Except... it isn't... designed to do so.

All it mostly does is just... cut paymets blanketly across all hosptials... with zero cost-benefit analysis about what hosptials have fraud/waste/abuse.

It does nothing to combat fraud and abuse.

Argueably it combats waste, by removing the benefits for people with medicare to get better private insurances.  Though that as well leads to a reduction in quality of care.

If you want to actually explain how it cuts these things though... feel free.

I'll have to do some additional research for that. Don't know if I'll have the time or the patients to do all that and make a post here, given that I generally don't follow political discussions here. But I will go ahead and paste and type some things about the benefits of the cuts:

"How a Cut Helps the Medicare Budget

To some voters, it may sound counter-intuitive at first to think that cutting money from Medicare would improve, not weaken, its finances. But, again, this is a reduction in the future growth of Medicare spending over 10 years. And spending less is a good thing for Medicare’s finances — as it is for most people’s.

For instance, let’s say someone has a dedicated coffee budget but decides to drop a daily latte habit and instead buy regular coffee. That person’s coffee budget took a big cut in spending, enabling the budget to last longer. Instead of one month of lattes, this java fan can have two months of coffee.

The biggest savings from the Affordable Care Act come from reductions in the future growth of payments to hospitals — about $415 billion over 10 years. That’s Medicare Part A. Income for Part A comes mainly from payroll taxes. If Medicare doesn’t need to spend that income immediately, it’s credited to Part A’s trust fund, and Medicare gets a Treasury bond that it can cash in later. Anytime Medicare needs to cash in that bond, Treasury must pay it. Even if Treasury spent the original money on something else, it must pay the bond.

So, campaign claims that imply that Obama has taken money out of Medicare, and Medicare won’t ever get it back, are simply not true.

At an Aug. 21 campaign stop in West Chester, Pa., Ryan said Obama and the Democrats “turned Medicare into a piggy bank to fund Obamacare. They took $716 billion from Medicare to pay for their Obamacare program.” On the other hand, he added, Republicans are “being candid with our current seniors” and “saying stop the raid on Medicare.”

Unfortunately for Medicare there isn’t $700 billion in any kind of “piggy bank” to “raid.” The trust fund doesn’t have anywhere near that much money — the Part A trust fund only contained $244.2 billion at the end of 2011. And the president can’t actually take money out of the trust fund. Medicare holds those Treasury bonds, and, as we said, it can cash them in anytime it needs the money.

The problem for Medicare is that the trust fund isn’t going up — it’s declining year after year. Some voters may get the mistaken impression that money they paid in to Medicare will pay their benefits once they retire. But as a practical matter the program functions as a pay-as-you-go system. And current income isn’t enough to pay all current benefits.

Without the spending cuts in the Affordable Care Act, the Part A trust fund was expected to be exhausted in 2016. With the ACA cuts, that date was pushed back to 2024.

That makes the RNC’s bankruptcy clock a bit curious. If the federal health care law hadn’t included those cuts to spending, there would be even less time left on that countdown."

http://www.factcheck.org/2012/08/medicares-piggy-bank/

So yeah, like I said, anyone who said Obama cut medicare or wants to "kill" Medicare is lying.

The only true solution to our medicare issues is a universe, non-profit system. Whether it's privately or government run I don't really care, but it's a fact that insurance agencies with larger pools of people are able to sell their insurance for a much lower rate, because they have a much larger pool of people paying in. That's why the US spends the most on health insurance yet has some of the worst care. That's why other countries have used us as a model of what NOT to do. That's why Republicans like to either lie or greatly exagerate the issues that Canada and other countries have with their health insurance, rather then argue on our own systems merits (of which there are very few, particularly for low income people).

If we had one, universal healthcare system, from a non-profit provider that only needs to cover administrative costs and not try to make profits to please investors, our healthcare system WOULD be cheaper. It's just common sense in that regard. A larger pool + no need for profit = cheaper prices. Hopefully, one day America will see that. That's the way to save medicare. Not private insurance, government insurance reserved for the poor or the old. One, big universal pool.

I don't think the Republican's solutions (well, the current Republican solutions. The ACA is based on what WAS the Republican solution just a decade ago) are the answer. Regardless of whether you consider the Ryan plan "a voucher program" it would pass on more and more of the cost of healthcare onto seniors. Or the other, more recent Ryan plan, that makes medicare optional and allows people to also seek out private insurance instead of it, which would allow private healthcare companies to take on healthier patients, leaving medicare with a much less healthy pool of people, forcing it to pay out more and more while taking in less, weakening the program. I do not think passing the cost onto to the elderly and allowing private insurance to reap more profit are the answers.

First off... that Treasury bond part is a lie. The government actually doesn't have to honor treasury bonds to medicare... if it doesn't want to it'll just cut benefits.... and before they have to would likely just create more cuts to medicare.

That's why direct taxes for social security and medicare are complete scams.

Other countries don't put this in government bonds, but instead in the private markets where the government can't touch them.

As far as i know we're the only country dumb enough to fund government pension and insurance programs via IOU.

Secondly, what you posted was more or less word for word what I stated.

It's a cut in spending that will lower quality of care and possibly even care as hopsitals and doctors further limit how many medicare patients they take... because medicare payments fall below insurance payments.

No, it's not. What I posted doesn't say it will reduce quality of care. There is a reason for this.

