: long hard slogger; FormerACLUmember; Harrius Magnus; Lynne; hocndoc; parousia; Hydroshock; ...
Socialized Medicine aka Universal Health Care PING LIST

FReepmail me if you want to be added to or removed from this ping list.


29 posted on 04/30/2008 5:54:53 AM PDT by socialismisinsidious ( The socialist income tax system turns US citizens into beggars or quitters!)
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To: libertarianPA
Leavitt said paying for each medical action separately is wasteful and "it often results in bad referral decisions, sloppy hand-offs, duplications, fraud, and poor quality of care. The result is inappropriate care and unnecessary cost."
Last week the Government Accountability Office blamed HHS in part for this, saying the agency had not used its powers to force hospitals to provide better care and less waste.


So what exactly is this guy proposing? Is he saying that payments of lump sums should be paid out and then what....stop giving medical care when the money is gone? How would not paying for each medical action solve the problem of duplication, fraud, better care, waste? It wouldn't. The problem with Medicare is that it's top down government run...the problem with Medicare is socialism. This bureaucrat will never understand the true problem (the big government system) he will just think he hasn't done enough of it yet.
30 posted on 04/30/2008 6:06:12 AM PDT by socialismisinsidious ( The socialist income tax system turns US citizens into beggars or quitters!)
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To: GovernmentShrinker
We increasingly have hard-working responsible people, who take responsibility for their own financial well-being and healthy lifestyles, forced to subsidize those who who spend most of their waking hours lounging in front of the TV stuffing themselves. This is simply unsustainable, and the longer it goes on, the uglier the end will be.

That's not always the case. Many of my friends (college students and recent graduates) almost never see the doctor or go to the hospital but have to pay insurance premiums and Medicare taxes anyways. The reality is that Medicare, like Social Security, is a generational redistribution of wealth from younger or middle-aged citizens and taxpayers to the "elderly" and "retired."

I predict massive and severe tax increases. There may be reduction in benefits, but older, retired folks will not give up on their entitlements, especially since they believe that they are simply getting back what they paid for, through taxes, and they will voluntarily damn the younger generations if they must.

31 posted on 04/30/2008 9:09:36 AM PDT by rabscuttle385 (Republican...because not everyone can be on welfare.)
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To: rabscuttle385

I think if you dug down into the numbers, you’d find that Medicare isn’t an intergenerational wealth transfer at all, but rather a transfer from the working classes (especially the middle and upper classes who work) to the non-working classes. All you need to get on Medicare is to get kidney failure, even if you’re 20 years old. And the welfare class has a huge incidence of self-inflicted diabetes and accompanying high blood pressure, which most refuse to manage effectively, even when Medicaid is willing to pay all the expenses.

So huge numbers of them come down with kidney failure way before reaching the age threshold for which Medicare has been sold to voters, and immediately start getting full coverage for EVERY medical condition, in addition to dialysis and other kidney failure treatments. Most of them are obese and smoke, so they have a long list of medical problems, and if they ever worked, it wasn’t for very long, because they went on disability welfare early in their adult lives, and wasn’t at an income that involves paying much tax of any kind, since they’re poorly educated and not any more motivated to succeed at a career than to take care of their health. This is largely being paid for in taxes on middle-aged and older workers’ earnings, and retired people’s investment and pension income.


32 posted on 04/30/2008 9:21:16 AM PDT by GovernmentShrinker
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To: GovernmentShrinker
I think if you dug down into the numbers, you’d find that Medicare isn’t an intergenerational wealth transfer at all, but rather a transfer from the working classes (especially the middle and upper classes who work) to the non-working classes.

You make a good point, though Medicare eligibility is generally limited to age 65 or above, kidney failure can also make an individual eligible, regardless of age. Some FReeper should dig into the official numbers and chart which groups are getting payments, the geographic distribution of payments, etc. for both Medicare and Medicaid (the low-income, means-tested health care program).

33 posted on 04/30/2008 9:34:47 AM PDT by rabscuttle385 (Republican...because not everyone can be on welfare.)
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To: Ethrane

“It ain’t going to be pretty, but Medicare will go the way Medicaid is going now...which is bankrupt.”

Yep. The only caveat I would add is that currently doctors can refuse patients. Hospitals can not. The conventional hospital will be closing but true private hospitals will start opening. We already see this in standalone ER’s, surgery centers, etc. that won’t take Gubmint insurance.

People had better wake up for there own sake, regardless of their country, as the seams are starting to rip. As goes medicine, so goes America.


