Guileless
Temp Banned for Remedial Purposes
From the Sara Kliff blog linked above:
The health law changed how Medicare calculates what they get reimbursed for various services, slightly lowering their rates over time. Hospitals agreed to these cuts because they knew, at the same time, they would likely see an influx of paying patients with the Affordable Care Acts insurance expansion.
From an op-ed in today's WSJ:
A panel at the American Enterprise Institute featured Richard Foster, the Medicare actuary who estimates that ObamaCare's $716 billion in Medicare cuts will cause one of six hospitals to become unprofitable. In the audience was Chip Kahn, the president of a for-profit hospital trade group that lobbied for ObamaCare, who stood up to defend the bargain his industry cut in return for 30 million new subsidized customers.
Mr. Foster noted that the cuts, which come via a technical change to Medicare payment rates, apply in perpetuity. But the hospitals only get the extra patients once, so the wedge between costs and benefits for hospitals widens over time.
"Well," Mr. Kahn replied, "you can say, 'Did you make a bad deal?' Fortunately I don't think I'll probably be working after 2020." When Mr. Foster pressed him, he joked again, "I'm glad my contract only goes another six years."
This kind of short-range thinkingand intellectual exhaustiondominates both parties and their many clients in Washington, in health care especially.
The health law changed how Medicare calculates what they get reimbursed for various services, slightly lowering their rates over time. Hospitals agreed to these cuts because they knew, at the same time, they would likely see an influx of paying patients with the Affordable Care Acts insurance expansion.
From an op-ed in today's WSJ:
A panel at the American Enterprise Institute featured Richard Foster, the Medicare actuary who estimates that ObamaCare's $716 billion in Medicare cuts will cause one of six hospitals to become unprofitable. In the audience was Chip Kahn, the president of a for-profit hospital trade group that lobbied for ObamaCare, who stood up to defend the bargain his industry cut in return for 30 million new subsidized customers.
Mr. Foster noted that the cuts, which come via a technical change to Medicare payment rates, apply in perpetuity. But the hospitals only get the extra patients once, so the wedge between costs and benefits for hospitals widens over time.
"Well," Mr. Kahn replied, "you can say, 'Did you make a bad deal?' Fortunately I don't think I'll probably be working after 2020." When Mr. Foster pressed him, he joked again, "I'm glad my contract only goes another six years."
This kind of short-range thinkingand intellectual exhaustiondominates both parties and their many clients in Washington, in health care especially.
