Dean and Durbin on MTP today clarified it is Medicare Advantage being targeted...Video.

They made it clear it is those plans being targeted for savings. These are the private plans which are subsidized by the government which profit the insurance companies. I hope they are both right. They are cutting into and harming traditional Medicare.

Here is a partial video at Crooks and Liars of Howard Dean and Dick Durbin explaining it, and a partial transcript of this approximately 5 minute video clip from today.

Howard Dean: Money is Not Being Taken Away From Senior Citizens, It's Being Taken Away From Insurance Companies

The video is at the link. Please note that David Gregory nearly always positions himself with the Republicans. I wonder if he is aware of that.



I have said often that I hoped these cuts to Medicare being talked about by this administration were to those private plans. I can go along with that. It is harming traditional Medicare.

Here is more clarification from Dean.



Both Durbin and Dean spoke out clearly. I wish more Democrats would do that, giving clearer explanations, not just putting out talking points.

It's going to be a real battle, and the first step in winning it is speaking with clarity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYZre8kEsuw

I;d say he;s well aware of that since he appears to be having an orgasm in the video

It would have been funny if it were not so bad. :evilgrin:

I simply post the video to illustrate what a republican suckup gregory is. Check the shit eatin grin on his simian like countenance.

But for the record, russert was a POS. I'd never say I was happy anyone was dead, but I'm not sad russert is.

is stupid. Everytime I use medicare it seems that a different insurance company sends payment to the physician. That's why medicare is losing money - get rid of Advantage and let the same people print the checks as SS, and hire FORMER insurance people or medical people at government wages to approve the claims - nobody gets $2 mil bonus, no stockholders, money saved.

Well, no, actually Medicare Drug program came first I think....the one in which they are still not allowed to have drug companies submit bids. I don't think that has been changed yet...think that was part of the admin's 80 billion dollar deal with pharma.

I hope Dean and Durbin are right, that it will be the huge amounts paid by the government to private insurance to handle Medicare Advantage.

This remark by Markey D-CO was really confusing.

Markey says Medicare will take a hit



I hope Dean and Durbin are right, and that she misspoke.

.......(advantage to whom?). Remember when Bush did his "Medicare reform" that the cost was 400 billion. That's what worries me about this new "reform" is that you will still have the government paying private insurance companies in subsidies for the poor and middle class. Jesus, it would be so much "simpler" (as in implementation and operation) to have Medicare for all.

Medicare's holes also need to be plugged and the services that the government deems inefficient for the government to run should be regulated. In regulating these services, seniors shouldn't have to pick from 13 or so plans. The plans should not be regulated by the states either. This results in a smaller inefficient pools, similar to the co-op plan.

The biggest cost in caring for seniors is LTC. This is caused in part by seniors entering retirement with undiagnosed diseases. Medicaid is the last resort even for the more well-to-do seniors ($2000+/mo in pensions, with paid-up mortgage) that need LTC. LTC costs $300/DAY in the northeast. It will take a generation before retiree health significantly improves to the point where LTC does not comprise a huge chunk of total senior health care costs. This means that the baby boomers need access to complete quality preventative care now!

Yes we are a capitalist country, but we are also a socialist country. We take from the best in everything and make it work for us. Corporate doleouts such as the excesses in Med Supps and MA's are unamerican.

is what my husband and I can afford. It saves us a ton of money with copays and deductibles. It also includes a drug plan so that we don't have to pay a cent for my husbands 3 generic meds. In spite of all that, I worry that if one of us should get very sick, what kind of care we would get. As of right now, my husband has been asking for a referral for a colonoscopy. He had a large non-cancerous polyp removed at the VA. The VA told him to come back for a 6-month follow-up colonoscopy. That was 5 years ago. Then he turned 65 and we got Medicare Advantage. Now doctor keeps telling him "there's a long waiting list" for a colonoscopy and never gives a referral for it. ??? So what there's a waiting list? Why doesn't he get him on the waiting list? Will it harm his income if he does? I don't know. To top it all off, my hubby's mother DIED from colon cancer. The MA doctor has never referred of us for a routine chest x-ray either. We do get EKG's (in his office), blood work, mammograms, etc. The routine blood work and examinations are fully covered though. We have very reasonable copays for specialists and hospitalization - much, much less than Medicare. We have no deductible. If we have to stop Medicare Advantage and go to Medicare, we will probably have to cut back on preventive care, etc. I would have nothing against these insurance company MA subsidies going into Medicare if it brought about similar coverage in Medicare itself. This is my biggest worry about reform, although I'm seriously considering going to Medicare and dropping the MA plan just so we can get what we need (even though I don't know how we can pay for it). Damnit all, I hope Obama comes up with something as good for us as MA for the pocketbook and as good as Medicare for health care options.

Single payer - WHERE ARE YOU?

especially with a family history. Very odd. You ask some good questions about whether it would affect the doctor's income.

Interesting article from the LA Times..and the article is right. The outcry is starting to not let them stop these plans, and the Democrats will have to clarify and speak out about the fact these are private companies getting government subsidies.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-medicare19-2009aug19,0,3854130.story

"The plans now cost the government about 14% more per person than does regular Medicare, according to a recent analysis by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, which recommends reimbursement rates to Congress.

"Payment increases have been so large that plans no longer need to be efficient to attract enrollees," the commission's executive director, Mark E. Miller, told Congress in June 2008.

Today, the sheer size of the program, which serves about 10.2 million seniors out of more than 45 million Medicare users, offers an opportunity for savings that the Office of Management and Budget puts at $177 billion over 10 years.

Obama joined the Advantage critics in 2007 while campaigning in Iowa, when he cited the arrangement as an example of Medicare waste.

Now his plan is to reduce payments to Advantage so that they are equal or comparable to the payments for regular Medicare."

"MR. GREGORY: ...White House officials I've spoken to have been very clear, saying that the left in the Democratic Party has overshot the runway here, overstating the importance of a public option. Did the president put it away?

DR. DEAN: I don't think so at all. I'm, I'm with Dick on this. Look, the president said yesterday that if you can find another way around it to control the insurance companies' costs, that would be fine. There's another way. There's two countries in Europe that have universal health care without--and it's entirely run by insurance companies. But they treat the insurance companies like regulated utilities. If the insurance companies would prefer to be treated like regulated utilities, we'd drop the public option in a heartbeat."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32812029/ns/meet_the_press/page/2/

I can't imagine trying to find health care any other way. I wouldn't know how to find a doctor or manage my health care for myself.

and you know the ins. companies do NOT want to see that happen...you betcha!! wb

in the LA times article (OMB), 157 billion from the CBO.

What makes up the other 300 plus billion.

:shrug:


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-medicare19-2009aug19,0,3854130.story

"...Today, the sheer size of the program, which serves about 10.2 million seniors out of more than 45 million Medicare users, offers an opportunity for savings that the Office of Management and Budget puts at $177 billion over 10 years..."

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/News/News-Releases/2009/May/Extra-Payments-to-Medicare-Advantage-Plans-to-Total-11-4-Billion-in-2009.aspx

"...The Congressional Budget Office estimates that bringing MA payments in line with traditional fee-for-service Medicare would save $157 billion over the next 10 years..."


Estimate of total annual spending for Medicare Advantage...

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09132r.pdf

"The federal government’s spending on the Medicare Advantage (MA) program has grown
substantially in recent years, from approximately $60 billion in 2006 and $77 billion in 2007 to
an estimated $91 billion in 2008.1 MA organizations provide health care coverage to Medicare
beneficiaries through private health plans, thus offering an alternative to the original
Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) program..."

from the Medicare Advantage program.

:shrug: