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The President's Proposal for Health Care Reform
From The Daily Capitalist
I just read the 11 page summary of the President's Proposal on health care reform put out by the White House. Fellow Americans, you have no idea of the financial havoc this plan, or the House or Senate plans, will cause to the health care system specifically or to the economy in general.
The rules and regulations are so invasive that we will be forever mired in endless bureaucratic control of this most important segment of our lives. These plans, while they say they give us choice, are as much "top down" as if the government were running the health care system as in the Canadian or UK systems.
The visions I had were from the movie "Brazil" where huge rows of gray offices provided meaningless jobs for bureaucrats who never understood in the least what their part in the evil system was.
Everything in the Proposal is a lie and so counter-intuitive to the Laws of Economics that one can only assume blatant ignorance of economics or a perverse desire to centralize the role of the state in our affairs regardless of the consequences. I think it is both.
Here is the White House's summary of this Proposal:
- It makes insurance more affordable by providing the largest middle class tax cut for health care in history, reducing premium costs for tens of millions of families and small business owners who are priced out of coverage today. This helps over 31 million Americans afford health care who do not get it today – and makes coverage more affordable for many more.
- It sets up a new competitive health insurance market giving tens of millions of Americans the exact same insurance choices that members of Congress will have.
- It brings greater accountability to health care by laying out commonsense rules of the road to keep premiums down and prevent insurance industry abuses and denial of care.
- It will end discrimination against Americans with pre-existing conditions.
- It puts our budget and economy on a more stable path by reducing the deficit by $100 billion over the next ten years – and about $1 trillion over the second decade – by cutting government overspending and reining in waste, fraud and abuse.
I don't have to remind you that in every program the federal government has ever implemented costs have been grossly underestimated intentionally by lying, or by incompetence, or both. Recently disclosed FOIA disclosures reveal that Lyndon Johnson lied about the costs of Medicare because he knew that he couldn't get the bill through if the true costs were known. Even so the costs have risen geometrically above the worst estimates back then.
I don't believe that the Obama Administration is just well meaning but misguided. I am not sure that President Obama fully understands the consequences of his Proposal because of his lack of understanding of economics, but the Proposal as a means to exert control over 16% of the economy is a conscious and blatant power grab.
For example, there are provisions for price controls of insurance premiums of private insurers. I don't believe any of the proponents of these plans actually believe in price controls because everyone knows they don't work. The Cato Institute in its excellent article today on the Proposal dug up this quote by Larry Summers:
[P]rice and exchange controls inevitably create harmful economic distortions. Both the distortions and the economic damage get worse with time.
Yet as harmful as they are, price controls were one of the centerpieces of President Obama's speech today as he announced the Proposal. As reported in the Wall Street Journal article:
The Obama plan calls for giving the federal government authority to block insurers from making premium-rate increases. A new Health Insurance Rate Authority would lay out what it viewed as reasonable rate increases, and those considered unjustified could be blocked.
If you think I am exaggerating, here are the titles of some of the "reforms" outlined in the Proposal. They are a pervasive bureaucratic nightmare that is the beginning of the end of the best health care system in the world. If these don't sound 1984ish to you, then check your pulse. These policies are deceptively disguised but in fact they are: government penalties, increased government oversight, market interference, price controls, centralization of their control, increased regulation of hospitals and doctors on how to administer health care, taxes on producers, and taxes on the "rich." Here is a list of the program initiatives:
- Strengthen Oversight of Insurance Premium Increases
- Improve Individual Responsibility
- Strengthen Employer Responsibility
- Comprehensive Sanctions Database
- Registration and Background Checks of Billing Agencies and Individuals
- Expanded Access to the Healthcare Integrity and Protection Data Bank
- Liability of Medicare Administrative Contractors for Claims Submitted by Excluded Providers
- Limiting Debt Discharge in Bankruptcies of Fraudulent Health Care Providers or Suppliers
- Use of Technology for Real-Time Data Review
- Illegal Distribution of a Medicare or Medicaid Beneficiary Identification or Billing Privileges
- Study of Universal Product Numbers Claims Forms for Selected Items and Services under the Medicare Program
- Medicaid Prescription Drug Profiling
- Medicare Advantage Risk Adjustment Errors
- Modify Certain Medicare Medical Review Limitations
- Establish a CMS-IRS Data Match to Identify Fraudulent Providers
- Preventing Delays in Access to Generic Drugs
- Policies to Contain Costs and Ensure Fiscal Sustainability
- Improve Medicare Advantage Payments
- Delay and Reform the High-Cost Plan Excise Tax
- Broaden the Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI) Tax Base for High-Income Taxpayers
- Increase in Fees on Brand Name Pharmaceuticals
- Close Tax Loopholes
- Improve the Fairness of Federal Funding for States.
