Tag: Medicaid

The Fallacious World Of Oz

NO this is not some cheesy knock-off or the some bad TV movie that relates to the beloved classic ‘Wizard of Oz”…..it is a look at the world that that hack Dr. Oz brings to the country.

Oz-zie boy is throwing the well worn MAGA BS about the billions of dollars wasted on immigrants….

Oz’s release said that California had spent $1.3 billion in federal taxpayer dollars to provide Medicaid coverage to illegal immigrants. Washington, D.C., spent more than $2 million in federal money on its Medicaid for illegal immigrants, and Oregon spent $5.4 million.

Illinois, which spent more than $629 million from its state budget on illegal immigrant healthcare last year, used almost $30 million in federal taxpayer funds to provide the illegal immigrant population Medicaid.

CMS’s findings come as the issue of federal funding for illegal immigrant healthcare has taken center stage in the federal government shutdown that started Oct. 1.

Of course these figures were to be found in the Washington Examiner….

Now let’s look at some real figures and not the lies of the Donny group….

Emergency Medicaid expenditures accounted for only a fraction of overall Medicaid spending, a cross-sectional analysis showed.

Among 38 states and Washington, D.C., emergency Medicaid expenditures accounted for a mean of 0.4% of total Medicaid spending, at a mean cost of $9.63 per resident, with some variability across states, reported Patricia Mae Santos, MD, of the Winship Cancer Institute at Emory University in Atlanta, and colleagues.

States with larger undocumented populations spent more on emergency Medicaid, accounting for a mean of 0.9% of state Medicaid expenditures among states with the highest undocumented population share compared with 0.1% among states with the lowest undocumented population.

“The main takeaway is that emergency Medicaid is quite a microscopic percentage of the Medicaid budget. It’s not really a driver of Medicaid costs and Medicaid spending,” Leo Cuello, an attorney and research professor at the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy’s Center for Children and Families in Washington, D.C., told MedPage Today.

For this analysis, the authors relied on financial management report data for fiscal year 2022 from the Medicaid Budget and Expenditure System. They also looked to other publicly available datasets to measure covariates by state, including Medicaid expansion status, the share of the population in each state that is undocumented, its census region, and political ideology index.

The study represents the “first and most contemporary analysis” of emergency Medicaid spending on both the national and state levels, Santos said.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/medicaid/117899

I do not know why I point this out because the mental midgets that believe the lies do not want to see the truth……

But I do what I must.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

How Can Dems Lose?

College of Political Knowledge

DNC/Democratic Party

Paper #3

No secret that I dislike the Dems in Congress for they are doing nothing but reacting to everything Little Donny and his band of thugs are doing….they run to the nearest mike and bitch and moan and then sit back and wait for the next outrageous crap to happen.

As bad as the Trump administration is how can the Dems be losing on every front?  Especially on the Medicaid destruction bill that is before Congress as I type.

This article points to so many spots that Dems could get a stronghold with the voters…..but seem to be falling short…..why is that?

And so we watch as Senate Republicans argue about the degree to which they want to destroy Medicaid. You’ve been reading and hearing about this, I’m sure, and you may even have become familiar with the phrase “provider tax.” Journalistic shorthand usually does a poor job of explaining what that actually is. Bear with me for this brief explanation, because it makes clear how cruel and deliberate these cuts are.

Health care services that are reimbursed by Medicaid are, well, provided by a range of different “providers.” Chief among these are hospitals, but the category also includes nursing homes, other long-term care facilities, doctors, physical therapists, even chiropractors: all sorts of people. But the big money revolves around hospitals, and specifically rural hospitals, which rely heavily on Medicaid dollars because they are poorer on balance than other hospitals. They tend to be run on a nonprofit basis. They are less likely than urban or suburban hospitals to have commercial insurance, and they’re more dependent on Medicaid revenue because their client base tends to be poorer. There are about 1,800 rural hospitals in the United States. Here’s a map.

…

To make a long story short, when you reduce a tax, you reduce the amount of revenue it brings in. It’s also worth bearing in mind here that Medicaid reimbursements rarely cover the cost of care to begin with, so these cuts will make an already dire situation much worse. Governors and state legislatures will be staring at a quite substantial reduction in Medicaid tax revenue. They will then be faced with three choices: one, raise some other sort of tax; two, cut some other state service, like education; three, cut Medicaid services.

https://newrepublic.com/post/197356/democrats-losing-stupid-republicans-senate-bill-medicaid

I cannot understand how the Dems could be losing to the GOP on this destruction of a much needed program.

Are the American people that stupid?

Any ideas to share?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

OBBB Has Hit A Snag

Apparently the ‘beauty’ is choke full of ugly!

Donny super bill, One Big Beautiful ill the OBBB has hit a snag in the Senate…the Medicaid part has shown to be in violation of Senate rules….

The Senate parliamentarian has advised that a key Medicaid provider tax overhaul that’s central to President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” doesn’t adhere to procedural rules, delivering a crucial blow to Republicans rushing to finish the massive package this week.

  • Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled on Thursday that the section of the tax cut and spending bill covering the Medicaid cuts and tax overhaul violates the Byrd Rule, which determines what legislation can be passed with a simple majority through the budget reconciliation process, the Hill reports.
  • Guidance from the parliamentarian is rarely ignored, and it forces GOP leaders to consider options, the AP reports. Senate leaders could try to revise it or strip the iffy parts from the package. Otherwise, the provision could be challenged during floor votes, requiring a 60-vote threshold to keep it—a tall order in the narrowly split 100-member Senate. Democrats are unified against the bill.
  • The provision cracks down on states’ use of health care provider taxes to collect Medicaid funding, ABC News reports. The House-passed bill would freeze the provider taxes at current levels, while the Senate proposal goes deeper by reducing the tax that some states are able to impose.
  • Republicans scrambled to respond, some politically attacking the nonpartisan parliamentarian, while Democrats said her decision would prove devastating to the GOP package. Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said the GOP proposal would have been as much as a $250 billion cut to the health care program, “massive Medicaid cuts that hurt kids, seniors, Americans with disabilities, and working families.”
  • Some Republicans even called for challenging, or firing, the parliamentarian, who has been on the job since 2012 as the chief arbiter of the chamber’s historic and often complicated rules. But GOP leaders had already been struggling to rally support for the change. Several GOP senators warn it would harm rural hospitals that depend on the funds. Hospital organizations have been warning it could wipe out their balance sheets and lead to hospital closures.

The Parliamentarian has been busy with the OBBB….she also took on the oil lease provision of the bill….

Critics of Republican efforts to continue wrecking the planet celebrated some small victories after the U.S. Senate parliamentarian on Monday advised that multiple provisions cannot be passed as part of a megabill that only requires a simple majority.

Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough found that some GOP legislative proposals about offshore drilling and mandatory public land sales could not be included in the package due to the so-called Byrd Rule, which bars provisions considered “extraneous to the purpose of implementing budget resolution policies.”

Specifically, MacDonough axed a provision that deems offshore oil and gas projects as automatically compliant with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), nullifying their environmental review processes. She also ruled against a proposal requiring offshore fossil fuel leases to be issued to successful bidders within 90 days after the sale, and a separate mandate for the sale of millions of acres of public land.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-public-lands

Read about all the problems (so far) with the OBBB according to the Parliamentarian…

https://www.commondreams.org/news/senate-parliamentarian-2672439563

This ought to chap Donny’s ass.

Do tell…..what changes will be made?

Will Donny try to flex his wimpy muscles?

Will the MAGA worshipers find a way to save Donny’s baby?

Is the bill dead until after the 4th of July break?

Where will it go….do tell.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

For My Fellow Seniors

AS an old fart I watch the doings in Moronic center, DC, for my fellow seniors need to stay informed on how the government will tackle their problems as they grow older….especially the marginal ones that will depend onMedicaid for the health issues.

