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Getbig Main Boards => Politics and Political Issues Board => Topic started by: Soul Crusher on October 19, 2010, 02:33:50 PM
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DEMOCRATS’ NEW MISFIRE ON HEALTH CARE
18 October 2010
www.thedailybeast.com
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It’s probably too late to save the party from electoral disaster next month. But Obama and the Democrats can turn health care from an albatross into a positive for 2012 by flipping their script on the issue, says Douglas E. Schoen.
By Douglas Schoen
The Daily Beast
Earlier this year, top Democrats forecast boldly that once the president’s health-care bill passed, seemingly reluctant Americans would support the legislation.
They were wrong.
Back then, I wrote with Pat Caddell that ignoring the growing public opinion against the bill meant that the Democrats risked “unmitigated disaster” this fall.
Just a month before the midterm elections, the polls have demonstrated that my prediction was closer to the mark than that of the White House, and the administration and the Democrats are suffering as a result.
At least half, if not more, of the American people favor repealing the bill, according to a recent Rasmussen poll of likely voters, and other polling has echoed that finding.
Right now, almost all the Democrats who voted against the bill are campaigning against it. And most Democrats who voted for the legislation are distancing themselves as much as they can.
Both groups are avoiding talking about what the electorate wants and requires: a smart, reasonable, and rational discussion about health care in the next two years.
But by changing their dialogue fundamentally on health care, the Democrats can turn what almost certainly will prove to be an electoral disaster this year into a positive going forward—both for congressional Democrats and President Obama, as he approaches 2012.
The health-care reform bill actually contains a number of components that are popular on a bipartisan basis, and can be emphasized—both in the waning days of the campaign, and in the future—as long as the Democrats fundamentally change their approach to the issue.
Only with a different type of dialogue, message, and policies can they regain the high ground on health care and do what the American people want: contain costs, provide high-quality care, and take steps to rein in excesses in the system.
The American people do want insurance reform that prevents insurance companies from dropping coverage for people who become very ill. And they don’t want insurance companies to deny coverage to patients with preexisting conditions, which will be prohibited as of 2014.
The majority of Americans support a number of long-overdue reforms included in the bill that allow families to get free preventive check-ups with their doctor and young adults to stay on their parents’ insurance plans, and eliminating the “doughnut hole” in Medicare prescription drug coverage.
There’s no need for the Democrats to run away from these popular elements of the bill, if they are put in the appropriate issue frame.
But if they are to have a meaningful dialogue on health care, the Democrats must talk not only about these popular initiatives, but also about what they have done and will do to curtail costs, as well as to develop new drugs.
Put simply, the Democrats must talk about health care within the context of fiscal discipline and budgetary restraint, specifically referencing the work of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, a bipartisan commission chaired by former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-WY) and former Clinton chief of staff Erskine Bowles that has been charged with addressing the nation’s overall budget problems.
The party must exhibit a willingness to take on all aspects of spending and make clear that the administration is committed to entitlement reform while addressing the large-scale fiscal problems facing the nation.
But beyond that the Democrats must put forth a national strategy that facilitates and encourages private sector innovation as one of the critical ways to resolve our economic crisis and create a path that ensures long-term economic opportunities are facilitated, as well as developing the cutting-edge technologies and new drugs we need to help cure chronic, debilitating, and frequently fatal diseases.
If the Democrats can succeed in doing this in a way that makes it clear that they have a positive and optimistic agenda, they will be able to achieve two goals the American people regard as fundamental:
Address costs in a serious and sustained manner.
They can talk about cost containment in several ways.
The Democrats should talk about reducing insurance costs—not simply by bashing insurance companies but by working with them constructively, as part of a public-private sector initiative.
To that end, IBM CEO Samuel Palmisano recently met with Obama and offered to work, free of charge, to reduce health-care waste, fraud, and costs by $900 billion. The Obama administration turned down this offer flat, for reasons best known to itself.
To be fair, the new health-care law did attempt to contain Medicare costs through a new body called the Independent Payment Advisory Board, which has gotten little attention to date.
Medicare cost containment is critical, and the IPAB has the opportunity to become a model of bipartisanship, efficacy, and accountability to average voters by functioning as the body to rein in Medicare’s cost growth.