- Simplify Income Definitions
- Delay and Reform of Fees on Health Insurance Providers
- Delay and Convert Fee on Medical Device Manufacturers to Excise Tax
- Strengthen the CLASS Act
- Ensure Effective Implementation
Remember the lesson of Newspeak in George Orwell's novel 1984: a word has a meaning that the State chooses it to mean. Said one of Orwell's characters,
"It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words."
All of these policy initiatives quoted above mean just the opposite of what the words say. For example, when Obama says "Improve Individual Responsibility" he means the exact opposite because that section of the Proposal deals with penalties for those who don't buy insurance even if they don't want it. In other words, "individual responsibility" now means forced obedience to the State.
We need to oppose this legislation. A polite letter from you to your Representative and Senators, the Leadership, and the White House expressing strong opposition to these proposals would help: House of Representatives, Senate, White House.
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Why should anyone with half a brain accept anything Larry Summers has to say as authoritative? Are you kidding? Or are you an insurance industry lobbyist?
Pretty cock-sure statement to make by automatically accusing anyone of disagreeing with you as not familiar with economics, as YOU understand it to be. Let me guess, you're a Bernanke protege'.
You give yourself, and the failed system known as capitalism, waaaaaaaaaay to much credit, and way too many excuses.
I really do hope this spells the end of HMO's and private insurance. They've had their chance and all it has accomplished is making a very few people wealthy and has ruined the lives of millions. It has failed miserably and it's time to kiss this sick cash cow goodbye. Good riddance too.
It doe spell the end of for-profit healthcare, but as this post's author illustrates many Americans will rage on about abstractions like bureaucrats and freedom while the current health system is in the grip of private industry bureaucrats essentially denying freedom to health policy holders.
Fundamentally, for-profit health coverage is ending because economic growth is stalled. We need economic development -like a new health system using far less energy and other resources- but not growth. Finally, just to season the stew, our populace is not very fit or healthy; and it's aging, just to season the stew.
President Obama had to reach back into the campaign to bring back on board David Plouffe, the campaign manager of Obama for America and Obama-Biden 2008, because the administration’s message is in trouble.
Is it Plouffe who helped push the jobs priority emphasis off the front page and bring back health care? An accomplished tactician would obviously suggest that this is a bad time for the Obama Administration to be running on a jobs program when unemployment continues to worsen and nothing is working. The summit on health care between the president and the Republicans this week was probably Pouffle’s idea. The idea was to put health care all over the networks and front pages and force something, anything, through the Congress, to make it look as if the Dems are accomplishing and the Republicans are bad.
Had I been Obama’s adviser, that’s what I would have done
We need to begin with the truth. And that is that the oligarchs are doing everything they can to turn over all government power into their hands. We start at that point. They’ll use every trick, every lie, all government authority--reward their friends and take care of their supporters--the financial industry, the healthcare industry, the insurance industry, the corporatists, the illegals, the welfare recipients, the minorities, the public service unions—to accomplish that goal.