Below are some of the more absurd excuses for throwing people off the Medicaid rolls…..

In their zeal to deliver a big win to President Donald Trump by passing his sweeping tax and spending bill, Republicans have been coming up with ridiculous ways to defend their plan to strip health care from an estimated 11 million low-income people.

Experts don’t matter. Prove you are worthy of health care. We’re all going to die anyway. Somehow, these are actual arguments GOP lawmakers and officials have been making as they try to gloss over the pain their bill would impose on poor people and families while handing big tax breaks to mostly rich people.

Here are five of the most absurd ways Republicans have tried to defend their so-called Big Beautiful Bill, which guts federal health and food assistance programs by nearly $1.3 trillion.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/medicaid-cuts-republican-bill_n_6842ebdde4b04a6fce05e8c5

Then there is the whole tax thingy in Donny’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ BS….

Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” will slash the household resources of the poorest Americans by about $1,600 while boosting the wealthiest households by roughly $12,000, the Congressional Budget Office said in a distributional analysis released Thursday.

What Happened: CBO analysts in their analysis released on Thursday found middle-income families would gain a more modest $500 to $1,000 a year, but the lowest decile would lose ground largely because the bill pares back Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits and adds 80-hour monthly “community-engagement” rules for able-bodied adults.

he package extends many 2017 tax cuts, creates temporary breaks on tips, overtime and car-loan interest, and raises the standard deduction for seniors, yet offsets part of the cost by shrinking safety-net programs.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned lawmakers on Thursday that failure to pass the measure could push the nation toward economic disaster, and Idaho Republican Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) argued “the solution to our debt crisis is not to tax Americans more, it is to spend less.” He goes on to say that extending “proven tax reform is critical for working families.”

https://www.benzinga.com/news/politics/25/06/45919604/trumps-big-beautiful-bill-pulls-1600-from-poorest-adds-12000-for-richest-annually-shows-cbo-analysi

Nothing about nay of this should surprise anyone for the GOP has been gunning for entitlements for decades and now they have the perfect storm to attack and destroy as much of these programs as possible.

If you are a senior or close to retirement you might want to pay better attention than you have in the past for your future is in their incapable hands.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

A Good Screwing Awaits!

How many low income people are having their medical needs covered by Medicaid?  Many of these people bought into the hateful rhetoric and elected this person.

How will Trump and his GOP lackeys pay for some of the promises he made during the campaign….like the cost of his immigration policies and the the tax cuts he is so proud of these days?

Is The GOP prepared to screw over the very people that elect them?

You decide….

Republicans are reportedly prepared to cut Medicaid funding to pay for Donald Trump’s promised crackdown on immigration and to fund tax cuts that would mostly benefit the wealthy.

The GOP in the House and Senate have floated a series of ideas – many of which would target lower-income Americans – to cover the cost of extending tax cuts passed by Trump in 2017, the New York Times reported.

Among the proposals is a plan to reduce access to Medicaid, the government scheme which provides health insurance to low-income Americans, in a move which would cause 600,000 people to lose access to healthcare.

Trump has touted the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act as a key achievement of his first term. The legislation, which reduced the top corporate income tax rate from 35% to 21%, is set to expire at the end of 2025, and the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated extending it would add $4.6tn to the deficit.

House and Senate Republicans float ideas to pay for Trump’s immigration crackdown and to fund tax cuts

Republicans are reportedly prepared to cut Medicaid funding to pay for Donald Trump’s promised crackdown on immigration and to fund tax cuts that would mostly benefit the wealthy.

The GOP in the House and Senate have floated a series of ideas – many of which would target lower-income Americans – to cover the cost of extending tax cuts passed by Trump in 2017, the New York Times reported.

Among the proposals is a plan to reduce access to Medicaid, the government scheme which provides health insurance to low-income Americans, in a move which would cause 600,000 people to lose access to healthcare.