Finally, there needs to be a commitment to and a mechanism that takes the recommendations of the bipartisan budget commission and the IPAB and make them operational.
The bottom line remains that unless the Democrats are able to become credible advocates for cost containment, they will not succeed politically, and they certainly will not begin to have any success in doing what the American people regard as fundamental: reining in costs.
Health-care reform has been an unmitigated disaster to date, that’s for sure. But it does not have to be that way going forward.
With an emphasis on those aspects of the bill that work, an acknowledgement that the health-care reform needs to be fundamentally recast to encourage innovation and the development of new drugs, and by putting cost containment at the center of all efforts going forward, the Democrats have the chance to recast an initiative that could well play a major role in costing them control of the House and the Senate next month.
Douglas Schoen is a political strategist and author of the upcoming book Mad as Hell: How the Tea Party Movement is Fundamentally Remaking Our Two-Party System to be published by Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins on September 14. Schoen has worked on numerous campaigns, including those of Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Michael Bloomberg, Evan Bayh, Tony Blair, and Ed Koch.
See Related: LOCAL POLITICS
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Oh WTF is wrong with this asshole?
Obama really needs to resign and just live a life like a hermit on the woods somehwere.
WHO VOTED FOR THIS?
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White House snubs healthcare fraud offer
kevinpezzi.com ^ | 10-19-2010 | Kevin Pezzi, MD
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Samuel J. Palmisano, IBM's CEO and Chairman of the Board, offered to give the White House ways to curb healthcare fraud and abuse. Mr. Palmisano said, “We could've improved quality and reduced the cost of the healthcare system by $900 billion . . . I said we would do it for free, to prove that it works. They turned us down.”
(Excerpt) Read more at kevinpezzi.com ...
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Obama turns down IBM assistance in dealing with health care fraud
October 8th, 2010 9:13 pm CT
By Kenneth Hayes, Chicago Political Buzz Examiner
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..Fox News reports that IBM CEO Samuel Palmisano met with President Obama and offered - free of charge - to assist in hunting down health care fraud, but was turned down. Palmisano says "We could have improved quality and reduced the cost of the health care system by $900 billion."
Mort Zuckerman, Editor-in-Chief of US News & World Report, was interviewed by Fox and it was agreed that it was puzzling, that the refusal showed that the President's agenda did not include getting rid of fraud and that the President was anti-business.
But it says here that this is a rush to judgment. If any details of the proposal were known by Fox or Zuckerman, they were not shared with the viewing public (but see update below). Critical is the question of just how this would work.
IBM has been ruthless with its own employees for a few years now, and does not have a reputation for being a benevolent empire, either internally or externally. This offer is almost certainly a "foot in the door" attempt.
With the passage of Medicare and Medicaid legislation 45 years ago, Ross Perot saw the future. He immediately set about building data processing systems for health care, and made out very well indeed.
With the passage of the most recent health care legislation there will be many such opportunities because there will be many new requirements involving claims adjudication, billing, utilization review, etc. But many health care data processing systems exist now, and the future for newcomers is not quite as rosy as Perot found it. Still, there are tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to be made and IBM has its eye on some of it, you betchum, Red Ryder.
The "free" offer may be free from the point of IBM gaining revenue, but it would not be without cost for the government. Working relationships would have to be established, processes would have to be set up regarding data to be sent and received, some tutoring of IBM employees would be required just to tell them what they were looking at, and review procedures, reporting requirements, and any number of other things would have to be worked out for each system being used in the field.
And what does "improved quality" mean, exactly? Changes in procedures? Changes in data processing? New data processing systems? One *imagines* that IBM would be prepared to help and to sell new systems or provide facilities management services.
WHOOPS! UPDATE:
A bloomberg.com article (published before the offer was made) says IBM, Dell, and others have put together a report that says ". . . better use of existing technology would save money by consolidating data centers and networks, cutting duplication and providing better tracking of fraud and waste."
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The author is completely missing the point. The only way you are going to rein in medicare costs is by putting more responsibility and control into the people who are actually consuming the medicare. That means the most liberal thing you are going to be able to do is give vouchers to these people and dont just subsidize whatever they will buy. That is the Paul Ryan plan.
