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Republicans Sens. Tom Coburn (Okla.) and Richard Burr (N.C.) today unveiled a plan to revamp Medicare that would accelerate a transition to private insurance, raise the benefit eligibility age and up the premiums paid by middle-class and upper-income seniors. (Avik Roy calls it "the best Medicare reform proposal yet.")Coburn said it best when he explained to The Washington Times why they decided to release the plan in an election year, when it's unlikely to actually go anywhere: "All of us in Congress are running around fixing everything except our biggest problem. If you don’t start fixing Medicare, you can't save...

The Obama administration proposed a sharp increase in spending at the agency that runs Medicare and Medicaid – and the reason why might surprise you. Monday’s budget calls for spending $4.82 billion on administrative costs at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for fiscal 2013, a 25.9% increase in the previous year’s estimated budget of $3.83 billion. That doesn’t include the much larger sums the agency spends on its actual programs, which provide insurance to seniors, the disabled and the poor. A chunk of Baby Boomers will turn age 65 this year and become eligible for Medicare, but that...

"A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that seniors who receive Social Security cannot reject their legal right to Medicare benefits, in a rare case of Americans suing to get out of a government entitlement......"

Permanent repeal of the flawed Medicare payment formula known as the sustainable growth rate just got a lot more expensive. According to the Congressional Budget Office, which released its new Budget and Economic Outlook report on Tuesday morning, a 10-year repeal of the growth-rate formula that froze doctors' rates at current levels would cost $316 billion, compared with $290 billion when CBO last calculated the rate in November. The difference may make permanent repeal of the formula--always a long shot--even less palatable to lawmakers.

Debating in Tampa, Florida in late-January, while falsely characterizing Newt Gingrich’s income from his government consulting work, Mitt Romney denied that Bain did “any work with the government like Medicaid and Medicare”. Now we learn that Bain, under Romney’s “supervision”, purchased and ran the Damon Corporation, who pled guilty to Federal conspiracy charges as a result of tens of millions of dollars in systemic Medicare fraud committed under Romney’s and Bain’s control. Damon was fined over $119-million which was, at the time, the largest criminal healthcare fine in Massachusetts history and Mr. Romney’s participation was characterized in 1996 by Corporate...

Debating in Tampa Florida this month, Mitt Romney strongly denied that his investment company Bain Capital did "any work with the government like Medicaid and Medicare." However, under Romney's "supervision," Bain purchased and ran the Damon Corporation which pled guilty to Federal conspiracy charges - as a result of tens of millions in systemic Medicare fraud... According to a cited Forbes report, in 1989, Bain Capital purchased controlling interest in Damon Corp. a medical testing company located in Needham, Massachusetts. "During the time that Bain held its ownership of the company, Mitt Romney personally sat on the board of directors.."...

Romney Faces Medicare Attacks in Florida By Alan Silverleib January 27 (CNN) -- GOP presidential front-runners Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich barnstormed across Florida on Friday, trying to rally supporters and break away in the polls four days before what is shaping up to be a pivotal primary in that state. The morning after a heated CNN/Florida Republican Party debate in Jacksonville, a pro-Gingrich super PAC hit the airwaves with a television ad essentially accusing Romney of committing Medicare fraud. One of Gingrich's top Florida backers, former state Attorney General Bill McCollum, also raised questions about Romney's past service on...

Winning Our Future | Blood Money [FULL] - YouTube

Debating in Tampa, Florida in late-January, while falsely characterizing Newt Gingrich’s income from his government consulting work, Mitt Romney denied that Bain did “any work with the government like Medicaid and Medicare”. Now we learn that Bain, under Romney’s “supervision”, purchased and ran the Damon Corporation, who pled guilty to Federal conspiracy charges as a result of tens of millions of dollars in systemic Medicare fraud committed under Romney’s and Bain’s control. Damon was fined over $119-million which was, at the time, the largest criminal healthcare fine in Massachusetts history and Mr. Romney’s participation was characterized in 1996 by Corporate...

I'll give a link to the entire Forbes.com article below, which I am quoting and excerpting. I believe that pro-Gingrich people are running ads on this. "In 1989, Bain Capital purchased controlling interest in Damon Corp...During the time that Bain held its ownership of the company, Mitt Romney sat on the board of directors...during that same period, Damon Corp. was busy selling fraudulent reimbursement claims to the tune of millions of dollars...By the time Damon Corp. pleaded guilty...Bain was long gone having sold the company in 1993 to Corning Inc... When Mitt Romney was confronted with the matter during his...

