Isn't this what companies do

[Bottomfeeder 244]

U.S. to delay Medicare provider payments

By KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press Writer

Thu Aug 24, 7:52 AM ET

Many health care providers will have to make do next month without a government paycheck or two. The Bush administration says it will not make any Medicare reimbursements to hospitals, doctors and scores of other providers during the last nine days of the current budget year, from Sept. 22-30. Congress ordered the hold.

The providers taking care of older people and the disabled will get paid in full after the new budget year begins Oct. 1. They should not count on any interest on the amount they are owed.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060824/ap_on_...p&printer=1

[Tiger in Spain 0]

End of the fiscal year. New funding takes place Oct 1. So what?

[Bottomfeeder 244]

End of the fiscal year. New funding takes place Oct 1. So what?

Why wait? What's the problem?

I believe they don't have the money, and again will have to raise the debt ceiling. They are outspending their own, limits.

[Tiger in Spain 0]

By delaying payments, the government moves $5.2 billion in Medicare expenses to next year's budget, rather than the current one.

"The alternative was to cut reimbursements to providers this year. With this payment shift we avoid that cut," Senate Finance Committee spokeswoman Jill Kozeny said.

Herb Kuhn, director of the Center for Medicare Management, said health care providers have been warned that they will not get paid near the end of September. He also said he has heard no complaints.

No one other than you is seeing this as a problem.

[Bottomfeeder 244]

I definitely have a problem with this during an election year. It will affect the deficit numbers as applied to Medicare expenses this fiscal year, thus failing to expose the losses of this program that the Repubs have shoved down the people's throats. It's clearly a give away to the pharmaceutical companies, and they want to hide the true deficit expenditures to bitter end. I wonder how many other program budgets are being cut just because it's an election year. I heard NASA had some cuts, resulting in the resignation of a NASA bean counter. The Repubs, not conservatives, want to look good for the 2006 November elections, so they use borrowed accounting tricks from the likes of Enron and Anderson.

You know, I use to work for company that did this to pull the wool of the eyes of the owner. They under estimated jobs, then moved materials from one job to the next to cover the fact that they bid the jobs material only, no labor. It worked for awhile, but eventually came to light, and they went out of business.

"Fool me once shame on...you.

Fool me twice, shame on........

...ya get fooled, ya can't get fooled again..."

G.W. Bush, Master of Ceremonies, November 2006.