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The author is completely missing the point. The only way you are going to rein in medicare costs is by putting more responsibility and control into the people who are actually consuming the medicare. That means the most liberal thing you are going to be able to do is give vouchers to these people and dont just subsidize whatever they will buy. That is the Paul Ryan plan.
Whatever the case is - you have a guy offering to help curb 800 billion in fraud and you send him away?
Come on now - how insane is that?
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I'm for cutting the fraud but I don't want IBM anywhere near the job.
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I'm for cutting the fraud but I don't want IBM anywhere near the job.
Why is that?
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Why is that?
why would you give a crap?
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Why did the White House turn down the offer?
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Why did the White House turn down the offer?
Because that would make way to much sense for the government save money
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Oh WTF is wrong with this asshole?
Obama really needs to resign and just live a life like a hermit on the woods somehwere.
[/quote]
I heard that he starting to chain smoke and is drinking a lot in the white house these days. I'm also starting to hear that he won't even attempt to run in 2012...Michelle is busy cursing at the staff in the whiter house..
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This just smacks of more big govt crappola from obama to where he thinks he knows best.
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Eh, if he HAD accepted their help, the right-wing bitching point of the day would be "Obama in bed with big corporations - actually has the audacity to let evil corporations rewrite healthcare - public policy!"
So they're gonna bitch no matter what on this one.
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Eh, if he HAD accepted their help, the right-wing bitching point of the day would be "Obama in bed with big corporations - actually has the audacity to let evil corporations rewrite healthcare - public policy!"
So they're gonna bitch no matter what on this one.
For cripe sake do you have to quantify every fucking thing?
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Eh, if he HAD accepted their help, the right-wing bitching point of the day would be "Obama in bed with big corporations - actually has the audacity to let evil corporations rewrite healthcare - public policy!"
So they're gonna bitch no matter what on this one.
::) ::)
Yeah, govt always knows best right 240?
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For cripe sake do you have to quantify every fucking thing?
just an observation on the tendencies of pundits. I don't have the stomach or time to read the whole story and make an evaluation. but i do know THAT would have been the spin from the right, had Obama used a company that donated $X million to his campaign to rewrite public policy AFTER it was passed into law.
it'd be like Bush letting haliburton rewrite the iraq war bill lol...
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just an observation on the tendencies of pundits. I don't have the stomach or time to read the whole story and make an evaluation. but i do know THAT would have been the spin from the right, had Obama used a company that donated $X million to his campaign to rewrite public policy AFTER it was passed into law.
it'd be like Bush letting haliburton rewrite the iraq war bill lol...
How about try a pilot program and see how it works out?
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How about try a pilot program and see how it works out?
obama might be dogshite wrong on this issue. i dunno or care.
the political punditry side of it is interesting to me.
Had obama accepted legal advice on public policy from a private company which gave him campaign money - hahahaha oh shit, they'd be screaming about it.
So if he knows he's gonna get whined at either way, he'll do what he wants.
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So if he knows he's gonna get whined at either way, he'll do what he wants.
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Which is to screw over the taxpayers royally, like every moment of his waking life.
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240 youre the typical liberal sound tunnel that obama is listening to and its not helping himself and MORE IMPORTANTLY the economy...
he wouldnt get bitched at for reducing the deficit, stabilizing the economy instead of injecting uber uncertainty, cutting back on spending...
the reps may try to spin it but it would simply be like obama trying to spin the bull shit him and the dems have been doing for the last 2 years nothing but see through bull shit...
so what do you say 240 why dont you use those powers of spin and unspin this pos bs and do us all a favor?
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Obama should look at how Christie is doing things in NJ and just copy that.
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why would you give a crap?
because Hugo, he only cares about destroying Obama. Nothing else you say will matter to him if it does not fit into that perspective. It's the worst case of walleye vision in history. If you have anything to say to 3333 outside that scope, you're probably wasting your time! BWHWHahahahahahahaha...
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because Hugo, he only cares about destroying Obama. Nothing else you say will matter to him if it does not fit into that perspective. It's the worst case of walleye vision in history. If you have anything to say to 3333 outside that scope, you're probably wasting your time! BWHWHahahahahahahaha...
