[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by BigV

mercy!

come on. that's really unfair, you totally misrepresented that article. Not what you said, but what you left out. you know, the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.. right?

your quote *was* from the article, but you just cut it off, right there. you missed this:


no fair cherry picking, right?

I wasn't cherry picking, I posted the headlines AND the link.

Dr. Blahous: Well its 17 percent on average over 75 years, now it varies according to year. I think in 2024 specifically it's about 10 percent and that increases, then it becomes 25 percent by the 2040s.
Dr. Reischauer: What I think my colleague was describing is when the trust fund became insolvent, money would still be flowing in from tax receipts and Medicare would delay paying bills, and so a hospital would send this bill in and rather than being paid in 24 days, it might have to wait five months. The CMS and intermediaries and other payers would be writing out the checks and transferring the resources to the hospital, hospice, whatever, on a much delayed basis.
Roskam: So that cut just so I'm clear, is not a hypothetical cut, it's not a hypothetical delay, it's an actual delay in payment to the point of reaching this 17-percent number based on your own projection. Is that right?

Dr. Blahous: That's right. The Social Security Act which deals with these trust fund issues is very explicit that payments can only be made from the trust funds.

Do you really think anyone is going to let Medicare end in 2024? I don't. It may look different but it will most likely not go away. The way I understand it is that the amount of money coming in will not cover the bills and the shortfall will be a 17% decrease from the baseline of equal in and equal out.