Payroll tax cut & unemployment extension deal includes cuts in Medicare/Medicaid hospital payments!

[Better Believe It]

From todays New York Times:

In addition, the legislation blocks a 27 percent cut in payments to doctors treating Medicare patients. In effect, this assures that beneficiaries will have access to their doctors after March 1, when the cut was to have taken effect.

Dr. Peter W. Carmel, president of the American Medical Association, said his group was “deeply disappointed” that the agreement, while delaying the cut for 10 months, did not replace the statutory formula that requires such cuts. Republicans boasted that they had cut spending under the new health care law to help pay for Medicare spending under the agreement. For example, the agreement cuts $5 billion from a special account created by the new law to promote public health and prevent chronic diseases.

Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa and chairman of the Senate health committee, called the cut in preventive health programs “extremely shortsighted and fiscally irresponsible.”

To help offset the cost of paying doctors under Medicare, the agreement will reduce payments to hospitals. The legislation cuts Medicaid payments to hospitals that serve disproportionate numbers of low-income patients. And it cuts Medicare payments to hospitals for bad debts that result when beneficiaries fail to pay deductibles and co-payments.

Read the full article at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/us/politics/benefit-cuts-at-issue-in-payroll-tax-cut-deal.html?_r=1

And it looks like the maximum number of weeks one can collect unemployment benefits under this bi-partisan deal may be cut by 26 weeks! Chopped down to a maximum of 73 weeks from the current 99. BBI

[ProSense]

1. This

To help offset the cost of paying doctors under Medicare, the agreement will reduce payments to hospitals. The legislation cuts Medicaid payments to hospitals that serve disproportionate numbers of low-income patients. And it cuts Medicare payments to hospitals for bad debts that result when beneficiaries fail to pay deductibles and co-payments.

...deal hasn't been finalized, and the Doc Fix is not the payroll tax cut, which has no offset, or unemployment benefits, which is still being worked out.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002315429

[customerserviceguy]

2. Clever on the part of the Republicons

Doctors who don't get the doc fix are much more likely to refuse to take Medicare patients than hospitals who get cuts in Medicare reimbursements. Of course, they'll just pass on the costs to the uninsured, and to the extent possible, the insured and their insurance companies.