Yea you're right Hugo... LOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Eh, if he HAD accepted their help, the right-wing bitching point of the day would be "Obama in bed with big corporations - actually has the audacity to let evil corporations rewrite healthcare - public policy!"
So they're gonna bitch no matter what on this one.
The government bailing out GM, that is the government getting in bed with a big corporation. That's not what we have here with IBM in any shape form or fashion...it's not even close to the same kind of thing.
Here's how it works, or rather, how it's supposed to work:
*The government is run by the people
*The people see a need and take action
*Who are the people? Those who make up private life and industry
*When these people see a need and want to freely give to it, by their own free will, this is a good thing
*If these people use that "Gift" as a means of corruption, that is a bad thing.
*The government is supposed to accept the hand of its people, the people, being who are the boss and leaders of government.
This whole giving IBM the middle finger is not only stupid and idiotic, it shows the complete disregard for the American system and further shows the Obama admn unwillingness to accept the fact that they are failing miserably.
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because Hugo, he only cares about destroying Obama. Nothing else you say will matter to him if it does not fit into that perspective. It's the worst case of walleye vision in history. If you have anything to say to 3333 outside that scope, you're probably wasting your time! BWHWHahahahahahahaha...
::) ::)
So like the rest of the left wing clown car on this site, you cant defend the WHs' incomprehensible actions, so you make me the issue instead.
Got it.
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because Hugo, he only cares about destroying Obama. Nothing else you say will matter to him if it does not fit into that perspective. It's the worst case of walleye vision in history. If you have anything to say to 3333 outside that scope, you're probably wasting your time! BWHWHahahahahahahaha...
I wonder which gimmick you meant to post this on as you tried to play it off after posting it in case someone saw it.
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I wonder which gimmick you meant to post this on as you tried to play it off after posting it in case someone saw it.
Hugo probably is still fuming thinking of the things his donations to obama could buy him now. Like toilet paper, pepto, ex-lax, etc.
As for his comment to me - who cares. This story confirms everything many of us have said about this WH - does nearly everything the opposite of what sane people would do under similar circumstances.
Obama could have won a PR victory and shown the business community some love by announcing a pilot program or something like that for this. He also would have gained some cred with voters pissed off at their rates and health care premiums skyrocketing now due to Obamacare.
Oh well.
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Hugo probably is still fuming thinking of the things his donations to obama could buy him now. Like toilet paper, pepto, ex-lax, etc.
As for his comment to me - who cares. This story confirms everything many of us have said about this WH - does nearly everything the opposite of what sane people would do under similar circumstances.
Obama could have won a PR victory and shown the business community some love by announcing a pilot program or something like that for this. He also would have gained some cred with voters pissed off at their rates and health care premiums skyrocketing now due to Obamacare.
Oh well.
Apparently IBM is trying to take over the world.
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Apparently IBM is trying to take over the world.
Maybe Obama was worried they want a secret chip to implant into people to program them to buy IBM products?
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Maybe Obama was worried they want a secret chip to implant into people to program them to buy IBM products?
;D
He'd be against that, but only because it would help the economy.
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;D
He'd be against that, but only because it would help the economy.
Either way - WTH is wrong with this WH?
Seems to me you would want to invite anyone and everyone who can help cut waste fraud and abuse in health care.
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Eh, if he HAD accepted their help, the right-wing bitching point of the day would be "Obama in bed with big corporations - actually has the audacity to let evil corporations rewrite healthcare - public policy!"
So they're gonna bitch no matter what on this one.
Yes,great point.Its much better to get advise on bills and policies from the UAW and Trumka from the teamsters or that retard from the Steel Workers union,because everyone knows they are the most brilliant thinkers in the country.Everyone knows illiterate morons like union leaders have much more insight into business then stuttering,stammering Marxists running unions.
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so if a private company had rewritten a bill - yall would be okay with it? Y or N?
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so if a private company had rewritten a bill - yall would be okay with it? Y or N?
A private company cannot write a bill, they can advise, and if that means they can show how to save 900 billion I think I would listen. Why don't you quit trying to twist every fucking thing into some dumbass scenario that can't happen, playing devils advocate gets very fucking old after a while.