They need more power to get everything they want. But they are telegraphing their intentions now. In other words, it’s no longer hard to see just who Obama is and who his neoliberal and neocon supporters are and what they want. Fortunately, the American people finally have gotten their backs up, including a lot of small corporations and small businessmen who stand to get hurt in this.
Government can’t do all these things and still reward the Financial Industry, PhRMA, the AHA, the AMA, Unions, Insurers.... There just isn’t enough tax money to go around and the tax and healthcare payers--paying more and more for less and less--are going to fight.
It now looks to me as if the Anthem/WellPoint/Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association decision to raise premiums as much as 39% on its California customers was done to help Obama tell his story about the rising cost of health care—otherwise, why do it at a time when the parent company had made a lot of money, i.e., a difficult time to prove it needed a rate increase?
The Democrats have all these plans, but the word is they’ve telegraphed their intentions as your article so aptly points out in every detail. Obama and Co. simply is looking for money in order to finance its schemes for central control and to pay back Goldman Sachs and all those people who hold the debt. You can’t count on both hands the number of things this administration has come up with in the past ten days in terms of trial balloons looking for money—cutting Medicare, the conversion of 401(k) savings and Individual Retirement Accounts into annuities or other steady payment streams while telling you that you are "investing" your money in U.S. Treasury bonds when they are going to use your money “immediately to pay for their unprecedented trillion-dollar budget deficits, leaving nothing to back up their political promises, just as they have raided the Social Security trust funds,” as Investors.com put it... and, of course, Save With Sheila…
"President Obama had to reach back into the campaign to bring back on board David Plouffe, the campaign manager of Obama for America and Obama-Biden 2008, because the administration’s message is in trouble.
Is it Plouffe who helped push the jobs priority emphasis off the front page and bring back health care? An accomplished tactician would obviously suggest that this is a bad time for the Obama Administration to be running on a jobs program when unemployment continues to worsen and nothing is working. The summit on health care between the president and the Republicans this week was probably Pouffle’s idea. The idea was to put health care all over the networks and front pages and force something, anything, through the Congress, to make it look as if the Dems are accomplishing and the Republicans are bad.
Had I been Obama’s adviser, that’s what I would have done"
The problem is that healthcare is NOT the top priority for most Americans--jobs are. If taking jobs off as the main focus was Plouffe's strategy--just a couple of weeks after Obama promised in the SOTU that jobs and the economy would be front and center for the administration this year--it was a bad one, because it showed that the administration has ADD, simply can't be bothered when there isn't a quick fix, or they can't directly control the external circumstances surrounding the issue.
After all, they can legislate how healthcare is run, but not whether businesses will hire. What this move does is show that Obama can't be bothered to focus on the #1 priority affecting Americans right now because he's too afraid to stick his neck out on any serious policy. It marks him as a weakling and a poser.
He made a $750 billion hedge bet that the economy was in a normal business cycle and would recover in time for the "stimulus" to get credit for the recovery, and he got his ass handed to him. Now he's making up figures on jobs "created or saved" out of thin air to cover for his losing bet, can't direct Reid on how to craft a $15 billion jobs bill, of all things, and has now completely shifted his focus off the issue altogether since he couldn't wave his magic wand and make the problem go away.
No, the problem isn't that the message is in trouble--they have no message at all, unless that message is, "We are too weak and cowardly to risk our necks directing policy, and instead will pass the buck to anyone that makes us look bad."
Price controls are harmful?
But legislation that denies states the right to band together to negotiate better prices with Big Pharma is perfectly ok?
Sorry, guys, much as I love the US, this is what the rest of the world uses to prove you've gone insane..."Just look at their healthcare system."
"Price controls are harmful?
But legislation that denies states the right to band together to negotiate better prices with Big Pharma is perfectly ok?"
Nice strawman. Where do you see anyone here defending this particular policy?
