…

yet you expect them to miraculousy run
a 500 – 1 TRILLION dollar health care system?

Sure and what crack are you smoking?

they are all corrupt but america if YOU let obama and the dems STEAL your health insurance and replace it with the politburo insurance from russia.. (obama care)

Its all your own damned fault,

The folks are tired of the cronies running this government and look for a bunch of them to get sent home next election.

I absolutely don’t care if they send em all home and get some all new blood. This crowd is getting boring.

Most of those are far more expensive. In fact in any place (or just about!) in the country there are a number of medicare advantage plans available with a $0 additional monthly premium (of course they still pay their part B premium directly to Medicare, $96.40/mo). There are a lot of optioins, and you can choose whether you want a plan/company with an HMO type coverage (more gate keepers to services, but often more overall coverage) or more freedom in a PPO type, for example.

The Baucus bill would by design reduce the benefits to the companies and thereby cause them to stop offering them or lead the customers to cancel them due to high premiums and lack of sufficient benefit coverage. The “you can keep your coverage if you like it” meme is getting more and more absurd. Even if people will be able to keep their plan, it won’t be the same plan for the same reason a good Red Robin burger is delicious for about $9, but would not be the same for $900. It also would not be the same experience if you still paid only $9 but were handed just a bun. [Now if you don't like Red Robin, the analogy works just fine with a Five Guys burger, In-N-Out burger, or your other favorite burger (not sure if this would work for a Veggie Burger, but you can certainly try!) :0) ]

Also, another uncle of mine wanted to sign up for Medicare Advantage last year – before the election – and he was told that there was a temporary block on allowing anyone to sign up for it. Did the insurance companies know something even before the election? Seems to me that they did.

But is the government getting what it pays for? I am approached constantly by MA plans that want me to see their patients–for LESS than what Medicare pays. One local MA group wanted to hire me to be their full-time, exclusive ophthalmologist–at an annual salary of roughly what the average ophthalmologist makes in four months.

What is the quality of doctor that would agree to such a contract? I think you can figure that one out for yourself. I have literally hundreds of patients who are on the local MA plans who pay cash to come and see me, rather than see the ‘doctor’ they have to see on their MA plan. I do end up having to take care of the MA doctors’ messes when I’m on call, and it represents an inordinate amount of time and effort.

In the case of MA plans, quite simply, I don’t think the government is getting what it pays extra for. Some patients disagree, as is their right. I, for one, would rather see that extra money put into the general pool to help keep Medicare solvent and decrease the deficit, while allowing all patients to ‘vote with their feet’ and see the doctor they thought would take the best care of them, rather than the one that they are forced to see on their MA plan.

My two cents, and worth every penny of what you paid for it.

Yes, you would think that someone would ask this.

Do they have a “plan” to address waste, fraud and abuse and if so, what is it?

Because the Democrats have held Congress since 2006 and in the meantime, they’ve dealt with important matters such as shoveling a trillion dollars of taxpayer dollars to far left, Democrat donors.

So now that they’ve crapped the bed on that issue, how about doing something that’s actually beneficial?

Associate this with their highly touted “low administrative costs” for Medicare. That’s because they pretty much pay any bill that comes across their desk.

So if they start actually reading the fine print in each of the millions of bills they receive, guess what? Administrative costs will explode, you think?

And many of these fraudalent billings come from exactly the sort of inner city, mental health nonsense organizations who are cozy with the Obama campaign. Think they’ll root out fraud there? Please.

WHY HASN’T THIS ALREADY BEEN DONE IF IT IS IN THE REALM OF POSSIBILITY?

Um, because it’s bullshxt? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

If the Jug-eared Jesus and his minions wouldn’t treat ordinary Americans as if they were complete idiots, they would have a much easier time of it.

Stop lying to us. At least stop lying to us so poorly.

Apparently Kent Conrad actually made a statement that only 5% of people can actually understand legislative language anyway, so it won’t matter if they pass an “outline” and never give it to the public to read.

Kent Conrad can go Barney Frank himself.

I’m confident that I’m smarter than any douchebag in Congress, their jackass staffs or anyone in the White House. So is any adult American who isn’t fool enough to vote for a gd’ed Democrat.

These a-holes in Congress really take the cake. The all need their ears boxed.

Isn’t Medicare “socialism” anyway?

Decider on September 23, 2009 at 1:55 PM

Shhhhhh. It’s funny to read all the posts where Ed talks about the virtues of Medicare Advantage while the commenters below deride socializing health care.

tneloms on September 23, 2009 at 3:15 PM

Medicare is socialism, and it is going broke at breakneck speed. Expanding it surely is the answer, no?

SS and Medicare are huge mistakes made by social engineering do-good democrats. They cannot be undone easily. To add to a mistake is not by any stretch of the imagination a way to make any of this better.

When you have some ideas about how to make the current Social Security and Medicare systems solvent, apply them and show us that they work; then we won’t throw rocks at you when you start proposing even further entitlements.

I don’t know why I bother.

There is no way that a new government plan would ever go away. It’s best not to create one in the first place.

If I could get it I certainly would.

Ed talks about the virtues of Medicare Advantage

Not “virtues”, it’s a way people have of making this crapbag ponzi scheme program work.

If you’re an old person who needs medical insurance, try going it alone without Medicare. This bloated gorilla has crowded out every alternative from the private market, just as Barry dreams his “public option” will.

The Dems destroyed the private option and now marvel at how many people “love” the idiotic scheme they’ve left standing as the only option. And one that is going bankrupt at a terrifying pace.

But I guess this qualifies as yet another Democrat “success”.

Of course, you have to keep seeing Barry’s face repeating the same talking points because he’s the only dumbass who can’t decipher his own myths or has not broken his memorex tape.
/s

Many thanks to Barry for trampling our senior citizens in his rush to demonize the insurance companies providing these benefits.

Tongueboy on September 23, 2009 at 2:00 PM

What makes you think it was incidental to the rush to demonize the insurance companies. Given the body of writings of his various advisers imho it was the intent of the change.

Isn’t Medicare “socialism” anyway?

Decider on September 23, 2009 at 1:55 PM

Shhhhhh. It’s funny to read all the posts where Ed talks about the virtues of Medicare Advantage while the commenters below deride socializing health care.