On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 6:58 PM, raghu <[email protected]> wrote: > On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 11:19 AM, Jim Devine <[email protected]> wrote: >>> "businesses will just pass on the >>> costs to consumers or simply close the shop" if you raise their cost >>> of doing business. Not necessarily. That depends on their profit >>> margins among other things. For e.g., do you know how much of this >>> uncollectable debt is incurred by hospitals just gaming the system >>> because they know they will get it from the government?... >> >> Since you asked the question, and I'm very busy, I'll let you find the >> data. I bet you'll find that the lion's share of the debt was incurred >> because of rising medical costs (the dysfunctional US medical-care >> system) > > > Well that's no fair. You can't go around proclaiming that Obama is > destroying the welfare state and then say you are too busy to find the > data to actually back up your claim. I may have asked the question, > but you are the one who crafted the subject line that strikes me as > profoundly misleading given the actual contents of the article you > were citing in your email.
Btw, here's a progressive criticism of Obama's proposed Medicaid cuts: http://www.newdeal20.org/2011/07/06/whats-wrong-with-the-obama-administrations-cuts-to-medicaid-50657/ -------------------------snip Rather than dealing with the root causes of high Medicaid spending, the Obama administration proposes to cut $100 billion from Medicaid over the next decade, mostly by changing the way it pays states for the program. The biggest change would be to reimburse states at the same rate for all their Medicaid patients, unlike now, where states get a different rate for different populations, such as children or seniors. The new so-called “blended rate” would be set at a lower amount than current health spending. Like the Ryan plan, the proposal is simply a cut to states, albeit a much smaller one than Ryan proposed and without the loosening of rules on who and what to cover included in the Republican budget. States would still cut back on who and what it covers, if only to the extent allowed within the current rules. States would also cut payments to providers, which in many cases – particularly physicians, dentists and hospitals in some states – would make it harder for patients to get needed medical care. [...] A second Obama administration proposal would close off one source that states now use to finance Medicaid, taxes on health care providers. Since states would be reluctant to replace these taxes with other taxes, they would also cut their spending on Medicaid, lowering federal spending. In fact, only 10% to 15% of the cuts in Medicaid spending in the Obama proposal would come from rational savings in the system – increased efficiencies in providing medical equipment and prescription drugs – as opposed to simply giving states less money and making it harder for them to raise money for Medicaid. The Affordable Care Act was a huge step toward a more rational health system, but the Obama proposals for Medicaid in the budget take us backward. Instead, the President should accelerate reforms that focus on the handful of high cost patients that drive most of the costs, by requiring states to implement care coordination programs which provide systems and incentives for health care providers to improve the care of the chronically. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