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so if a private company had rewritten a bill - yall would be okay with it? Y or N?
::) ::)
Stop making crap up.
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IBM exec offers to save $900 billion in health care costs, but Obama turned him down
The Washington Examiner ^ | 02/02/11 | By: Barbara Hollingsworth
The CEO of IBM offered the Obama administration a free software program that would have cut Medicare and Medicaid fraud by almost a trillion dollars, but he was turned down – twice.
"We could have improved the quality and reduced the cost of the healthcare system by $900 billion...I said we would do it for free to prove that it works. They turned us down, "IBM chairman and CEO Samuel Palmisano said during a Sept. 14, 2010 taping of the Wall Street Journal’s Viewpoints program.
FOX News confirmed that a second meeting between Palmisano and Obama administration officials yielded the same result: "No thanks!" – even though the proffered "fix" would have eliminated 90 percent of the nation’s health care deficit – and cost taxpayers nothing it didn’t perform as guaranteed.
Yet Medicare/Medicaid fraud is still rampant. According to the Manhattan Institute’s Steven Malanga,"abuses of Medicaid (alone) eat up at least 10 percent of the program’s total cost nationwide -- a waste of $30 billion a year. Unscrupulous doctors billing for over 24 hours per day of procedures, phony companies invoicing for phantom services, pharmacists filling prescriptions for dead patients, home health-care companies demanding payment for treating clients actually in the hospital -- on and on the rip-offs go."
Now that Republicans are trying to repeal Obamacare and drastically cut federal spending at the same time, perhaps Palmisano can be persuaded to offer his services again.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/02/ibm-exec-offers-save-900-billion-health-care-costs-obama-turned-h#ixzz1JkGsm1NL
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I'm sure Team Messiah will be by to defend this.
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BUMP for Team Commie!
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BUMP for Andre Straw and blackcunt.
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Bump.
So Obama wants to cut soldiers but not fraud in Medicare correct?
Good job Team Kenya
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Bump
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As Predicted, Obama Administration Backs Off Medicare Anti-Fraud Efforts
Townhall.com ^ | January 9, 2012 | Michael F. Cannon
Posted on January 9, 2012 8:30:54 AM EST by Kaslin
Medicare and Medicaid are rife with fraud. We’re talking 10 percent or more of total spending, which is two orders of magnitude more than what credit card companies tolerate.
In a recent article, I explained a couple of ways such fraud occurs:
For providers, Medicare is like an ATM: So long as they punch in the right numbers, out comes the cash. To get an idea of the potential for fraud, imagine 1.2 million providers punching 1,000 codes each into their own personal ATMs. Now imagine trying to monitor all those ATMs.
For example, if a medical-equipment supplier punches in a code for a power wheelchair, how can the government be sure the company didn’t actually provide a manual wheelchair and pocket the difference? About $400 million of the…fines paid by Columbia/HCA hospitals were for a similar practice, known as “upcoding.”…
Yet federal and state anti-fraud efforts remain uniformly lame. Medicare does almost nothing to detect or fight fraud until the fraudulent payments are already out the door, a strategy experts deride as “pay and chase.” Even then, Medicare reviews fewer than 5 percent of all claims filed.
Entitlement Bandits Rob Medicaid/Medicare
I also explained why fraud is so rampant:
Efforts to prevent fraud typically fail because they impose costs on legitimate beneficiaries and providers, who, as voters and campaign donors respectively, have immense sway over politicians. At a recent congressional hearing, the Department of Health and Human Services’ deputy inspector general, Gerald T. Roy, recommended that Congress beef up efforts to prevent illegitimate providers and suppliers from enrolling in Medicare. But even if Congress took Roy’s advice, it would rescind the new requirements in a heartbeat when legitimate doctors — who are already threatening to leave Medicare over its low payment rates — threatened to bolt because of the additional administrative costs (paperwork, site visits, etc.)…
How could it be any other way? Anti-fraud efforts will always be inadequate when politicians spend other people’s money…[People] care less about health-care fraud, and have a lower tolerance for anti-fraud measures, than they would if they paid the fraud-laden premiums themselves.
