Healthcare Reality

The "death panels" thing has ALWAYS been a joke... The brain-stems at the insurance company's offices have ALWAYS been a "death panel" that would put any effort by the public sector to shame... I wonder how many "death sentences" are handed out by Medicare, as opposed to what it would be if health-care "death panels" for the elderly were managed by the private sector? NOW, you can REALLY "worry about Granny."

Death Panels was a hype statement, but as more and more companies prefer to pay the fines rather than provide health insurance to their employees, more health providers will be having to take Medicaid/Medicare lower payments than what private insurance provides. Therefore they will cut back how many MRI machines they buy, trim services because they don't want to pay extra or overtime if they are earning less.
And while anecdotal in my case, we supply dialysis clinics capital equipment, almost all dialysis patients are on a goverment insurance program, when the Feds released their new payout plan for next year, those medical service suppliers had to cut back on thier orders for new capital equipment with us, and I imagine they will have to cut back on the consumables that guarantee patient safety. So the Feds by setting the new lower, payment rate, have condemmed a certain number of patients to death by infection, etc.

I switched to Medicare 5 months ago....in comparing the reimbursements to the doctors, I have found that Medicare pays almost exactly the same amount that BC/BS does. Yeah....I have had a lot of doctor visits this last year. The big difference I noted was that Medicare pays the doctor a lot faster.

archer wrote: I switched to Medicare 5 months ago....in comparing the reimbursements to the doctors, I have found that Medicare pays almost exactly the same amount that BC/BS does. Yeah....I have had a lot of doctor visits this last year. The big difference I noted was that Medicare pays the doctor a lot faster.

One little secret about Medicare I heard on NPR. Every year they budget what they think the Medicare/Medicaid payouts will be, but then the healthcare suppliers petition their individual representatives to increase payouts for respective procedures, so by the end of the year these federal healthcare programs cost a lot more than expected.