Reply #53: You said....... [View All]

...."Seniors will have to buy more and more expensive supplemental private insurance to cover the gaps.......".

What gaps? Just using round numbers, if Medicare used to allow $1000 for a procedure, the patient's portion of that bill would have been $200, which could be billed to their supplemental policy if they have one. So then Medicare cuts that allowable amount by 44% to $560, and now the patient's 20% coinsurance is $112, and the provider of service cannot bill anyone for the $440 cut by Medicare.

A more expensive supplemental policy, whether or not it covers more or pays more, won't be of any help to anyone in this situation. Or the similar situation with convalescent facilities which you also made the same silly comment about farther down the thread. These cuts penalize doctors and hospitals and no one else. Well, except the Medicare patients who will have more difficulty finding providers who accept Medicare patients because the reimbursements are so low.