In a word, government is stupid.
As if to prove the point, the Obama administration—despite its rhetoric about getting tough on fraud—is behaving pretty much as I predicted. In mid-November, the administration announced two anti-fraud efforts, one to prevent fraudulent claims for power wheelchairs and scooters, and another to eliminate “pay and chase” for some Medicare claims in some states. Not two months later, under “heavy provider opposition,” Medicare has delayed these demonstrations “until further notice.”
If you’re interested to see how this all turns out, follow @CMS.gov on Twitter and keep an eye out for #pmd_demonstration (the wheelchairs and scooters demonstration project; there’s no hashtag for the project to curb “pay and chase”). HT: Peter Suderman.
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Obamacare rationing panels an ‘immediate danger to seniors’: former AMA president
Life Site News ^ | March 22, 2012 | KATHLEEN GILBERT
Posted on March 22, 2012 5:41:56 PM EDT by NYer
March 21, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Concerns over the new health care law’s system for rationing health care - famously dubbed the “death panels” by Sarah Palin - have been reinforced by a former head of the American Medical Association, who said the advisory panels “will essentially mean rationed care” for the elderly.
Former AMA President Donald Palmisano wrote in a Daily Caller column Monday that the Independent Payment Advisory Boards (IPAB), tasked with keeping Medicare expenses under control, would have little oversight as they deal with the disproportionate cost burden from seniors with greater medical needs.
“The 15 officials who will make up the board will not only be empowered to make what is expected to be billions of dollars’ worth of cuts to Medicare every year, but will be required to do so when spending exceeds targeted rates,” wrote Palmisano.
“PAB’s recommended cuts will become law unless a supermajority in Congress vetoes the board’s proposal and creates its own cost-cutting proposal of equal size — an unlikely scenario even in the most harmonious of political times.”
Although the panels are expected to focus on cutting payments to the doctors themselves, Palmisano said that Medicaid providers are already being sucked dry - and warned that a more brutal form of rationing, using adjustments based on “quality of life” as already practiced in Great Britain, was likely in store.
“IPAB may eventually be allowed to resort to Great Britain’s chosen rationing methods and refuse to provide certain effective treatments to patients who need them based on costs and patients’ remaining ‘quality adjusted life years.’ Though the law currently forbids IPAB from engaging in such behavior, there is little reason to believe these rules won’t be changed — or at least stretched — down the road as costs continue to balloon and political dynamics change,” he wrote.
Palmisano warned that a group of lawmakers urging full repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), instead of piecemeal attempts, may miss the opportunity to block the most dangerous parts of the law, such as IPAB.
“f Congress misses what could be its last chance to eliminate IPAB — one of the most egregious aspects of the law — it will be doing a disservice to seniors who need good medical care now and in the near-term future,” wrote Palmisano.
Read Palmisano’s full column here.
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Obamacare rationing panels an ‘immediate danger to seniors’: former AMA president
Life Site News ^ | March 22, 2012 | KATHLEEN GILBERT
Posted on March 22, 2012 5:41:56 PM EDT by NYer
March 21, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Concerns over the new health care law’s system for rationing health care - famously dubbed the “death panels” by Sarah Palin - have been reinforced by a former head of the American Medical Association, who said the advisory panels “will essentially mean rationed care” for the elderly.
Former AMA President Donald Palmisano wrote in a Daily Caller column Monday that the Independent Payment Advisory Boards (IPAB), tasked with keeping Medicare expenses under control, would have little oversight as they deal with the disproportionate cost burden from seniors with greater medical needs.
“The 15 officials who will make up the board will not only be empowered to make what is expected to be billions of dollars’ worth of cuts to Medicare every year, but will be required to do so when spending exceeds targeted rates,” wrote Palmisano.
“PAB’s recommended cuts will become law unless a supermajority in Congress vetoes the board’s proposal and creates its own cost-cutting proposal of equal size — an unlikely scenario even in the most harmonious of political times.”
Although the panels are expected to focus on cutting payments to the doctors themselves, Palmisano said that Medicaid providers are already being sucked dry - and warned that a more brutal form of rationing, using adjustments based on “quality of life” as already practiced in Great Britain, was likely in store.