The whole "healthcare reform" debate has NEVER been about getting the costs of healthcare under control. Medicare proponents back in the 1960s said that instituting it would help keep medical costs under control, and they were wrong by several orders of magnitude (those costs have simply been foisted on younger generations rather than the recipients).
The whole debate has served TWO purposes: 1) keep the public too distracted to focus more anger about unemployment and government debt; and 2) try and determine just "what" level of government intrusion into the healthcare industry is acceptable.
Cost control as a fundamental issue is actually barely relevant. "Cost controls" are a sideshow. There are plenty of ways government could reduce the cost of healthcare without spending a dime--allow the purchase of healthcare plans across state lines, tort reform, and mandating price lists for basic medical services that one typically undergoes at local clinics. None of these features were ever seriously considered.
The single-minded obsession with "health insurance reform" obscures the fact that people are using health insurance for everything these days from routine doctor visits all the way up to catastrophic health issues. It's automatically assumed that insurance is needed for routine procedures, rather than a backstop to cover the cost of truly extensive medical needs. Thus, insurance companies have to rely on an ever-increasing stream of revenue to make up for an ever-decreasing pool of funds. And this is only going to get worse as the baby boomers get older in ever-greater numbers. If you think the costs of SS and Medicare aren't going to negatively impact the younger generations in the US, especially in the realm of medical costs, you're kidding yourself.
All price controls do in a world of devalued currency is slough those differences in real costs onto the shoulders of a third party, not control prices as a whole. Either someone pays for it, or the service eventually goes away. Hence, why the post office has remained in business even though it typically operates at a loss and is constantly raising the cost of postage.
And there's also the separate, but very much related, issue of the cost of getting medical training to begin with. If you expand medical coverage for over 300 million people, you will need doctors and staff to take care of them. They will need to be paid. A medical degree can cost $300,000 or more by the time all the schooling is taken care of. You honestly expect these folks to put themselves in that kind of crippling debt and work at substantially lower wages just out of a desire for "public service"?
No, this problem is way more complicated than simply controlling prices, but don't expect the current administration to actually address it in any substantive way. That would involve leadership, honesty, and accountability, something that is clearly in short supply with these folks.
what most don't understand is corp. america has wanted the fuck out of providing health care for workers for the last 20 years, it helped bring down gm
if corporations rule, then, the majority will rule, and they want out, how it happens they don't give a flying fuck, they want out
they don't say it in public, yet, it's a fact
Obamacare: Young, healthy people pay for chain smoking fatties.
Lots of chain smoking young fatties, male and female, in my MSA - yours too, I bet.
I hope that Peru has good surgeons and doctors. I know that medicine is cheap there, and from what my in-laws say is of reasonable quality.
These Socialists keep pushing us around, and get their way in everything, then we are gone. We'll take our money with us and never come back.
You'd better get your teeth fixed before you go. Lots of gappy smiles on those fine folks.
MR Deflation will pay a visit to all in the Health Care racket.
The health care system, well if you call it a system, is perfectly capable of collapsing all on its own, thank you, and it will. It is going to go bankrupt. It already is bankrupt. They just don't know it yet. The 'reform' movement is its last lifeline. Every shareholder should rejoice for this opportunity to get out. As the bankruptcies roll through the system the infrastructure and the people will still be there and can get back to doing what they were meant to do. Which isn't to make money for leeches and necromancers. The thing not needed, vast offices full of 'billing' specialists will be gone.
Bike to work. Stop eating crap. Now there's a health care reform plan.
That being said, ZH runs a fine line between thought-provoking analysis and soapbox venting. This piece, unfortunately, falls more into the latter. Being an unfortunate resident of the socialist gulag to the north of you, I will use this opportunity to sneak some confidential information through the barbed wire and past the guard towers to the free world:
The Canadian system (well, really a whole bunch of separate provincial systems) is not run by a government bureaucracy. My doctor is not a government employee, and most service providers are private. They make the medical decisions, not government bureaucrats. The costs of procedures/operations they decide upon are reimbursed with public funds.
