An Inconvenient Health Care Cost Truth from CMS: Obamacare and Wellness Medicine Programs … In the End, It Cost More

An Inconvenient Health Care Cost Truth …

Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and the rest of their minions and state run media have said from the beginning that Obamacare healthcare reform would lower health care costs. They also claimed that slashing $500 billion from Medicare would have no effect on seniors. Oh contraire … Seniors and those concerned with rising health care costs, be very afraid.

It won’t cost trillions of dollars and it will reduce costs

However, from CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) comes this “Inconvenient Truth” via The Politico … the legislation the House passed last week would increase costs over the next decade by $289 billion. By 2019, health costs would rise to 21.1 percent of GDP compared to 20.8 under current law. (pdf report HERE)

With the exception of the proposed reductions in Medicare payment updates for institutional providers, the provisions of H.R. 3962 would not have a significant impact on future health care cost growth rates. In addition, the longer-term viability of the Medicare update reductions is doubtful,” the report said.

It will lower costs, not raise them and I am not taking money from seniors, really

In other words, outside of Medicare payment cuts to hospitals, the bill doesn’t curb increasing health care costs. And even the Medicare payment cuts will be difficult to sustain.

The analysis is more bad news for Democrats, who are facing increasing criticism that their reforms don’t do enough to control costs. Republicans released the analysis and jumped on the news.

It would appear that Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama have an Inconvenient Truth of their own … wellness programs cost more than treating the disease. This analysis is from a longstanding independent technical advisor to the Executive Branch and Congress. But I supposed they will be demonized and called a racist for providing bad news against Obama’s healthcare reform policy.

America, use some common sense. If you would have to provide a wellness program for every disease that we presently treat, that wellness program would have to be for everyone. Imagine having to perform every wellness on test for insureds when only 1 in 1000 could get the disease? Wasn’t part of the problem of rising health care cost the over utilization of health care services? The principle of wellness programs would eve further increase utilization, not lower it. To make matter worse it would then provide it to the so-called 41 million Obama uninsureds.

Hot Air brings up these very issues in the following:

Most interestingly, this particular piece refutes an argument often made by Obama:

• Pg. 10 – While many argue that wellness programs decrease costs by preventing expensive-to-treat diseases, they don’t save money. More screenings and preventive care combined with a longer lifespan generally increase costs, the report says.

The CBO said the same thing more than two months ago.  Early detection through screenings and preventive care will reduce treatment for patients who actually catch the diseases for which they get screened — but not overall, as most people don’t ever get those specific diseases.  That’s a fairly obvious point, but one that Obama keeps getting wrong.  That doesn’t make wellness and prevention programs wrong, but they’re not going to save money.  In fact, they’ll make the system even more expensive than it is now.
And finally there’s this:

• Pg 16 – “The additional demand for health services could be difficult to meet initially with existing health provider resources and could lead to price increases, cost-shifting, changes in providers’ willingness to treat patients with low-reimbursement health coverage.” Translation: A crush of newly insured patients could be a shock to the system.

Even worse as reported by The Washington Post, the plan to slash $500 billion from Medicare would sharply reduce benefits for seniors and could jeopardize access to care for millions of other seniors.

The report, requested by House Republicans, found that Medicare cuts contained in the health package approved by the House on Nov. 7 are likely to prove so costly to hospitals and nursing homes that they could stop taking Medicare altogether.

Congress could intervene to avoid such an outcome, but “so doing would likely result in significantly smaller actual savings” than is currently projected, according to the analysis by the chief actuary for the agency that administers Medicare and Medicaid. That would wipe out a big chunk of the financing for the health-care reform package, which is projected to cost $1.05 trillion over the next decade.

More generally, the report questions whether the country’s network of doctors and hospitals would be able to cope with the effects of a reform package expected to add more than 30 million people to the ranks of the insured, many of them through Medicaid, the public health program for the poor.

As WAKE UP AMERICA stated, you now know why Pelosi wanted to ram the bill trough the House. They wanted it passed before “We the People” knew the truth.

2 Responses to “An Inconvenient Health Care Cost Truth from CMS: Obamacare and Wellness Medicine Programs … In the End, It Cost More”

1. super dave on November 16th, 2009 9:49 am

   terrorists will get better care than we the people.

2. Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch Mc Connell on FNS … Discussing KSM Trial in NYC, Obamacare and Tax Payer Paid for Abortions | Scared Monkeys on November 16th, 2009 12:23 pm

   [...] then if there are 60 senators who want to go to this bill, even though the administration’s own actuary, somebody who works in the administration, the Department of Heal…, has said that it will drive the cost of health care up and that it will hurt seniors — if they [...]

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