“IPAB may eventually be allowed to resort to Great Britain’s chosen rationing methods and refuse to provide certain effective treatments to patients who need them based on costs and patients’ remaining ‘quality adjusted life years.’ Though the law currently forbids IPAB from engaging in such behavior, there is little reason to believe these rules won’t be changed — or at least stretched — down the road as costs continue to balloon and political dynamics change,” he wrote.
Palmisano warned that a group of lawmakers urging full repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), instead of piecemeal attempts, may miss the opportunity to block the most dangerous parts of the law, such as IPAB.
“f Congress misses what could be its last chance to eliminate IPAB — one of the most egregious aspects of the law — it will be doing a disservice to seniors who need good medical care now and in the near-term future,” wrote Palmisano.
Read Palmisano’s full column here.
Epic....
So basically Obamacare has given health insurance to younger people that may or may not need it, and will take it away from older people who DEFINATLEY need it to stay alive.
Sounds reasonable... if youre Hannibal Lecter.
EVERYONE NEEDS HEALTH INSURANCE!!!
Its just going to cost you youngsters your grandmothers and grandfathers, but thats ok, youll be able to go see the doctor now! ::)
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IBM exec offers to save $900 billion in health care costs, but Obama turned him down
The Washington Examiner ^ | 02/02/11 | By: Barbara Hollingsworth
The CEO of IBM offered the Obama administration a free software program that would have cut Medicare and Medicaid fraud by almost a trillion dollars, but he was turned down – twice.
"We could have improved the quality and reduced the cost of the healthcare system by $900 billion...I said we would do it for free to prove that it works. They turned us down, "IBM chairman and CEO Samuel Palmisano said during a Sept. 14, 2010 taping of the Wall Street Journal’s Viewpoints program.
FOX News confirmed that a second meeting between Palmisano and Obama administration officials yielded the same result: "No thanks!" – even though the proffered "fix" would have eliminated 90 percent of the nation’s health care deficit – and cost taxpayers nothing it didn’t perform as guaranteed.
Yet Medicare/Medicaid fraud is still rampant. According to the Manhattan Institute’s Steven Malanga,"abuses of Medicaid (alone) eat up at least 10 percent of the program’s total cost nationwide -- a waste of $30 billion a year. Unscrupulous doctors billing for over 24 hours per day of procedures, phony companies invoicing for phantom services, pharmacists filling prescriptions for dead patients, home health-care companies demanding payment for treating clients actually in the hospital -- on and on the rip-offs go."
Now that Republicans are trying to repeal Obamacare and drastically cut federal spending at the same time, perhaps Palmisano can be persuaded to offer his services again.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/02/ibm-exec-offers-save-900-billion-health-care-costs-obama-turned-h#ixzz1JkGsm1NL
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I'm sure Team Messiah will be by to defend this.
Would you want a private company to have access to everyone's medical records???? ::)
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stfu
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DEMOCRATS’ NEW MISFIRE ON HEALTH CARE
18 October 2010
www.thedailybeast.com
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It’s probably too late to save the party from electoral disaster next month. But Obama and the Democrats can turn health care from an albatross into a positive for 2012 by flipping their script on the issue, says Douglas E. Schoen.
By Douglas Schoen
The Daily Beast
Earlier this year, top Democrats forecast boldly that once the president’s health-care bill passed, seemingly reluctant Americans would support the legislation.
They were wrong.
Back then, I wrote with Pat Caddell that ignoring the growing public opinion against the bill meant that the Democrats risked “unmitigated disaster” this fall.
Just a month before the midterm elections, the polls have demonstrated that my prediction was closer to the mark than that of the White House, and the administration and the Democrats are suffering as a result.
At least half, if not more, of the American people favor repealing the bill, according to a recent Rasmussen poll of likely voters, and other polling has echoed that finding.
Right now, almost all the Democrats who voted against the bill are campaigning against it. And most Democrats who voted for the legislation are distancing themselves as much as they can.
Both groups are avoiding talking about what the electorate wants and requires: a smart, reasonable, and rational discussion about health care in the next two years.