Trump has touted the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act as a key achievement of his first term. The legislation, which reduced the top corporate income tax rate from 35% to 21%, is set to expire at the end of 2025, and the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated extending it would add $4.6tn to the deficit.

On the campaign trail Trump repeatedly promised to make the 2017 tax cuts permanent, but with the 2025 deadline looming, Republicans are scrambling to find a way to fund that pledge – along with the money required for Trump’s desired crackdown on immigration.

Along with the Medicaid cut, which would introduce work requirements that would effectively strip 600,000 people of their healthcare coverage, Republicans are considering ending Medicaid for non-US citizens, and repealing Biden-era tax credits which are designed to reduce health costs, the New York Times reported.

A 50-page document being circulated among congressional Republicans also proposes taxing income from scholarships and fellowships, rolling back climate change efforts passed under the Biden administration, and raising taxes on people who can use a free gym in the workplace.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/23/republicans-medicaid-funding-trump

Instead of focusing on their own lives they instead backed some lying tool that promised to crackdown on people they hate…..and in no way would this make their lives better….and yet….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Heart Of GOP’s Medicaid Plans

After decades of trying to screw up the Medicaid program the GOP may get its wish now that we have a president and the GOP has a strangle-hold on the Congress.

They, the GOP, wants to kill any and all provisions of the ACA…when they are done fucking that up they will turn to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid…..

Let’s start with their plans for Medicaid….”Block Grants”……

It’s called “block granting.” Right now, Medicaid, which was expanded under the 2010 health law to insure more people, covers almost 75 million adults and children. Because it is an entitlement, everyone who qualifies is guaranteed coverage and states and the federal government combine funds to cover the costs. Conservatives have long argued the program would be more efficient if states got a lump sum from the federal government and then managed the program as they saw fit. But others say that would mean less funding for the program —eventually translating into greater challenges in getting care for low-income people.

Block granting Medicaid is a centerpiece of health proposals supported by House Speaker Paul Ryan and Rep. Tom Price, Trump’s nominee to run the Department of Health and Human Services. This weekend, Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway emphasized the strategy as key to the administration’s health policy.

Republican plans to transform Medicaid could help set debate on the role of government and entitlements. Here’s an explanation of how it could work.

Source: Everything You Need To Know About Block Grants — The Heart Of GOP’s Medicaid Plans | Kaiser Health News

It all sounds so idyllic…..but the GOP has never been one to really care about the health of others….plus this smells like something other than a “good deal”…..

But as with any health program….there is someone waiting to rape the people/states out of their money.

The Vacu-Suck!

The weekend and I attempt to bring a little humor and enlightenment into my readers lives…..I remember back in the days when an instrument of sexual pleasure was sold as the Swedish Penis Pump….and then in the early days of the 21st century the Penis Pump became the Vacu-Pump….same product but with a new ad campaign….I know….what the Hell am I going on about?  Right?

On the surface this is NOT a big deal…but that is only on the surface.

Just stay with me a few more moments…..and the government spends a lot of wasted cash on superfluous things…..crap they right off on MediCare or MedicAid………but this is beyond moronic and just chaps my butt…….

Newser) – Between 2006 and 2011, Medicare spent $172 million on penis pumps, according to a report out yesterday by the inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services. That figure is outrageous for a reason other than that you might think. As NBC News reports, penis pumps, more properly known as vacuum erection systems, are actually one of the “few viable treatment courses” for men with erectile dysfunction, per the National Institutes of Health. So it’s not the coverage of the item for some 474,000 men over those six years that’s the problem, but the amount that was spent: Each claim cost Medicare an average $361—more than double what the pump would have cost if the user just bought it online. (And OIG verified this by … Googling. It reports that “research on 22 different Web sites yielded pricing information for 105 VES … the average Internet price … was $164.74.”)

