Posted on 09/08/2012 8:27:04 AM PDT by Justaham
I know that every campaign promise Barack Obama makes has an expiration date … but this is ridiculous. The confetti is barely off the floor at the Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, North Carolina after Obama’s acceptance speech, and already we find out that he’s flip-flopped. Remember this part of the speech, in which he attacks the Paul Ryan plan to apply free-market reform and cost controls to Medicare?
(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...
His idea of leading is spewing snappy slogans, then heading for the links.
Bump
Other than the irony of the whole thing, I don’t have a problem with this. Medicaid is eating up state budgets in a massive way. Allowing states to pay an insurance company $14k or $15k per person is going to be a darned sight cheaper than the per senior cost for Medicaid for them. The states do not have any role in Medicare. They do have a role (and a huge, huge unfunded federal mandate) in Medicaid.
the feds already pay about $1200 to the medicare advantage for each senior that opts into a medicaqre advantage health plan, and a lot of states including Calif already have managed care heath plan for Medicaid members, the managed care plan here in OC calif handles both medi-cal and medicare. How much the state pays them i don’t know
Taking low income seniors out of the Federal Medicare and into a State plan likely administered by private companies is a very good idea.
1. The states will be able to control costs because states must balance their budgets and cannot print money.
2. States will use private insurance companies to administer benefits. The private companies are more efficient and less expensive than state administrators and employees.
3. States will respond more rapidly to local needs. For example, disease prevalence varies from region to region.
4. States can also pass laws that give providers (insurance companies and healthcare providers) some protection from needless lawsuits.
5. Insurers and providers can be given the flexibility to create lower cost treatment models with less Federal interference.
These low income seniors are a part of the ‘safety net’ and have contributed relatively little to Medicare through payroll taxes. Rationed care for this sub-group is still a generous proposition from a nation with critical budgetary problems on the verge of financial collapse.
I need me a gig like that - collect all the money and make someone else responsible for servicing the customer.
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