Newt Gingrich avoided tens of thousands of dollars in Medicare payroll taxes in 2010 by using a technique the Internal Revenue Service has consistently and successfully attacked. Republican Presidential candidate Gingrich and his wife, Callista, treated only $444,327 of what they got from Gingrich Holdings. Inc. and Gingrich Productions as compensation to them, while reporting a whopping $2.4 million of their earnings from these corporations as profits or dividends. Medicare taxes are levied at a rate of 2.9% on an unlimited amount of compensation and self-employment income (say, from a consulting contract, speeches or a book) but not on profits...

In 1989, Bain Capital purchased controlling interest in Damon Corporation, a medical testing company located in Needham, Massachusetts. During the time that Bain held its ownership of the company Mitt Romney personally sat on the Board of Directors. And during that same period, Damon Corporation was busy submitting fraudulent reimbursement claims to Medicare to the tune of millions of dollars charged for unnecessary blood tests. ... By the time Damon pleaded guilty to defrauding the United States Government of $25 million - and paid a total of $119 million in what was, at that time, the largest penalty of its...

The Department of Justice (DOJ) says an investigation by the Medicare Strike Force involving the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the FBI and the Louisiana State Attorney General's Office, resulted in two Baton Rouge residents pleading guilty for their role in a $21 million Medicare fraud plot. Henry Jones, the owner of four durable medical equipment (DME) companies, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge James J. Brady in the Middle District of Louisiana ...

Help Maine's Tea Party governor get Medicare cots under control by removing able bodied adults from the Medicaid rolls. Poll is down on the left. Vote Yes!

There are many reasons to be grateful for the introduction of the Medicare “premium support” plan by Democratic senator Ron Wyden and Republican House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan. In some respects, it represents an improvement over the design of previous versions of premium support. Whereas the original Ryan plan offered seniors a subsidy based on a predetermined formula, the Wyden-Ryan plan relies on competitive bidding for setting the government’s contribution rate. Competitive bidding has the potential to cut costs even more than a predetermined index, because an index tends to lock in today’s wasteful spending. Of course, Wyden-Ryan also...

What was the biggest political lie of 2011? Lots of competition there. But recently Politifact, the St. Petersburg Times' fact-checking website, declared its winner: the claim by congressional Democrats that House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's budget plan would "end Medicare." Ryan's innovative proposal kept Medicare intact for people 55 or older, Politifact noted, "but dramatically changed the program for everyone else by privatizing it and providing government subsidies." The big Mediscare lie worked; Ryan's plan didn't clear the Congress. Too bad. Ryan visited the Tribune editorial board earlier this year, and we liked his fresh thinking about how to...

10 Things Medicare Won't Tell YouThe government's massive entitlement program is full of costly glitches By CATEY HILL DECEMBER 20, 2011, 6:05 P.M. ET 1. "We fork over millions for unproven procedures." 2. "Think Social Security is broke? Just look at Medicare." 3. "We pay for dead people." 4. "Don't expect a five-star plan." 5. "We're not popular with many doctors." 6. "We get ripped off a lot." 7. "We don't cover a lot of the care seniors need most." 8. "Paws off that cash, grandpa: Your settlement is ours." 9. "Complain all you want ..." 10. "Want Your Way?...

James Breedin cannot keep track of how often he has been admitted to Howard University Hospital in Washington, D.C., for heart problems. "It's been so many," said Breedin, a 75-year-old disabled truck driver. One reason for his frequent returns, he says, is that he often can't afford the medications his doctor prescribes to keep his heart problems in check, "so I have to do without." And though his doctors recommend regular physical activity -- a lifestyle change that could also cut the chances he will find himself in the hospital again -- he said he fears exercising outside because of...

I wonder whether this award will have those conservatives blasting politically-motivated “fact check� operations rethinking that criticism? Naaaah. Why let a little inconsistency ruin one’s vindication? Republicans muscled a budget through the House of Representatives in April that they said would take an important step toward reducing the federal deficit. Introduced by U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the plan kept Medicare intact for people 55 or older, but dramatically changed the program for everyone else by privatizing it and providing government subsidies.Democrats pounced. Just four days after the party-line vote, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee released a Web ad...

Republicans muscled a budget through the House of Representatives in April that they said would take an important step toward reducing the federal deficit. Introduced by U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the plan kept Medicare intact for people 55 or older, but dramatically changed the program for everyone else by privatizing it and providing government subsidies. Democrats pounced. Just four days after the party-line vote, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee released a Web ad that said seniors will have to pay $12,500 more for health care "because Republicans voted to end Medicare." Rep. Steve Israel of New York, head...

