Health Law to Save $120 Billion in Initial Years

[Auburn85 434]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-12/health-law-to-save-120-billion-in-initial-years.html

By Drew Armstrong

Medicare, the U.S. health insurance program for the elderly and disabled, said the health-care law will save the program $120 billion in the next five years through lower payments to hospitals and insurers.

About $50 billion of the savings come from reduced payments to insurers including Humana Inc. (HUM), WellPoint Inc. (WLP) and UnitedHealth Group Inc. (UNH), companies that lead the market in enrollees in Medicare Advantage, the privately run, government- subsidized portion of the U.S. health program.

The savings prove the health-care overhaul that Democrats passed last year is working, Medicare Deputy Administrator Jonathan Blum said.

“Savings are happening,” he said by phone. “The program is becoming more efficient. We are promoting payment reforms that are elevating quality, elevating performance and lowering costs.”

Cutting spending in Medicare was a major priority of the health-care overhaul U.S. President Barack Obama signed into law in March 2010. The law is projected by the Congressional Budget Office to reduce U.S. deficits by $143 billion, partly through almost $500 billion in cuts and savings from the Medicare program in a decade.

Other major savings in the law come from cutting payments to hospitals and providers of medical equipment like oxygen and wheelchairs.

Blum said the savings were in line with expectations by the Obama administration. “We’re very much consistent with where we thought we would be,” he said.

[RunInRed 16,992]

What's this ... savings? I thought Obamacare was going to bankrupt the country? What's next, no death panels and rationing of healthcare?

[tgr4lfe 220]

Here's the problem " through lower payments to hospitals and insurers." Whoopdi do, Medicare doesn't pay as much, what will the hospitals and insurers do then??? Charge everybody else more? That will no work, everybody else will NOT stand for being charged more than Medicare. Not make as much money? That is just dumb business, so their going to up pricing on something else or somebody else! They will not be able to operate the same making less. The hospitals and clinics are going to be seeing more patients right? B/c now all of these millions of people, the poor unfortunate souls who couldn't get coverage before now can. What I don't understand is how they think that those who couldn't afford it before are going to be able to afford it now, especially with the economy as it is, gas at $4 a gallon, cost of living at a high. Even if 1/3 of those who were previously uninsured get insurance now and start regularly going to the doctor when maybe before they weren't b/c they couldn't afford it, so they just didn't go, the increase number of patients into the healthcare system will cripple an already overloaded system.

Yes, Medicare needs an overhaul, but that is it. Let free markets run as they should. How is that we're all of a sudden a society where everybody is guaranteed to get everything they want?

[Grumps 3,706]

What's this ... savings? I thought Obamacare was going to bankrupt the country? What's next, no death panels and rationing of healthcare?

Do you believe the above post about the savings?

[RunInRed 16,992]

What's this ... savings? I thought Obamacare was going to bankrupt the country? What's next, no death panels and rationing of healthcare?

Do you believe the above post about the savings?

Do you have counter facts for us not to believe it?

[Grumps 3,706]

What's this ... savings? I thought Obamacare was going to bankrupt the country? What's next, no death panels and rationing of healthcare?

Do you believe the above post about the savings?

Do you have counter facts for us not to believe it?

No, but I have seen articles in this forum that showed that Obamacare would cost money instead of saving money. I don't really believe any of them and don't care to repost them. I was just curious as to your personal opinion. Conceptually, I do not see how insuring more people can save money.

[RunInRed 16,992]

Conceptually, the new law creates the financial framework to incentivize efficiency and provides the tools to help crackdown on waste fraud and abuse.

Read all about it: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/05/12/making-medicare-stronger-improving-care-saving-money

Here's another interesting look at why healthcare costs so much in the U.S. and how the Affordable Care Act will address some of these issues.

Ultimately, I think "Obamacare" has been demagogued so much that most don't even know what the law does. But, if savings start to materialize, the law will ultimately be vindicated.

[Aufan59 100]

Costs in the US associated with diesease, including obesity, total only $25 billion in extra health care spending, a tiny fraction of overall costs.

Huh? Either that is poorly worded, weirdly calculated("extra spending"), or false.

From the CDC:

"The health cost of obesity in the United States is as high as $147 billion annually"

http://www.cdc.gov/media/pressrel/2009/r090727.htm

[jj3jordan 2,125]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-12/health-law-to-save-120-billion-in-initial-years.html

By Drew Armstrong

Medicare, the U.S. health insurance program for the elderly and disabled, said the health-care law will save the program $120 billion in the next five years through lower payments to hospitals and insurers.

About $50 billion of the savings come from reduced payments to insurers including Humana Inc. (HUM), WellPoint Inc. (WLP) and UnitedHealth Group Inc. (UNH), companies that lead the market in enrollees in Medicare Advantage, the privately run, government- subsidized portion of the U.S. health program.

The savings prove the health-care overhaul that Democrats passed last year is working, Medicare Deputy Administrator Jonathan Blum said.

“Savings are happening,” he said by phone. “The program is becoming more efficient. We are promoting payment reforms that are elevating quality, elevating performance and lowering costs.”