But by changing their dialogue fundamentally on health care, the Democrats can turn what almost certainly will prove to be an electoral disaster this year into a positive going forward—both for congressional Democrats and President Obama, as he approaches 2012.
The health-care reform bill actually contains a number of components that are popular on a bipartisan basis, and can be emphasized—both in the waning days of the campaign, and in the future—as long as the Democrats fundamentally change their approach to the issue.
Only with a different type of dialogue, message, and policies can they regain the high ground on health care and do what the American people want: contain costs, provide high-quality care, and take steps to rein in excesses in the system.
The American people do want insurance reform that prevents insurance companies from dropping coverage for people who become very ill. And they don’t want insurance companies to deny coverage to patients with preexisting conditions, which will be prohibited as of 2014.
The majority of Americans support a number of long-overdue reforms included in the bill that allow families to get free preventive check-ups with their doctor and young adults to stay on their parents’ insurance plans, and eliminating the “doughnut hole” in Medicare prescription drug coverage.
There’s no need for the Democrats to run away from these popular elements of the bill, if they are put in the appropriate issue frame.
But if they are to have a meaningful dialogue on health care, the Democrats must talk not only about these popular initiatives, but also about what they have done and will do to curtail costs, as well as to develop new drugs.
Put simply, the Democrats must talk about health care within the context of fiscal discipline and budgetary restraint, specifically referencing the work of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, a bipartisan commission chaired by former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-WY) and former Clinton chief of staff Erskine Bowles that has been charged with addressing the nation’s overall budget problems.
The party must exhibit a willingness to take on all aspects of spending and make clear that the administration is committed to entitlement reform while addressing the large-scale fiscal problems facing the nation.
But beyond that the Democrats must put forth a national strategy that facilitates and encourages private sector innovation as one of the critical ways to resolve our economic crisis and create a path that ensures long-term economic opportunities are facilitated, as well as developing the cutting-edge technologies and new drugs we need to help cure chronic, debilitating, and frequently fatal diseases.
If the Democrats can succeed in doing this in a way that makes it clear that they have a positive and optimistic agenda, they will be able to achieve two goals the American people regard as fundamental:
Address costs in a serious and sustained manner.
They can talk about cost containment in several ways.
The Democrats should talk about reducing insurance costs—not simply by bashing insurance companies but by working with them constructively, as part of a public-private sector initiative.
To that end, IBM CEO Samuel Palmisano recently met with Obama and offered to work, free of charge, to reduce health-care waste, fraud, and costs by $900 billion. The Obama administration turned down this offer flat, for reasons best known to itself.
To be fair, the new health-care law did attempt to contain Medicare costs through a new body called the Independent Payment Advisory Board, which has gotten little attention to date.
Medicare cost containment is critical, and the IPAB has the opportunity to become a model of bipartisanship, efficacy, and accountability to average voters by functioning as the body to rein in Medicare’s cost growth.
Finally, there needs to be a commitment to and a mechanism that takes the recommendations of the bipartisan budget commission and the IPAB and make them operational.
The bottom line remains that unless the Democrats are able to become credible advocates for cost containment, they will not succeed politically, and they certainly will not begin to have any success in doing what the American people regard as fundamental: reining in costs.
Health-care reform has been an unmitigated disaster to date, that’s for sure. But it does not have to be that way going forward.
With an emphasis on those aspects of the bill that work, an acknowledgement that the health-care reform needs to be fundamentally recast to encourage innovation and the development of new drugs, and by putting cost containment at the center of all efforts going forward, the Democrats have the chance to recast an initiative that could well play a major role in costing them control of the House and the Senate next month.
Douglas Schoen is a political strategist and author of the upcoming book Mad as Hell: How the Tea Party Movement is Fundamentally Remaking Our Two-Party System to be published by Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins on September 14. Schoen has worked on numerous campaigns, including those of Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Michael Bloomberg, Evan Bayh, Tony Blair, and Ed Koch.
See Related: LOCAL POLITICS
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Oh WTF is wrong with this asshole?
Obama really needs to resign and just live a life like a hermit on the woods somehwere.
WHO VOTED FOR THIS?
Be awesome to have list who voted for it.
Great attak ammo
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bump
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BUMP. I told you so.