Republican presidential frontrunner Newt Gingrich is reacting positively to a bipartisan Medicare reform plan, tweeting, "The Wyden-Ryan bipartisan Medicare reform plan is a major breakthrough with Democrats and Republicans working together to solve big problems." The plan in question, from Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan and Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, would keep traditional Medicare as an option for new retirees when it goes into effect in 2022, though private insurance would also be able to engage in regulated competition with the government-run health care plan. The eligibility age would remain at 65 under the new plan. Ryan, the House...

An unholy, unexpected political marriage between a Democratic senator and a House Republican firebrand will have implications beyond Capitol Hill — and could conceivably alter both the political tenor of the 2012 elections and the long-term policy fight over the future of Medicare. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) is teaming up with Paul Ryan, the House’s top budget guy and the author of the GOP’s controversial budget which proposes phasing out traditional Medicare and replacing it with a private plan. The two announced via The Washington Post that they’ll be teaming up on a different version of that Medicare plan —...

Democrats had to have a plan to tie all Republican candidates to that crazy notion floated by Paul Ryan to transform Medicare into a premium-support plan, an idea so radical that no Democrat or even sane person could possibly support. Why, even Newt Gingrich called it “right-wing social engineering�! Barack Obama could get up on the stump all year and tell seniors that only he could hold back the hordes of crazy Tea Party activists that would throw Grandma to the mercy of — quelle horreur — insurance companies. Wait, I wrote that inaccurately. It should have been eeeeeeeeeevil insurance...

Each year, the federal government hands approximately $10 billion over to the richest 1% of Americans — mainly to rich retirees — according to an IBD analysis of data on various federal transfer programs. And these payments are growing, adding to the income inequality that politicians like President Obama frequently complain about.

According to data collected by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Medicare has spent more than $240 million of taxpayer money on penis pumps for elderly men over the past decade, and will surpass a quarter of a billion dollars this year for costs since 2001. The cost to taxpayers for the pumps more than quadrupled during that period, from a low of $11 million in 2001 to a high of more than $47 million in 2010. And these represent only the costs for external devices, technically classified as “Male Vacuum Erection Systems,” not implantable devices or oral...

Part of Pres. Obama's latest stimulus package involves renewing a payroll tax holiday that was to expire at the end of 2011. Because FICA taxes are one of the few income taxes that most Americans actually pay, the extension is popular and will probably pass Congress in some form. Of course Social Security and Medicare, the programs funded by FICA taxes, are hopelessly insolvent, and the tax holiday only worsens the problem. More telling is that the tax holiday finally debunks the notion that these programs are self-sustaining entitlements; the tax holiday exposes them simply as middle class welfare. The...

There's a lot of debate about the future of labor in America: Will manufacturing ever come back? Will automation be a job destroyer? Will we all be freelancers working from home, shifting from gig to gig every 6 months?It's all interesting to think about, but if you want to place one solid bet on the future of jobs in America, this chart would be a pretty simple place to start.Regardless of where the economic cycle is, health care jobs just keep going up in a straight line. Image: https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?id=CES6562000101 The chart is even more impressive when you look at healthcare...

Remember when President Obama said that if his health care “reform” law passed, you’d still get to keep your doctor? Medicare Advantage participants in the Granite State are finding out what a lie that was. Medicare Advantage is a subset of Medicare in which the federal government pays private insurers a set monthly rate to provide coverage that is approved and regulated by Medicare. The private insurers can charge different rates and offer a wider variety of services than are offered in traditional Medicare. Though Medicare Advantage costs more in its startup phase, the idea is to save money in...

WASHINGTON, Nov 29 (Reuters) - Republicans in the U.S. Congress on Tuesday threw their support behind a payroll tax cut extension, trying to blunt charges ahead of 2012 elections of favoring wealthy Americans over middle-class workers. Until Tuesday, Republicans had been lukewarm on extending President Barack Obama's payroll tax cut for workers, indicating they were open to negotiating it but never explicitly backing a measure, which the White House says will boost the country's sputtering economic recovery. (snip) "In all likelihood we will agree to continue the current payroll tax relief for another year," Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said...

Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Barney Frank announced on Tuesday his support for the repeal of the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a significant portion of President Obama’s health care overhaul. Frank, who announced Monday that he would retire at the end of his current term in office, became the 12th Democrat, and the 212th member of the House, to co-sponsor Tennessee Republican Rep. Phil Roe’s bill aimed at repealing the IPAB. Frank is the most prominent Democrat to join Roe’s bipartisan repeal effort. IPAB is a 15-member board, appointed by the president, scheduled to convene in 2014. In order to reduce per...