By all means, I applaud the American debate on health care reform as it is no small matter- but if you are going to drag other countries' systems down into the mud to score a quick point for your side, at least do some research beyond cable television.
You must live in another Canada. The Canada I'm talking about is a top-down system controlled and regulated by the provinces. My Canada has a system supported by taxes and is not focused on supplying medical services, but on controlling costs. And controlling costs, as my Canada experiences, results in rationing health care. The Canada I'm talking about is the one (see above) where their own politicians flee to the U.S. for medical care to save their lives.
So a member of the political elite going abroad for highly specialized surgery is now a broadstroke indictment of the entire Canadian health care system?
In my reality, the Canadian system, warts and all, manages to provide decent basic coverage to all completely apart from their ability to be wealthy or well-connected. Not being wealthy or well-connected myself, I tend to see that as a decent bargain.
Your reality sounds pretty cool too, though. A lot more thrilling and polarized, that's for sure!
What group or person will stand up and take credit for writing this bill? Barry-O didn't write it. Who benefits? Are the beneficiaries of flawed program legislation allowed to write proposals like this? In return for what - a big fat campaign contribution? It's a simple question: Who is the Author?
There ought to be regional Insurance commissioners who determine whether a price increase is necessary or not.
That part I agree with because in our city Highmark just increased profits 50% over last year and STILL want a huge rate increase when they should be LOWERING rates.
Insurance on health should be regulated simply by setting a profit limit. It may or may not be dictatorial, but these people in insurance have used their excess profits to gamble on high-risk loans the losses on which the people of the United States have had to absorb.
IF they are not going to operate as free marketeers then fuck 'em. They deserve to be regulated down to the last penny of profit.
There are! The Insurance Commissioner in every state has to approve rate hikes.
And they keep approving them!
Not all states have insurance regulation set up the same way. But the powerful insurance lobby keeps it that way instead of having a federal insurance regulator.
C'mon BS, don't disturb the know-nothings with facts.
Another official to bribe? That will be reflected in your premiums.
IT's not about health are it's about
"...huge rows of gray offices provided meaningless jobs for bureaucrats...".
Read: More democratic voters.
The blatant power grabbing from these bastards should not be lost on the public but a good many of Obama's constituents merely want everyone to be as miserable as they are. That's what ALL liberals want, distributive misery.
This article is all very well, but right now, not only are millions of our jobs being shipped overseas, our standard of living being destroyed, food prices climbing rapidly, but health care costs are sky-rocketing off the charts. I was with cigna until they raised their rates over 350%. I just cant afford health care anymore and I'm right in the rapidly dwindling middle class bracket (what's left of it). You say THIS is what will destroy our economy? Bullshit. Lets hope you, and everyone else who is avidly against some kind of reform, loses their healthcare coverage and then needs it. Your tune will change pretty damn quick.
This article is not about denying healthcare coverage - it's about the word "reform" and what it means in the DC dialect of the English language: more control; huge! CEO bonuses.
Hope. Change. Reform. What other words have opposite meanings once you cross the border into Federal territory?
I (and many on here) agree that reform is needed, it's not about opposing reform. The argument all along has been that what has been proposed thus far is not reform and actually makes the situation worse, all while weakening our fiscal state and ruining other, productive parts of the economy.
The biggest problem of the US health care system is COST. The problem has been reformulated and repackaged by the politicians, insurance companies, and health industy to be "Availability of Insurance". Insurance only hides the true excessive cost of the system. The problem with health care in the US is that a bunch of people are making a lot of money with the current system, and they don't want it to change. Unless you address the cost issue, you will do nothing to improve the system. The system is on the cusp of breaking down, making health care available only to those able to cover the costs. As jobs are lost (never to be regained), availability of health care is going to deteriorate. Welcome to the new world.
