And you thought the Government was stupid before?

Recently, the Feds have been making changes in the Medicare/Medicaid programs, mostly in an effort to push the financial burden off onto the individual states.

Medicaid which covers prescriptions for the extremely low income disabled and elderly has now morphed into something called Medicare part D ("D" is for drugs which is what I think whoever came up with this was on).

Before, you just went down and showed your Medicaid Card to the pharmacy, made your co-pay, got your prescriptions and walked 10 miles home (if you're lucky you had a motorized wheelchair, but I digress).

Now, you have to join a private HMO if you get Medicaid. Woe befall the medicaid recipient who dares to move somewhere - even within their own state. When I moved 400 miles away, I vanished off every computer screen known to man except here (sorry, LJ).

Colorado now has a state office of Medicaid (Medicare part dumb) in Denver. Every Colorado county also has its very own team of medicaid technicians. There is no state-wide policy in Colorado except there is - no there isn't.

If you move, you have to notify Denver which promptly cancels your coverage. You then go into your new county office where the medicaid technicians (all 10 of them for teensy Montezuma county) are busy in the back room comparing manucures or something. The technician you've been assigned to is always away due to a "personal crisis." When she gets back from the manicure shop two weeks later, she sends you a Medicare part D eligibility form. You take this form to a local private insurance company (I went to State Farm), and they sign you up for your new HMO and the insurance agent gets a commission from either the state or Federal government or both for its pains.

The happy Medicaid recipient is now in limbo because the new HMO won't kick in for a month and your old one has been cancelled. So you take ALL your paperwork (which comes to a file about an inch thick at this point) and dump it on some hapless pharmacy technician who spends a full hour setting you up for interim coverage that lasts a month. When you finally get your new HMO card, you have to get set up by the pharmacy all over again. The pharmacy gets a kick back from the government for dealing with Medicare part D clients.

Now how is this saving the tax payer money? Please, please tell me. What would happen if medicaid or medicare part D was reviewed once a year, you kept your same card if you were still eligible and didn't if you weren't?

Am I missing something here?

[Trilby]

Well--it's creating and keeping a lot of jobs...

[wolf]

Medicaid HMO <> Medicare Part D coverages.

Pennsylvania has had medicaid HMOs in the big cities/counties for at least 10 or more years. A few years ago the program expanded to the rest of the state. It actually benefits the recipients more than the previous system by expanding the networks of available care providers, and reducing fradulent claims.

[Cicero]

I'll tell you how it saved the taxpayers money......in the scenario you just gave- you did all the work with the help of a pharmacist. Wow and I bet you used a lot of your own resources to get all that done.....
The state likes it when people get anxious and do lots of stuff on their own with their own know- how and resources. Keeps them from spending or lifting a pretty lacquered finger.
Now I suggest you add up the totals on what you spent manually,sign and date the itemized expenditures, after signing off on the health information release forms, get a new program to lose all that information in, and ask yourself to re-apply.

[orthodoc]

How would you like the government to be handling ALL of your medical care/coverage? Pennsylvania has a bill before the legislature now that would create a single-payer government funded health 'care' system (read: socialized medicine). Everyone would be insured. Hooray! But the system will go straight downhill as government sets about 'controlling costs', which means closing facilities and restricting access ... and driving everyone crazy with regulations. And personal income taxes will rise, jobs will be lost as small businesses are driven under (they will face a flat 10% tax; many small businesses don't have a 10% profit margin), and everyone will be poorer and have less medical care.

There's a move in Congress to do this nationally, too. It scares me silly. I come from Canada, where the 'best health care system in the world' now lets people die as they wait in line for months for cancer treatment and coronary bypasses.

Your experience so far with Medicare part 'D' is consistent with government control of health care.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by orthodoc

(they will face a flat 10% tax; many small businesses don't have a 10% profit margin),

Unless it's a flat 10% tax on profits.

[orthodoc]

No, it's a 10% payroll tax. If a company tries to decrease its payroll by using bonuses, those get the tax too. It's a direct extra 10% cost above payroll. It will put many small businesses under.

Originally Posted by orthodoc

How would you like the government to be handling ALL of your medical care/coverage?

In my case it does. I have Medicare parts A, B, and now D. The entire alphabet soup. It is hell finding a doctor who is accepting new Medi-alphabet patients because the government has cut the amount the Doc's get re-imbursed for such patients. I beleive I mentioned that I finally found a doctor 19 miles away in another town who runs some sort of officially designated clinic for people in rural areas. The Feds give him extrta compensation for keeping his practice in the bustling metropolis of Dolores, Colorado and accepting Medicare patients. He told me that otherwise, he wouldn't accept Medicare patients, either. I need to see a neurologist and get voc rehab therapy, but the closest place I can do this is 200 miles away in Grand Junction. Neurologists here won't accept Medicare referals.

I am actually in favor of national medicine, however. Rational national medicine. If the government wouldn't create set-ups like the one I outlined in my OP, it could save tons of money, re-imburse doctors at a reasonable rate, and all without having to raise taxes that much. For example, those 10 medicare techs who serve Montezuma County must make at least $20,000 - $30,000/yr, plus state benifits. That's at least $200,000 that could go to providing the residents of this county actual medical care - not one inch thick files of paperwork.

[9th Engineer]

The money you would save though would be chump change compared to the costs you would incur though. $200,000 may sound like a lot, but in this case it's nowhere near the amounts we'd be talking about

OK, if you want to start talking big bucks, start with this:

The U.S. Loses up to $130 Billion Annually as Result of Poor Health, Early Death Due to Lack of Insurance

The value of what the United States loses because of the poorer health and earlier death experienced by the 41 million Americans who lack health insurance is estimated to be $65 billion to $130 billion every year, according to a first-ever economic analysis of the costs of uninsurance for society overall. This lost value is a hidden cost that could be recouped by extending health coverage to all, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.

More:
http://www8.nationalacademies.org/on...RecordID=10719

[xoxoxoBruce]

Do away with all health insurance, public and private. Corporate profits will soar, Wall Street will roar and we'll replace all the dead people with Mexicans.