After balancing the budget and announcing $2.4 trillion in government spending cuts over ten years, politicians and media pundit are insisting that it is only the beginning of the attack on health care, pensions and other social programs.
So why is balancing the budget and cutting medicare so bad for the Privately Insured? After all, the Democrats have made sure the automatic cuts leave Medicare benefits untouched, and the Republicans have blocked any new taxes.
Everyone is content right? Or so it seems. But the truth is that cutting payments to Medicare providers will mean some Americans are going to pay more. It may not be called a tax, but if you’re covered by private health insurance, money will be coming out of your pocket nonetheless.
Here’s how cuts in Medicare affects the rest: If a hospital provides a service that costs $1,000,000, and the government elects to pay just $980,000, the $20,000 gap doesn’t disappear. The hospital has to cover it somehow. It will likely do so by shifting the costs to commercial insurers, which eventually means higher premiums. This cost shifting is nothing new-it’s been happening for years-but more cuts will just make it worse.
NY Hospitals in particular have felt Federal Funding cuts for teaching hospitals over the last decade. This has been a contributing factor to St. Vincents declaring bankruptcy last January. Many surviving hospitals however have the size to negotiate effectively with private insurers to make up that funding short fall.
So guess who makes up that difference? The fact remains, if you don’t deal with underlying costs, you’re not fixing the problem, you’re just covering it up.
It is not increasing revenues by letting the Bush tax cuts end; it is RESTORING REVENUE by restoring Bush’s disastorous tax cuts.
Let us remember that INVESTMENTS in the future of our country, in education, health and jobs for our citizens are not the same as overspending on trinkets and baubles for a household.
Private insurers won’t pay either —they caught on a while ago by setting up DRGs for every condition and won’t pay a penny more —-lots of denials because of that. For example, If a patient come in with DVT or PE, there’s a certain number of days (which includes grouped medical, drug care, and hospital stay) that insurers will cover—so if the patient has to stay an extra day because they haven’t reached a therapeutic INR on Coumadin (what they’re discharged on), insurance will deny coverage for that extra day—the hospital is stuck with the bill, which is why many inefficient hospitals (who don’t have clinicians dedicated to, say, making sure coumadin is started on day 1 and therapeutic by planned discharge) have gone bankrupt. Maybe Hospitals used to be able to tag on unpaid bills to private insurers, but how can they now when DRGs account for every penny and not a penny more