Cost escalation is completely linked to the anti trust exemption that health and medical malpractice insurers continue to enjoy. This is in fact the key to the entire issue but the spin has diverted attention away from it.
H.R. 3596: Health Insurance Industry Antitrust Enforcement Act of 2009http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-3596
Stalled since October. "To be addressed in the broader reform package" BULLSHIT!!!
Here is a little dialog:
Doctor: Hey malpractice insurer, my premiums are going up 30%!!!!! I can't afford this!!!
Insurer: Don't worry Doc. Wait until you see our new schedule of "usual & customary" charges!! A gall bladder removal is up to $85,000!!! Isn't that one of your specialties!!?????
And it spirals continuously upward. What market forces will stop it in an environment of ZERO COMPETITION????
NUFF SAID! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 'My heart, my choice,' Williams says, defending decision for U.S. heart surgeryBy Tara Brautigam (CP) – 15 hours ago
An unapologetic Danny Williams says he was aware his trip to the United States for heart surgery earlier this month would spark outcry, but he concluded his personal health trumped any public fallout over the controversial decision.
In an interview with The Canadian Press, Williams said he went to Miami to have a "minimally invasive" surgery for an ailment first detected nearly a year ago, based on the advice of his doctors.
"This was my heart, my choice and my health," Williams said late Monday from his condominium in Sarasota, Fla.
"I did not sign away my right to get the best possible health care for myself when I entered politics."
The 60-year-old Williams said doctors detected a heart murmur last spring and told him that one of his heart valves wasn't closing properly, creating a leakage.
He said he was told at the time that the problem was "moderate" and that he should come back for a checkup in six months.
Eight months later, in December, his doctors told him the problem had become severe and urged him to get his valve repaired immediately or risk heart failure, he said.
His doctors in Canada presented him with two options - a full or partial sternotomy, both of which would've required breaking bones, he said.
He said he spoke with and provided his medical information to a leading cardiac surgeon in New Jersey who is also from Newfoundland and Labrador. He advised him to seek treatment at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami.
That's where he was treated by Dr. Joseph Lamelas, a cardiac surgeon who has performed more than 8,000 open-heart surgeries.
Williams said Lamelas made an incision under his arm that didn't require any bone breakage.
"I wanted to get in, get out fast, get back to work in a short period of time," the premier said.
Williams said he didn't announce his departure south of the border because he didn't want to create "a media gong show," but added that criticism would've followed him had he chose to have surgery in Canada.
"I would've been criticized if I had stayed in Canada and had been perceived as jumping a line or a wait list. ... I accept that. That's public life," he said.
"(But) this is not a unique phenomenon to me. This is something that happens with lots of families throughout this country, so I make no apologies for that."
Williams said his decision to go to the U.S. did not reflect any lack of faith in his own province's health care system.
"I have the utmost confidence in our own health care system in Newfoundland and Labrador, but we are just over half a million people," he said.
"We do whatever we can to provide the best possible health care that we can in Newfoundland and Labrador. The Canadian health care system has a great reputation, but this is a very specialized piece of surgery that had to be done and I went to somebody who's doing this three or four times a day, five, six days a week."
He quipped that he had "a heart of a 40-year-old, so that gives me 20 years new life," and said he intends to run in the next provincial election in 2011.
"I'm probably going to be around for a long time, hopefully, if God willing," he said.
"God forbid for the Canadian public I won't be around longer than ever."
Williams also said he paid for the treatment, but added he would seek any refunds he would be eligible for in Canada.
"If I'm entitled to any reimbursement from any Canadian health care system or any provincial health care system, then obviously I will apply for that as anybody else would," he said.
"But I wrote out the cheque myself and paid for it myself and to this point, I haven't even looked into the possibility of any reimbursement. I don't know what I'm entitled to, if anything, and if it's nothing, then so be it."
He is expected back at work in early March.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5h0QC7bditrE...
Typical elitist hypocrite.
Loved this. Thanks, Spekulatn.
