Forums: Medicare (United States)

After Ann Callan, 85, fell and broke four ribs, she spent six days at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring. Doctors and nurses examined her daily and gave her medications and oxygen to help her breathe. But when she was discharged in early January, her family got a surprise: Medicare would not pay for her follow-up nursing home care, because she did not have the prerequisite three days of inpatient care. "Where was she?" asks her husband, Paul Callan, 85, a retired U.S. Army colonel. "I was with her all the time. I knew she was a patient there." But...

Yes, let's divert attention from the real issue, as politicians and their hacks are known to do: "This campaign strategy won't stop huge Democratic losses in a year when the economy is the dominant issue, but it surely will reinforce Republican fears that the deficit commission is nothing but a political trap. Mr. Obama wants the GOP to support entitlement reforms in exchange for tax increases, but when they do he'll pocket the revenue and slam the GOP for the entitlement "cuts." If you read the rest of the article, you'll find not one peep about where the real problem...

WASHINGTON — A plan by Medicare to try to make it simpler for consumers to pick drug coverage could force 3 million seniors to switch plans next year whether they like it or not, says an independent analysis.

Last week, over the objections of New York State's medical society, Gov. David A. Paterson signed into law a bill - the New York Palliative Care Information Act -requiring physicians who treat patients with a terminal illness or condition to offer them or their representatives information about prognosis and options for end-of-life care, including aggressive pain management and hospice care as well as the possibilities for further life-sustaining treatment. The Medical Society of the State of New York objected, saying that the new law would intrude “unnecessarily upon the physician-patient relationship” and mandate “a legislatively designed standard of care.” The...

In a poll this month by the Pew Research Center, 46 percent of seniors reported that they would be voting for the Republican on their congressional ballot this fall, compared with 43 percent for the Democrat. The most recent Gallup data showed an even starker difference: Fifty-three percent of seniors said they would vote for a Republican House candidate and 38 percent said they would opt for the Democrat.

In Ohio on Wednesday President Obama announced that Social Security "is not in crisis" and that only "modest adjustments" are required. He has long promised that his health care plan will not add "one dime" to the deficit. Yet, a new report from the International Monetary Fund concludes that, long-term, our government is in worse financial shape than Greece, and that this problem is driven in large part by both programs, particularly the new health care plan. Greece has built up so much debt and so many financial obligations that the difference between all future expenditures and revenues, the so-called...

With one swipe of his pen, President Barack Obama signed into law a health care reform bill that will cut Medicare's budget by $500 billion over the next ten years. In addition, late in the first year of his presidency, Social Security recipients received a letter notifying them that they would not be receiving a Cost Of Living Adjustment (COLA) starting January 2010. Since this announcement, there are reports seniors and the disabled will not receive a COLA for two years or more beyond the current year. Yes, the Dept. of Labor's statistics, gleamed from the Consumer Price Index (CPI),...

Medicine: After the recess appointment of a Medicare and Medicaid head, an FDA panel drops its endorsement of a widely used cancer drug. Another FDA-approved cancer therapy may not be paid for. It begins. It didn't take long for the health care philosophy of Dr. Donald Berwick, President Obama's choice to head the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, and an appointee we have labeled a "one-man death panel," to have an effect. Berwick is an admirer of Britain's National Health Service and its National Institute for Clinical Excellence, with the Orwellian-acronym NICE. "NICE," Berwick has said, "is extremely effective...

Medicare fraud has been known to inflate the rates of others, but two Hialeah businessmen took it to the extreme, according to federal authorities. Emilio Felipe Lopez, 47, and 25-year-old Orlando Hernandez Estevez used penis pumps to fraudulently enhance their charges to Medicare, the Miami Herald reported.

Two organizations not known as members of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy are worried that President Obama's recess-appointed Medicare czar won't allow the government health care program to cover two FDA-approved anti-cancer drugs with proven records of extending patients' lives. The FDA approved Provenge, which is used to fight prostate cancer, and Avastin, which is used to delay the spread of breast cancer after it appears elsewhere in the body. The problem is that Dr. Donald Berwick, the man Obama recess-appointed as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, appears to be considering denying Medicare reimbursement for patients using...