Calling In Dr. Feelgood: Medicare Cuts Go Into Effect
Via Dr. Helen, Dr. Wes notes that $250 billion in Medicare cuts are going into effect after the Dems failed to pass their promised "doc fix." I have mixed feelings about this, but Dr. Wes doesn't: The Day After
They tell me the doctor Medicare cuts went through. You mean the AMA, with all their sound and fury signifying nothing, failed to influence our Congressional leadership?
Gee, who knew?
Folks, this was the plan. The cuts were supposed to go through. So look at it on the bright side. Our government just saved $250 billion!
And quietly, practices will downsize their nicest employees or close all together. Many others will speed up their flight to be bought by big hospital systems - but these hospital systems will be more selective when deciding who they admit to their ranks. Inner city hospitals, struggling for survival, will look to the government for more subsidies to meet their demands for survival. Government will comply to protect themselves. Big hospitals and health systems with lots of doctor-employees will point to the decreased revenue by their doctors, tighten their belts a bit more by maintaining their months-long hiring freezes indefinitely, and fail to give those productivity bonuses to their workers as their construction contracts for their additions continue to get paid as they get ready for the "Big Wave."
Like I say, I have mixed feelings. Conservatives have been trying to cut - or at least rein in - Medicare spending since the late Sixties. With Obamacare, we finally got some cuts...but the cuts were immediately plowed into even more unsustainable public medical funding (banging head against wall). I guess that could make sense if money was being taken out of the inefficient Medicare system and being put to better use, but we know that's not the case. Dr. Wes does suggest that people on Medicare will probably have to dip into their own pockets to pay for better care to which I say, "I can live with that" for about 75% of the people involved. The problem is not with entitlements for the poor, but for middle class entitlements that have hopelessly distorted the market and blown up our budgets.
Dr. Wes does note one thing that is truly outrageous. These cuts will fall disproportionately on the urban poor and the rural poor, as well as seniors. How many times have we heard Democrats talk grandly about their compassion? How many elections have they won - or at least made competitive - by demagoguing some poor GOP back bencher for daring to suggest that Medicare ought to be reformed in some way? We've been paying for Medicare exactly the way Democrats have demanded, and millions have planned their lives and their retirements around The System. And, for now, at the stroke of a non-vote, it's gone, or at least greatly curtailed. Way to protect the "vulnerable" guys.
Naturally, none of this is worthy of mention in the MSM. No, yesterday was all about Tony Heyward and Joe Barton, all of which added up to a great big zero. As this is not something that can automatically be blamed on the GOP, the embarrassed silence will no doubt continue.
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