Tom Price's Plan to Destroy Medicare: "Balance Billing" Seniors into Bankruptcy
[link:http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/12/28/1615175/-Tom-Price-s-Plan-To-Destroy-Medicare-Balance-Billing-Seniors-Into-Bankruptcy|
by Dartagnan at Daily Kos
Donald Trump has nominated Tom Price, a “Tea Party" Republican Congressman from Georgia, as Director of the Department of Health and Human Services, the Federal agency that oversees Medicare, the nation’s largest and longest surviving health insurance program, serving those over 65 years of age, and those with disabilities.
Like nearly all of Trump’s nominees, Price is overtly hostile to the agency he has been designated to lead. His nomination was supported by the American Medical Association (AMA) because, contrary to what many Americans may believe, the AMA is traditionally a Republican- leaning organization made up of nearly a quarter of a million physicians whose financial interests are one of its primary motivators. In particular, both Price and the AMA are on the same page when it comes to a practice known as “balance billing."
It's the practice of billing the patient for the difference between the sticker price and what insurance will pay. So if a hospital visit costs $1,000, but your insurance will only cover $300, some providers will "balance bill" you for $700.
SNIP>
Tom Price wants to “reform” Medicare by allowing “balance billing” of Medicare patients, the practical effect of which, as Ryan Cooper, writing for The Week explains, would “[allow] doctors and hospitals to devour the nest eggs of thousands of American seniors:”
Permanently obliterating the financial security of helpless families with no or bad insurance as a loved one dies slowly and painfully of a chronic illness is a nice little profit center for providers. But it pales in comparison to the gravy train they might get if they can bring balance billing to Medicare.
MUCH MORE AT LINK
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The tRump "administration" appears to be of the RICH, for the RICH, by the RICH. The only thing he needed the little people for was their votes.
...he's restocking the swamp. We ALL must have misheard him.
or believed that Hillary was somehow going to be worse than him by any measure (Here's a hint: we wouldn't be having this discussion about "balanced billing" if she had been elected) needs to have their head examined
and I thought that things couldn't get any worse than potentially having to deal with Sarah Palin as VP (seems sort of "quaint" and oddly funny right now......)
Trying to persuade a few not-crazy-enough Republicans in the Senate not to go along with McConnell?
If they were planning to get rid of the filibuster, they wouldn't be talking about using reconciliation to pass their (partial) repeal of PPACA. And I think that there are (maybe) just enough older Republicans whom might not be so keen to get rid of the filibuster for legislation, if for no other reason than for Democrats to be able to eliminate it when they get back in control of the Senate (their majority in the Senate isn't large and isn't able to be gerrymandered). I think that if Democrats frustrate them enough on their legislative , they might consider it but some of them might still think that it is a bad idea.
I want to see them beat these sons a bitches senseless with their handbags.
Just like that older lady did to Charles Keating.
I don't remember a wallet being a piece in that old childhood game "Operation," do you? 
I laugh to keep from weeping.