34 posted on 04/30/2008 9:59:30 AM PDT by Harrius Magnus (I am the town square.)
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To: rabscuttle385

Per this link http://www.statehealthfacts.org/comparetable.jsp?ind=292&cat=6 in 2004 15.7% of Medicare enrollees were under 65. Given the fast-increasing rate of diabetes and resulting kidney failure, I expect it’s higher now. But more significant is the demographics of the underage group, which is certainly overwhelmingly the low- or no-tax paying segment of society, since that demographic profile is already well-established as very disproportionately accounting for the high incidence of diabetes.

It would be interesting to see what percentage of Medicare-covered people actually get out more than they paid in over a lifetime (including the investment return they would have gotten, had they kept the money and invested it in conservative and safe instruments). I’d be surprised if at least 75% aren’t taking out more than they put in. Classic case of people voting themselves other people’s money, with politicians’ encouragement.


35 posted on 04/30/2008 10:32:56 AM PDT by GovernmentShrinker
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To: Harrius Magnus

We’re also seeing some states acting to bar private hospitals from opening, other than the kind of “private” hospitals that are designed around catering to Medicare and Medicare patients.


36 posted on 04/30/2008 10:35:08 AM PDT by GovernmentShrinker
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To: libertarianPA; All
As a side note concerning Medicare, this post (<-click), while discussing taxes, tells in general how federal programs like Medicare are a result of FDR's constitutionally unauthorized New Deal federal spending programs.

In fact, Thomas Jefferson, while commenting on the Founder's division of federal and state powers, noted that the Founders had trusted the states, not the federal government, with the care of the people. See for yourself.

"Our citizens have wisely formed themselves into one nation as to others and several States as among themselves. To the united nation belong our external and mutual relations; to each State, severally, the care of our persons, (emphasized by Amendment10) our property, our reputation and religious freedom." --Thomas Jefferson: To Rhode Island Assembly, 1801. ME 10:262 http://tinyurl.com/onx4j
The bottom line is that the people need to reconnect with the intentions of the Founders as reflected by the Constitution and its history, particularly with respect to the requirement for constitutionally enumerated federal government powers which reasonably justify federal spending. The people really need to get in the faces of members of Congress who are foolishly following in the footsteps of FDR's dirty, Constitution-ignoring politics, demanding an end to unauthorized federal spending and an appropriate lowering of federal taxes.
37 posted on 04/30/2008 11:24:20 AM PDT by Amendment10
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To: Amendment10

I agree with you, FRiend; however, that train left the station long ago. Some would trace it to Pre-WWI, while others would look at the War for Southern Independence. Regardless, this has not been our Founder’s Republic for greater than 4 generations. Most folks cannot name one Amend. of the Bill of Rights.
The chances of rallying around the Constitution are about as likely as rallying around Liberté, Egalité, and Fraternité.

“the people need to reconnect with the intentions of the Founders as reflected by the Constitution and its history...”

“The people really need to get in the faces of members of Congress who are foolishly following in the footsteps of FDR’s dirty...”

The people have little incentive to make trouble and have a substantial risk of receiving pain. The people would rather stare at LCD American Idle (no pun), and eat Dominoes.


38 posted on 04/30/2008 12:49:24 PM PDT by Harrius Magnus (I am the town square.)
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To: Harrius Magnus
Yep. The only caveat I would add is that currently doctors can refuse patients. Hospitals can not.

That is only sort of true....

If I am on staff at a hospital, most hospitals will require that I take 'call' for emergencies as a part of my privileges. When I am 'on call', I usually have no right of refusal to see patients based on financial/insurance status. So any hospital-based physician kind of has their hands tied...and this is why there are often hospital/physician agreements with income guarantees or stipends etc, because without them, if the hospital had a bad 'payor' mix, no physician would probably work there. Hospitals don't make physicians 'whole' but they at least try in most cases to soften the blow.

But that money has to come from somewhere...and the government's constant squeezing of hospitals and physicians reimbursements cannot go on forever. Eventually hospitals close and physicians/staff move on to some place that isn't overrun with no pay/medicaid/medicare patients.

If everyone knew the half of what the government already does to screw up healthcare, they wouldn't be so fast to clamor for more government control.

39 posted on 04/30/2008 12:54:34 PM PDT by Ethrane ("semper consolar")
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To: libertarianPA

ping


40 posted on 05/31/2008 11:31:59 PM PDT by Blind Eye Jones
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