This is a shitty critique (Propaganda is a more accurate descritpion of the above article)
"is the beginning of the end of the best health care system in the world."
Who the FUCK are you fooling with this quote? (Excepting yourself, of course).
We Pay the MOST for health care of any industiralized country and have the WORST outcomes? That's your definition of the "BEST HEALTH CARE SYSTEM IN THE WORLD"?!?!?
My FUCKING ASS IT IS!
Do you get paid by the health insurance industry perhaps?
Do you hope to get a job in the new government bureaucracy required to run this monstrosity, perhaps?
Ruh-roh! Comment scrubbers strike again!
flag as junk works
This is a shitty critique (Propaganda is a more accurate descritpion of the above article)
"is the beginning of the end of the best health care system in the world."
Who the FUCK are you fooling with this quote? (Excepting yourself, of course).
We Pay the MOST for health care of any industiralized country and have the WORST outcomes? That's your definition of the "BEST HEALTH CARE SYSTEM IN THE WORLD"?!?!?
My FUCKING ASS IT IS!
Do you get paid by the health insurance industry perhaps?
I think of it as more along the lines of 'Skynet' from the "Terminator" series. The second they "plug it in" everything's going to be all fucked up and it will ultimately be the undoing of the country.
Other than that, sounds like a great plan. I hope everyone who votes for it gets "The Full Mussolini" in the end.
What a way with words - quite apropos:
http://home.comcast.net/~lowe9101/mussolini/images/other1.jpg
All for the State,
Nothing outside the State,
Nothing against the State!
-Mussolini
I love how they say this "brings coverage to 31 million Americans who lack it today."
Yeah! By putting a gun to their head and making them write a check for it!
It's stunning how many young Obama lovers think they are literally getting "free government healthcare". That couldn't be any further from the truth. Young people would have 5-25% of their disposable incomes hijacked under this plan. That's a lot of iPods that never get bought.
green shoots !
change you can believe in !
yes we can !
Houston's largest employer is the Texas Medical Center, so things will get much, much worse here in March after Congress fails to prevent planned cuts to healthcare reimbursement of all providers for essentially all patients by 21.2%. How will this affect your home town?
NEWS FLASH: Essentially all payers (BCBS, UHC, etc.) base their reimbursement contracts off the Medicare fee schedule, such as 110%, 85%, etc.
The healthcare jobs train is about to get derailed. Many hospitals like Tenet's Park Plaza Hospital have just this past weekend instituted across the board 20% reductions in FTE hours, except for the salaried managers, of course.
However, this 21.2% reduction in 85%(ish) of expenses (with no reduction in revenue) would be a HUGE windfall for the health insurers, so I might get long UNH, AET, HUM, and CVH.
Very bad for providers, so other side is to short THC, HLS, HMA, and LPNT.
Of course, if congress passes some last-minute amendment to avert the cut this trade is screwed, but on the brite side, healthcare as we know it is preserved. So, welcome to the casino, DC style!
Also, one might want to get their medical care now, as many doctors will not make it 30 days at 78.8% of revenue. If you or someone you know work for a doctor, then better warm up the resume.
The Dept. of Energy ... Worthless
The Dept of Education ... Worthless
The Department of Agriculture ... Worthless
The Department of Commerce ... Worthless
The Department of Labor ... Worthless
The Department of Transportation ... Worthless
The Department of Homeland Health ... Bigger better and even more ... Worthless
How can any believe that the US Government can do anything efficiently, except protect the interests of American all over the world with our children's blood ... keep the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, State and Interior ... Dump the rest
Governments have never been about efficiency, that's an business ethos. Governments are about people not profit..
You can put lipstick on dogsh*t, but it remains.....
Yes folks you are paying for it all! Don't whine, don't cry just keep on paying your taxes. Shut up or be rounded up.
You forgot to add the white house and congress to your list which, by the way, is way too short.
How many agencies are there in USG? So many that we lost count.