patrick.net

bob2356 says

The top 20% pay 90% of federal income taxes,

bob2356 says

That would be like medicare A paid out of fica tax on every worker with a cut off of 100k?

Bob, do you know the difference between "income taxes" and "payroll taxes"? Bernie's plan is to hike "income taxes" to pay for it...

Geez, the ignorance...

bob2356 says

How many abusers do you suppose will be lining up for FREE colonoscopies every day if berniecare did pass?

So, colonoscopies are the only thing people see a doctor for? I didn't know that.... amazing stuff...

bob2356 says

When people are dual qualified medicare is the primary and medicaid is limited to paying premiums, deductibles, and co pays not medical bills.

Wrong again... seems to be a pattern here.

People can be Medicaid primary and Medicare secondary... please do some research and education.

CBOEtrader says

I'll ask him about this, but my client most likely just doenst know the costs. He told me it was $3000 per visit. Your numbers would put him closer to $3000/month. He probably just doesnt know considering he doesnt pay the bills.

Exactly, Bob is just pulling things out of his netherlands again. There's all types of associated costs and facility costs added on top of the actual dialysis HCPCS. Bob needs some remedial help.

bob2356 says

I haven't read up on SNP's

Maybe you should.

bob2356 says

The most recent number's I've seen from medicare say about 60k a year ESRD. But that's for all ESRD care, not just the dialysis.

Oh Boy........ missed it by 50%...

...."Hemodialysis treatment costs an average of $89,000 per patient annually in the United States. "
https://pharm.ucsf.edu/kidney/need/statistics

I don't believe that accounts for any of the SNF costs, transportation costs, or anything else they tack on, just because they can bill for it.

Aphroman says

End of life. Only 5% of patients eat up 50% of health care. Most of them are very close to dying. Call it death panels or whatever you want but spending large sums of money to extend the life of someone elderly and already terminal by a couple months is simply insane. This is both a societal problem and a health care system problem. Americans don't accept death. Most other places have a strong hospice system that places high value on quality of life while dying not eaking out a few additional (frequently totally miserable) months from a long life. The entire health care for profit/fee for service system benefits very well financially from extending dying.

My cousins in Big Spring haven't talked to me since I told them when they came in response to my mother's passing in 1997 at 94 that I declined the attempt to revive her by the EMT after her heart had stopped. She had already made a living will and did not want any heroic efforts to revive her--to what purpose anyway. I think it was because his own mother, who was my mother's favorite niece, was treated repeatedly even after her mental faculties were long gone and it drew out her dying over several agonizing months and expense and he resented the fact I wanted to avoid that. My neighbor went through the same thing. Already advanced into mental incompetence to care for herself, when she was finally put into managed care within six months she had to have everything done for her and knew nothing. She would have medical emergencies that if left alone would have let her pass on, but instead she would be rushed to ICU where the meter would start running for every aspirin and drop of IV fluid administered--her son told me one attempt was over $75K to no avail. This went on for two years before she simply passed away in her room. Even when my mother was living, they wanted a nice payday. She had a colonoscopy in 1994 when she was 92 that was negative. When she was 93, the doctor notified her to have another colonoscopy and I put my foot down and told her to refuse, which she did. I don't think they will even administer colonoscopies anymore to people over 80 unless they have obvious symptoms--it's just a way to get more money.

Fake News Gets a Smack Down....

Democrats seize on cherry-picked claim that ‘Medicare-for-all’ would save $2 trillion.

“We know that Medicaid expansion and Medicare-for-all actually save this state and this nation $2 trillion if it were fully implemented.”
— Andrew Gillum, Democratic candidate for Florida governor, in a primary debate, Aug. 2, 2018

Gillum, the mayor of Tallahassee, was quoted in Weigel’s article as having touted, during a debate, a $2 trillion cost-savings figure that is in the report. Sanders, too, has tweeted about this $2 trillion number, sarcastically thanking the conservative Koch brothers, whose foundation has contributed to Mercatus.

That in theory would reduce the country’s overall level of health expenditures by $2 trillion from 2022 to 2031. But he makes clear that it’s a pretty unrealistic assumption.

In the fourth sentence of the report’s abstract, Blahous wrote, “It is likely that the actual cost of M4A would be substantially greater than these estimates, which assume significant administrative and drug cost savings under the plan, and also assume that healthcare providers operating under M4A will be reimbursed at rates more than 40 percent lower than those currently paid by private health insurance.”

“To lend credibility to the $2 trillion savings number, one would have to argue that we can cut payments to providers by about 40 percent at the same time as increasing demand by about 11 percent,” Blahous said.

The Pinocchio Test

We don’t intend to pick on Gillum, who appears to have picked up a talking point that is circulating among Democrats. But we do want to lay down a marker because this goes too far.

All too often, politicians mischaracterize conclusions that are contained in academic or think tank studies. At the Fact Checker, we rely heavily on how a study’s author says the data should be presented. In this case, it’s clear that Blahous bent over backward to accept Sanders’s assumptions, only to find they did not add up. Democrats cannot seize on one cherry-picked fact without acknowledging the broader implications of Blahous’s research.

The verdict on the $2 Trillion Savings: Three Pinocchios

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/08/07/democrats-seize-on-cherry-picked-claim-that-medicare-for-all-will-save-2-trillion/?utm_term=.f93f362766bd