Say Anything Blog

One thing that hasn’t been reported on is just how much of a fantasy the costs are that are being assumed as the Democrats push through the Health Care Takeover.

The Democrats are planning that they will pay the providers the same rates plus five percent that they’re paying for services performed by Medicare.

Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., said Wednesday that he will vote against the health care reform bill when it comes before the House Ways and Means Committee Thursday because it would tie the payment schedule for a new public option insurance plan to existing Medicare payments.

Hospitals and other health care providers in North Dakota are seriously under-reimbursed by Medicare, he said, and “there is no way we would sustain existing levels of care,” including access to hospitals and specialists, with a public insurance option linked to Medicare payment schedules.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota pays providers at about 150 percent of Medicare rates, Pomeroy said, and the insurance giant has estimated that a third of its business moving to a public option would result in an annual hit of $131 million to hospitals and the rest of the state’s health care industry.

Medicare is not paying what it costs to provide the services that seniors need.  Right now the providers are shifting the cost on people with private plans.  While that works for them it’s quite unfair that you and I are paying a tax for seniors while having to overpay for our own coverage.

Of course this is a major reason why the cost of health care has gone up for the working person.  Of course that results in less people that can afford to buy coverage which means more uninsurred.  The government is creating the problem they want to solve (by making it much worse.)

Let’s figure out how much this change in reimbursements could cost the health care industry.  First let’s assume that Medicare and private health plans each have a 50-50 share of patients (and value of care) at a medical facility which has revenues of $100 million.  Both Medicare and the private insurers should be paying $50 million apiece.  However going by the reimbursement rate given by Congressman Pomeroy we would calculate that Medicare would be paying $40 million and the private insurance would be paying $60 million.

Enter Obama who is going to do his best to eliminate private insurance and get everyone on his public plan.  Rather than the private insurer paying $60 million Obama care would only pay $42 million.

That means your hospital, which is probably struggling financially already due to Medicare will be losing $18 million dollars in revenue.

Can everyone say” Layoffs and not being able to find a nurse?”  Can everyone say “No money to build expanded facilities so you can’t get into the hospital when you need to?”  Can everyone say, “No new up to date lifesaving equipment?”  This is evil.  This is going to cost lives.

This is going to be terrible for people on Medicare and private insurance both.  We’re all going to suffer so that Obama can be the man that “made everyone healthy.”

Now you can see why they had to slip in that provision that while people on a plan don’t have to leave it (while it exists) that the private plans can’t sign up anyone new.  If this came about health care providers all over the country would be opting out of the public plans.  They’d exist to give care to people willing to pay what it costs.  (And really if we were only paying that and not subsidizing Medicare it would be cheaper for us.)

The two tiered system would show just how bankrupt the national health care plan.  The same reasons are evident in the fact that no state has been successful in setting up a viable state run health care plan.  There is plenty of will in a number of states to do just that.  However public health just doesn’t work.  It doesn’t work well for Medicare (needing to tax everyone and still can’t pay it’s way), the Indian Health Service or any state wide programs where it’s been tried.

The problem with Health Care is too much government.  Let the people buy the coverage they want and the problems will go away for all that care about their health.