Like I said, I was doing research to refresh my memory. I was going to write up a long post, but then I found this nice summary:

"

The blue section represents reductions in how much Medicare reimburses private, Medicare Advantage plans. That program allows seniors to join a private health insurance, with the federal government footing the bill. The whole idea of Medicare Advantage was to drive down the cost of health insurance for the elderly as private insurance companies competing for seniors’ business.

That’s not what happened. By 2010, the average Medicare Advantage per-patient cost was 117 percent of regular fee-for-service. The Affordable Care Act gives those private plans a haircut and tethers reimbursement levels to the quality of care administered, and patient satisfaction.

The Medicare Advantage cut gets the most attention, but it only accounts for about a third of the Affordable Care Act’s spending reduction. Another big chunk comes from the hospitals. The health law changed how Medicare calculates what they get reimbursed for various services, slightly lowering their rates over time. Hospitals agreed to these cuts because they knew, at the same time, they would likely see an influx of paying patients with the Affordable Care Act’s insurance expansion.

The rest of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicare cuts are a lot smaller. Reductions to Medicare’s Disproportionate Share Payments — extra funds doled out the hospitals that see more uninsured patients — account for 5 percent in savings. Lower payments to home health providers make up another 8.8 percent. About a dozen cuts of this magnitude make up the green section above."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/14/romneys-right-obamacare-cuts-medicare-by-716-billion-heres-how/

So, to review:

It reduces payment to Medicare Advantage, which has failed to reduce healthcare costs and is currently 14% more expensive then regular Medicare, and ties payments to quality of care and customer satisfaction. So, no reduction of quality of care here.

It reduces payment to hospitals. But hospitals have agreed to these cuts, because they will be seeing new revenue coming in from the Affordable Care Act, which WILL significantly expand the number of people with healthcare, much like the law has done for Massachusetts when it was implemented by Romney. Nope, no reduction of quality of care here, either.

Finally, the remaining third of the cuts are small haircuts to a variety of other programs. Given that I've yet to find anything more in depth that describes what these cuts do, I can't say anything about them.

But to claim that this WILL result in a reduction in the quality of care, and that this WILL force most doctors to abandon Medicare seems dubious at best. Is there a chance that these cuts will have unforeseen consequences? I'm sure. New laws often do. After all, Medicare Advantage was supposed to make medical treatment cheaper, and it clearly hasn't. But the best I've been able to find about reducing quality of care from someone who isn't connected to the Romney campaign is that we simply don't the full scope of what the cuts will do yet. At the very least, the intentions of these cuts are sound, and are meant to cut costs without reducing quality of care. Whether they will or not, only time will tell. And that's when this discussion will be worth having again.

I'll let you have the last word on this. There are always two sides to an argument, otherwise there wouldn't be one, regardless of how dubious one side may (or may not) be. But the more I look into this, the more it sounds like just another Republican talking point that stretches the truth, much like Obama's "gutting' of welfare reform. Or how there isn't a consensus on global warming among scientists. But hey, if what you say turns out to be true, we'll find out soon enough. Either way, these cuts are only a short term fix to a long term problem.

Again... that all completely agrees with what i just said.
Medicare advantage is going to be cut, and some people are going to fall off it. This reduces quality.


Also yes... Medicare will in fact increase the number of people with insurance. Which I've stated.
Which means that there will be plenty more insured people for doctors to take. Which means much fewer medicare patients will be accepted.

Which means... reduced quality of care as people are forced to use emergency rooms.

Nevermind the fact that a lot of hospitals in poorer areas run on losses.


What they're trying to argue is it won't cut benefits... as in, what's offered by medicare. Which it won't, while ignoring the fact that it will effect the quality of what is offered.

Want a good example of why it will?

http://papers.nber.org/papers/w16859

Edit: Article on it since you probably don't have a membership.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/15/obamacare-wont-cut-medicare-benefits-it-could-hit-quality/

Point being... don't let party affiliation blind you from actual issues.  It's why Obama gets to be so neo-conservative yet run as a liberal.

Both are great ideas. Better yet an 100% cut to income tax and corporate taxes and getting rid of minimum wage. In the blink of an eye I just ended unemployment.

It is like a SuperNews clip on Twitter.  You want to believe the world receives your views and is enlightened by them, but you really don't care what other opinions people have.  For myself, I do want a range of opinions, and articles to go with it, so I can improve where I stand.

I am very likely, after this election, to step out even further from political office chat and maybe discuss things of greater practical value.

Unless you end up having people put money besides Wall Street, privatization of Social Security becomes a bailout program for Wall Street.  If Wall Street again goes bat loco and hedges like idiots and takes down everyone's pensions and retirement savings as a result, there will end up being a mass cryout by the public to save Wall Street.  

Fair enough... but if there is.. the end result is that we are exactly where we are anyway.   People could always just have the government bail THEM out instead of Wallstreet and give them the benefits they would of got under Social Security.

While the best result is... this is not a problem anymore.

Alternativly we could be like every single other country in the world and privtise social security (and medicare funding etc) and put it in the hands of investors.

Which is actually the method I prefer most... however nobody is suggesting such a thing.   Nobody has since Al Gore... who kinda suggested it maybe?  I think he just wanted to dump actual cash into a reserve though, which didn't make sense to me.

Sometimes their sources are complete BS.  Sometimes they misinterpret their own sources.  For real, a lot of people anywhere seem to not know what they really believe.  My parents are that way, and a large percentage of posts I see online involving politics are that way.  When evidence is provided that proves a point on the opposing side has validity, it is shot down vehemently.  They start acting as if they have all the qualifications to say that your evidence doesn't count.