And if Medicare had adjusted its “grossly excessive” coverage amount to be in line with what a non-Medicare consumer pays (and, the report noted, what the Department of Veterans Affairs pays), the government would have spent an average of $14.4 million less per year for each of the years under review, reports Reuters. And the savings wouldn’t end there. Beneficiaries are responsible for 20% of the cost of the pump, plus any unmet deductible, which worked out to an average $90; a Medicare fee adjustment would have saved them roughly $3.6 million a year. It could have come to pass, had the issue been dealt with when it previously came up—in 1999, when the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services suggested changing the VES fee schedule, reports the Washington Free Beacon.

Now, if you can, justify this for me….please.

Just How Screwed Are Patients?

Back after hurricane Katrina my leg was crushed in a fall……and when I was looking at the bill that the EMs sent to me, which was covered under Workers Comp, I noticed a charge that was not kosher……I was charged $50 for a cervical collar and was never given one…..my leg was broken but I had all my faculties….I told the workers comp rep that was handling my case and was told that it was not important enough to challenge……I asked her just how much money does the service make on gouging?  I never got an answer.

And then I saw this story and it answered my question pretty well…..

  Getting Hodgkin’s lymphoma was bad enough. Then Ohio resident Sean Recchi received his hospital bill: $83,900. You can blame his limited health insurance, but Steven Brill at Time looked behind the numbers to see why MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston charged so much. What Brill found: shocking markups that hiked prices by several hundred percent or more above cost. Queried about the markups, MD Anderson said their billing practices “are complex” and “similar to those of other major hospitals.” Which is exactly what Brill found: “a uniquely American gold rush” of tax-exempt “nonprofit” hospitals across the US that are raking in huge bucks and handing administrators mega-salaries. Among his other findings:

  • Hospitals are forcing Americans to spend nearly 20% of GDP on health care—double the usual for developed countries—and more than the next 10 top-spending nations combined.
  • Each hospital’s internal price list, or chargemaster, is far higher than what Medicare pays for health care. Advocates have started a cottage industry helping people understand and reduce their bills.
  • Brill uncovers huge markups from specific bills, like $4,000 for items like a blanket warmer, marking pen, and surgical gown. Recchi was billed $13,702 for medicine that cost MD Anderson only $3,000 to $3,500.
  • Brill’s first solution: Bring all Americans under the Medicare umbrella, and charge wealthier Americans more for their medical care. At least Medicare forces hospitals to charge the proper rates. Only problem: A massive, single-payer overhaul like that won’t happen anytime soon.
  • Solution No.2: Strengthen anti-trust laws to restrict the power of hospitals; this would give insurance companies more leverage to bargain over prices. Then tax hospital profits at 75%, and tack a surcharge on excessive non-doctor hospital salaries. And ban the chargemaster. Will any of this happen? Probably not, because hospitals are too powerful.
  • Brill’s take on ObamaCare: It’s good for certain things, like curbing some hospital-bill collecting and getting more people insured. But ultimately it’s just bringing more customers into a grossly unfair marketplace.
  • Click for the full article.

We all know that hospitals gouge the patients……and there is little we can do about it…….but crap like this drives all the rising costs of health care……but yet they are seldom held accountable…….why is that?

Are You Poor And Need Help?

From the VOMITORIUM

Yes the GOP is standing by Ryan’s budget….but not too close….they all see the handwriting on the wall…..mess with Medicare and lose your re-election bid….and we know that it is all about being re-elected and nothing about what is best for the people of this country….anyway…..Medicare will most likely be safe from the massive overhaul and eventual privatization that the Repubs had wanted…and that will be great news……but…..there is always a but…..what about Medicaid?  You know that program in the states that assists the poor in receiving medical care?  Will it be safe from the hatchet job that the Repubs were planning for Medicare?

It seems that Ryan’s budget will still have this program in the cross hairs and if he and his cronies are successful what will it mean to the poor in the states?

