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So you're uninsured.
But like so many, you're hanging in because in a few years, you'll be eligible for Medicare.
Help has arrived.
Finally, as a Medicare beneficiary and citizen of the richest country on the planet, you'll be able to access healthcare. You'll finally pay a modest premium to receive that long deferred healthcare.
You'll be enrolled in Medicare, one of our most cherished social programs, a program designed to protect the most vulnerable among us, America's senior citizens.
You've watched to video at the beginning of this diary. Now watch another video, heed the bleak words of the new president of the AMA, Dr. Nancy Neilsen.
Not so fast, I'm sad beyond words to report.
Now try and find a doctor who will accept you as a Medicare patient.
Dr. Nielsen is ringing the alarm that the country is "at the brink of a Medicare meltdown." To her huge credit, Dr. Nielsen is also naming names, and fingering those responsible for this latest healthcare atrocity.
Make no mistake, it's not just a medicare meltdown, it's a deliberate Medicare meltdown. It's an all-out attempt to privatize Medicare and turn over the keys to the bank vault to the thug CEOs of the for-profit insurance industry.
Doctors are damn near tapped out. And even doctors need to get paid for their often heroic work.
This is a piece of an email I received today from one of those tapped out doctors.
Of the seemingly large total annual CMS ‘payment to physicians’, only 5 to 10% of it actually ends up in the pocket of doctors. A small fraction of the total. The costs of liability insurance, staff employment, property fees, education debt and other expenses take the greatest portion of payments in a physicians practice. A reduction in payments will not save overall health expenditures as anticipated by legislatures but will lay the foundation for poorer patient care as decrease funding decreases staff and further deteriorates infrastructure.
So where's the money going?
To fatten the bottom line of private Medicare Advantage Murder By Spreadsheet insurance companies.
I'm not going to dwell on cloture votes, and assorted senate and congressional procedural maneuvers, this very possible cut in payment to the dwindling number of doctors still accepting Medicare patients is far too serious for that.
As you might suspect, the usual rogues gallery of criminals, is at the center of this--again. At the top of the list, the for-profit insurance industry (AHIP), and their political lapdogs. AHIP funnels huge quantities of money to the politicians and you're seeing the result.
The priority is to direct the money toward the private Medicare Advantage schemes, and sap the lifeblood from traditional Medicare.
What follows is from the statement about passage of H.R. 6331 from from the shameless liars at AHIP.
AHIP Statement on House Passage of H.R. 6331
Washington, DC – Karen Ignagni, President and CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), today issued the following statement in response to the U.S. House of Representatives passage of H.R. 6331:"Congress today rushed through legislation that would require Medicare Advantage beneficiaries to pay for the increase in physician payments without considering the impact these cuts would have on vulnerable seniors. As seniors learn the details of this hastily passed legislation, they will be shocked to learn they could face fewer choices, reduced benefits, and higher out-of-pocket costs if these cuts become law."
Ignagni noted that more than 10 million Medicare beneficiaries currently rely on Medicare Advantage to meet their health care needs. This bill includes three separate provisions that would achieve an estimated $13.8 billion in budget savings over the next five years at the expense of Medicare Advantage enrollees. These cuts represent 94 percent of the bill’s overall direct budget cuts not including interactions, and 73 percent of the budget cuts if interactions are counted.
I'll tell you a quick personal story about a friend of my family.
About a year or so ago, he was diagnosed with extensive head and neck cancer. He'd been having symptoms for some time, but guess what, he was uninsured and waiting to become eligible for Medicare.
He finally got Medicare, went to a doctor and received this hideous diagnosis. This is not unique,it's a gruesome reality for millions in America.
And where are we heading with Medicare?
The lifeblood is being drained by the private Medicare Advantage plans which are making record profits at the expense of doctors, seniors and American taxpayers. You and I are paying for this swindle. Insurance companies are paid on average 13 percent more under Medicare Advantage than the government pays to provide services directly.
But as I often say, don't take my word for this atrocity. Here's the nightmare and the meltdown.
Here's some of what the always brilliant Don McCanne M.D. from PNHP wrote.
This was a victory for conservative/libertarian ideologues who wish to destroy the traditional Medicare program and replace it with private health plans. Their first step was to use taxpayer funds to overpay private Medicare Advantage plans so that patients would be attracted by the greater benefits that could be offered (benefits that in all fairness should be offered as well to those remaining in the traditional program). The next step is to reduce compensation in the traditional Medicare program so that physicians will bail out. Fee reductions of about 40 percent are scheduled over the next couple of years, which should accelerate the physician exodus. That would convert Medicare into an underfunded Medicaid-type welfare program, with patients fleeing to the private options.
The eventual surprise that Medicare Advantage beneficiaries are not anticipating is that it will be converted into a defined contribution program with the costs of health care inflation being shifted to the patients’ portion of the Medicare Advantage premium and to other out-of-pocket cost sharing.
Fortunately, many Republicans do support the social solidarity represented by Medicare. They are offended by the efforts to waste taxpayer funds on the excesses of private insurers in a nefarious plot to destroy the best health care financing program we have (though it needs further improvement). Joining with the Democrats, these Republicans will surely do the right thing when they return from their recess. Sen. McCain will also have another opportunity to dispel the claim that he offers us only four more years of Bush policies.
The destruction of FFS traditional Medicare must not happen. A flourishing Medicare program is central to what we're fighting for: Guaranteed Healthcare--cradle to grave, single payer. What the rest of the civilized world takes for granted.
Everyone in, no one out.
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