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) chief Donald Berwick will step down on December 2, three weeks before his recess appointment expires on December 31. Fortunately, Dr. Berwick left a voluminous paper trail, leaving little doubt about his affinity for socialized medicine. His controversial views on "redistributional" healthcare and rationing prompted 42 senators to vehemently oppose his nomination last spring. Not wishing to have another fight on his hands, President Obama has nominated Berwick's second-in-command, Marilyn Tavenner, to head the agency. Tavenner will act as CMS director until her own confirmation hearings sometime next year. As principal deputy administrator...

I am considering declining Medicare coverage when I finally get there, still a few years off, does anyone have any experience about this issue? Would I still be able to get healthcare insurance after 65 without medicare? Or is it mandatory? I understand, I think, that I will have to forgoe SS. Any feedback? I am by no means wealthy, but I think I would rather untangle from the government completely as far as health and retirement go.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The point man for carrying out President Barack Obama’s health care law will be stepping down after Republicans succeeded in blocking his confirmation by the Senate, an official said Wednesday. Medicare chief Don Berwick, a Harvard professor widely respected for his ideas on how to improve the health care system, became the most prominent casualty of the political wars over a health care overhaul law whose constitutionality will be now decided by the Supreme Court. Berwick’s Dec. 2 resignation was confirmed by a senior congressional official, speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of an announcement by the...

Once upon a time, physicians and their families used to be able to enjoy exotic cruises sponsored by pharmaceutical companies where their only obligation, it seems, was to sign in briefly at sparsely attended meetings before embarking on offshore adventures. It’s been awhile since the sun slowly set on the wake of the last ship’s 
sybaritic junket. Today, the Federal Physician Payment Sunshine Act — part of national healthcare reform — signals a new dawn of transparency, compliance obligations, and regulatory scrutiny. Beginning January 1, 2012, manufacturers of drugs, devices, biologicals or medical supplies, covered by Medicare, Medicaid or other...

"The Health Care Innovation Challenge will award up $1 billion in grants to applicants who will implement the most compelling new ideas to deliver better health, improved care and lower costs to people enrolled in Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP, particularly those with the highest health care needs." "Awards will range from approximately $1 million to $30 million for a three-year period. Applications are open to providers, payers, local government, public-private partnerships and multi-payer collaboratives."

As the deficit supercommittee continued to flail away Monday with its deadline fast approaching, the Supreme Court took up the constitutionality of the 2010 health law's insurance mandate. The stories dominated national news, but the coverage left out a critical detail: the timing was far from coincidental. Indeed, it seems likely that the parties will have to come to terms over the fate of the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare) before they'll be able to reach a grand deficit bargain.

This morning, as expected, the Supreme Court agreed to take up Obamacare. What was unexpected — and unprecedented in modern times — is that it set aside five-and-a-half hours for the argument. Here are the issues the Court will decide: 1.Whether Congress has the power to enact the individual mandate. – 2 hours 2.Whether the challenge to the individual mandate is barred by the Anti-Injunction Act. – 1 hour 3.Whether and to what extent the individual mandate, if unconstitutional, is severable from the rest of the Act. – 90 minutes 4.Whether the new conditions on all federal Medicaid funding (expanding...

At a Friday speech in Washington, Mitt Romney complained once again that “President Obama is the only president in history who has cut Medicare for seniors” and promised with a straight face to “Protect Medicare. Improve the program. And keep it sustainable for generations to come.” His plan to save the program from eventual bankruptcy? As is so often the case with Romney’s policy proposals, the details are still vague. Even still, there’s an easy way to describe the basic framework: It’s ObamaCare for seniors—but with the addition of a government-run “public option,” also known as traditional Medicare. The plan...

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) made clear on Thursday that when it comes to a deficit reduction deal, his position hasn’t changed: Tax increases are out, but new revenues could be in. The question of taxes and revenue has bedeviled congressional and administration negotiators for months, and they were at the center of the dispute between Boehner and President Obama when their talks for a possible “grand bargain” on the budget fell apart over the summer. As the clock ticks down on the deficit supercommittee to find at least $1.2 trillion in savings, the size and scope of new revenues...

The British medical journal Lancet reported last month that 32% of elderly American patients undergo surgery in the year before they die, a statistic culled from Medicare data. In an accompanying editorial, Dr. Amy Kelley of Mount Sinai School of Medicine labeled the 32% figure a "call to action"—to reduce costly surgeries, intensive-care stays and other high-intensity care for the elderly. Her call was parroted in hundreds of media outlets nationwide. But advocates for limiting health-care spending on the elderly are distorting science to make their argument. Don't be bamboozled: The Lancet investigators looked only at patients who died...