Cutting spending in Medicare was a major priority of the health-care overhaul U.S. President Barack Obama signed into law in March 2010. The law is projected by the Congressional Budget Office to reduce U.S. deficits by $143 billion, partly through almost $500 billion in cuts and savings from the Medicare program in a decade.

Other major savings in the law come from cutting payments to hospitals and providers of medical equipment like oxygen and wheelchairs.

Blum said the savings were in line with expectations by the Obama administration. “We’re very much consistent with where we thought we would be,” he said.

Lower payments to hospitals=more payments from patients. Net effect is a massive "tax" hike on us, the people. Health companies then go out of business because there is no more blood in our turnip to give them to make up the difference. Then the US Gov't will step in to "save" the system and ultimately will run the whole thing. Obama gets what he wants, the single payer system. When that happens...health care amrmageddon.

[RunInRed 16,992]

Costs in the US associated with diesease, including obesity, total only $25 billion in extra health care spending, a tiny fraction of overall costs.

Huh? Either that is poorly worded, weirdly calculated("extra spending"), or false.

From the CDC:

"The health cost of obesity in the United States is as high as $147 billion annually"

http://www.cdc.gov/media/pressrel/2009/r090727.htm

Interesting. So, your take is that obesity is the driver of our increased healthcare costs?

[Aufan59 100]

Costs in the US associated with diesease, including obesity, total only $25 billion in extra health care spending, a tiny fraction of overall costs.

Huh? Either that is poorly worded, weirdly calculated("extra spending"), or false.

From the CDC:

"The health cost of obesity in the United States is as high as $147 billion annually"

http://www.cdc.gov/media/pressrel/2009/r090727.htm

Interesting. So, your take is that obesity is the driver of our increased healthcare costs?

No. My take is that text bubble from the image is poorly worded, weirdly calculated, or false.

Costs associated with diseases are $25 billion extra? What does it mean by extra? Based on first glance, that picture doesn't pass the smell test.

And anyways, there are estimates that 1/5th of health care costs will be due to obesity within a decade. If we are going to have socialized medicine such as medicare, we cannot afford to pay for treating someone who ate bacon and cheese burritos every day.

Obesity may not be the main driver of health care costs, but it certainly is the most preventable... (edit) aside from smoking of course...

[AFTiger 282]

link

Thomas Sowell

Health-Care Policy in Wonderland

Yes, medical care costs more in the U.S. — and we get what we pay for.

Most political and media discussions of medical care have an air of unreality reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland. There is an abundance of catch-phrases but remarkably few coherent arguments. Let's start at square one. Why is there alarm about American medical care? The usual reason given is because its cost is high and rising.

That is certainly true. We were not spending nearly as much on high-tech medical procedures in the past because there were not nearly as many of them, and we were not spending anything at all on some new pharmaceuticals because they didn't exist.

This general pattern is not peculiar to medical care. Cars didn't cost nearly as much in the past, when they didn't have air-conditioning, power steering, and high-tech safety features. Homes were cheaper when they were smaller, had fewer bathrooms, and lacked such conveniences as built-in microwave ovens.

We would like to have all these things without the rising costs that come with them. But only with medical care is such wishful thinking taken seriously, with government regarded as a sort of fairy godmother who will give us the benefits without the costs.A cynic is said to be someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. If so, then it is political cynicism to point to other countries that spend less on medical care, including some countries where there is "universal health care" provided "free" by their governments.

Just as medical care, houses, and cars were all cheaper when they lacked things that they have today, so medical care in other countries is cheaper when it lacks many things that are more readily available in the United States.

There are more than four times as many Magnetic Resonance Imaging units (MRIs) per capita in the United States as in Britain or Canada, where there are government-run medical systems. There are more than twice as many CT scanners per capita in the United States as in Canada and more than four times as many per capita as in Britain.

Is it surprising that such things cost money?

The cost of developing a new pharmaceutical is now about a billion dollars. Neither political rhetoric nor government bureaucracies will make those costs go away.

We can, of course, refuse to pay these and other medical costs, just as we can refuse to buy air-conditioned homes with built-in microwave ovens. But that just means we pay attention only to prices and not to the value of what we get for those prices.

We can even refuse to pay for so many doctors. But that just means that we will have to wait longer to see a doctor — as people do in countries with government-run medical systems.

In Canada, 27 percent of the people who have surgery wait four months or more. In Britain, 38 percent wait that long. But only 5 percent of Americans wait that long for surgery.

Surgery may well cost less in countries with government-run medical systems — if you count only the money cost, and not the time the patients have to endure the ailments that require surgery, or the fact that some conditions become worse, or even fatal, while waiting.

A recent report from the Fraser Institute in Canada shows that patients there wait an average of ten weeks to get an MRI, just to find out what is wrong with them. A lot of bad things can happen in ten weeks, ranging from suffering to death.

Politicians may talk about "bringing down the cost of medical care," but they seldom even attempt to bring down the costs. What they bring down is the price — which is to say, they refuse to pay the costs.

Anybody can refuse to pay any cost. But don't be surprised if you get less when you pay less. None of this is rocket science. But it does require us to stop and think before jumping on a bandwagon.

The great haste with which the latest government expansion into medical care is being rushed through Congress suggests that the politicians don't want us to stop and think. That makes sense, from their point of view, but not from ours.