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities delves into the details of Ryan’s plan to slash Medicaid by more than a third over the next decade, and in half over the next two decades:

          • Seniors:   An overwhelming majority of Medicare beneficiaries who live in nursing homes rely on Medicaid for their nursing home coverage.  Because the Ryan plan would require such deep cuts in federal Medicaid funding, it would inevitably result in less coverage for nursing home residents and shift more of the cost of nursing home care to elderly beneficiaries and their families.  A sharp reduction in the quality of nursing home care would be virtually inevitable, due to the large reduction that would occur in the resources made available to pay for such care.
          • People with disabilities:   These individuals constitute 15 percent of Medicaid beneficiaries but account for 42 percent of all Medicaid expenditures, mostly because of their extensive health and long-term care needs.  Capping federal Medicaid funding would place significant financial pressure on states to scale back eligibility and coverage for this high-cost population, many of whom would be unable to obtain coverage elsewhere because of their medical conditions.
          • Children:  Currently, state Medicaid programs must provide children with health care services and treatments they need for their healthy development through the Early Periodic Screening, Diagnostic and Treatment (EPSDT) aspect of Medicaid, which provides regular preventive care for children and all follow-up diagnostic and treatment services that children are found to need.  A block grant would likely permit states to drop EPSDT coverage, meaning that children, particularly those with special health care needs, would not be able to access some care that medical professionals find they need (because Medicaid would no longer cover certain health services and treatments for children, and their parents wouldn’t be able to afford to pay for that care on their own).

See…..they may be pushing back from the horrible idea of the voucher system for Medicare…they are still trying to kill the medical coverage for the poor….for they know that if it boils down to the states solely…the program will disappear….governors have been trying to kill it for decades and now they are within sight of success….

Cowards!

I know some of my readers get tired of my continuing bitching about the people we elect to govern us….I have accused them of more concern for their re-election than in the future of this country and its people…I do not feel that I had been unnecessarily hard on these people, but I have had some push back against my views (go figure)……but like most people I DO enjoy it when I am proven right….like others my ego needs a shot from time to time……

For weeks now we have heard about the Medicare proposals by the GOP in Paul Ryan’s budget….that the end game of his proposal was the elimination of the program that has benefited so many seniors over the years…..of course, the conserv noise machine had spent a bunch of time and resources trying to push back from the position…and even those GOPers who held town halls were catching total Hell from their constituents…..but they stood by their guns and tried to explain it to their people and unfortunately the narritive was NOT getting through…..so what will they do?

Will the GOP stand by what they believe is a solid answer to some of our debt problems?  Or will they do what I have expected them to do and drop the Medicare thing?

And then yesterday the call went out……this from Talking Points Memo….

A little dust-up happened tonight that likely tells us where the debate over Medicare Phase-Out is going.  Shortly after 9 PM this evening the Washington Post emailed a breaking news alert which read “Medicare dropped from GOP budget proposal.”   That kicked off a furious push back from the office of Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA).   And shortly after 10:30 PM the Post sent out a revised email with a new headline: “Republican leaders seeking compromise in deficit talks.”  In the body of the email there was an editorial note: “The headline on an earlier alert incorrectly described the GOP position in deficit talks.”

It’s not clear to me how much the article itself changed.  My sense is little or none at all.  And the initial headline probably was an aggressive read on just what Republicans are saying.   But my sense is they were likely much more right than wrong.

Come on people!  You know damn well that this is NOT about the budget……rather their fear of NOT being re-elected!  And yes I said cowards!  If this is truly about trying to find answers to our spending problem then to abandon it is COWARDLY!  But NOT unexpected!

Since I began writing this post 2 more GOPers have backed off of the Ryan Budget thingy….

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) told TPM that while he would vote for the House budget if it comes to the Senate floor to “move the ball down the field,” his own preference on Medicare was a different proposal that would give seniors the option to remain in the traditional government plan.Senator Rob Portman (R-OH), one of the GOP’s most experienced budget hands, having previously served as OMB director under President Bush, told TPM that he and his colleagues — while not ruling out Ryan’s budget — are looking at several alternatives.

Let us be honest….we all knew these people would not stand by their golden boy once the fur began to fly with the seniors…..it is a dead issue…they know it and now YOU know it!