As you may know, Republican Presidential candidate Rick Perry is unveiling his proposal for an optional flat tax. ...Of equal importance, Perry is for the first time unveiling his thoughts on Medicare reform. ___ Perry reforms could significantly expand the individual health insurance market. As I’ve written many times, the employer tax exclusion for health insurance is American health care’s original sin: a $300 billion-a-year tax subsidy that is arguably the largest driver of runaway health spending in America. People who get insurance through their employers are that much further removed from shopping for less wasteful, more value-oriented health plans....

California plans to reduce payments to many Medi-Cal providers by 10%. The federal government's approval of the budget-cutting measure raises concerns from doctors and others. The Obama administration will allow California to cut hundreds of millions of dollars from Medi-Cal, a move doctors and experts say will make it harder for the poor to get medical treatment. California plans to reduce rates by 10% to many providers, including physicians, dentists, clinics, pharmacies and most nursing homes, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced Thursday.

Social Security advocates are planning to protest Thursday at Social Security offices around the county. Thousands of American Federation of Government Employees Social Security employees, along with the Alliance for Retired Americans, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, and the Strengthen Social Security Campaign are protesting recent proposals from Congress that would cut the Social Security Administration's operational budget.

Many retirees feel they have ‘paid’ for benefits through their payroll taxes. This is much closer to being true for Social Security than it is for Medicare. Most Medicare recipients receive far more in benefits than they “pre-pay� through payroll taxes. Far too few Americans understand this simple truth, with the result that too many Americans think politicians have no business cutting “my Medicare.� Even though much vitriol of late has been directed at Social Security, Medicare is arguably far more of a Ponzi scheme than Social Security ever was. The payroll taxes used to finance Part A Medicare benefits...

Sarah Palin warned of government “death panels” on her Facebook page and was nationally ridiculed. Politifact.com awarded Palin with the “Lie of the Year” for that statement. President Obama called her out during a joint session of Congress saying the claim is “a lie, plain and simple.” I thought of Sarah Palin when I heard the story of Helen Wagner. Helen is 91 years old and is the mother of my sister-in-law Peggy. Give Helen five minutes and she will list a dozen times she has held death at bay. But now she is up against a much greater force:...

In Rhode Island, a different take on Medicare fraud has been discovered. Gary Winner, 49, was purchasing penis enlargers from an adult website and then repackaging them as medical devices that were sold to patients claiming the device helped, “bladder control, urinary flow and prostate comfort.” Winner paid $26 for the pumps then charged Medicare $284 for the device that treated erectile dysfunction. Word must have gotten around about this miracle cure. Winner reaped $2 million before he was caught. Medicare reimburses for products treating impotence and erectile dysfunction. Winner (pronounced “winner” for any of those who may have been...

Washington faces two pressing tasks — getting a handle on escalating federal debt and addressing the country's unemployment crisis. Unfortunately, the White House, thanks to its usual ideological blinders, has come up with a plan that will actually cost jobs — even as it achieves only trifling savings. The proposal, which Team Obama has now forwarded to the supercommittee charged with coming up with $1.6 trillion in savings over the next decade, is to extend Medicaid-style manufacturers' rebates to part of the Medicare Part D program. The proposal affects the so-called "dual eligibles," those eligible for Medicaid but who obtain...

MS. TUMULTY: Medicare is going broke. Consider the fact that half of all Medicare spending is done in the last two years of life. And research that has done -- been done right here at Dartmouth by the Dartmouth Atlas would suggest that much of this money is going to treatments and interventions that do nothing to prolong life, or to improve it. In fact, some of it does the opposite. Do you consider this wasteful spending? And if so, should the government do anything about it?

The desperate search for an acceptable Republican Party presidential candidate continues. Republican leaders apparently are pushing New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who previously said no, to jump into the race. The GOP's frustration is palpable. Mitt Romney has been running for four years but generates little enthusiasm. Rick Perry was an instant front-runner before losing much of his support after unimpressive debate performances. Michelle Bachmann briefly streaked across the political firmament but now barely registers in the polls. Newt Gingrich committed political seppuku shortly after announcing his candidacy. Ron Paul's support is fervent but limited. However, the real Republican problem...

My daughter had her finger shut in the door of our car a few weeks ago, accidentally, by a friend. It started to swell and turn black, so I took her to urgent care. Urgent care said they needed our medical insurance as well as car insurance information, so I gave it to them. Today she (not my husband or I, she's 13) got a letter from our car insurance company saying they needed a bunch of information from her, now required by the federal government, to see whether she is Medicare eligible. With a phone call I assured them...