From Washington Post:
Report: Bill would reduce senior care
A plan to slash more than $500 billion from future Medicare spending โ one of the biggest sources of funding for President Obamaโs proposed overhaul of the nationโs health-care system โ would sharply reduce benefits for some senior citizens and could jeopardize access to care for millions of others, according to a government evaluation released Saturday.
The report, requested by House Republicans, found that Medicare cuts contained in the health package approved by the House on Nov. 7 are likely to prove so costly to hospitals and nursing homes that they could stop taking Medicare altogether.
Congress could intervene to avoid such an outcome, but โso doing would likely result in significantly smaller actual savingsโ than is currently projected, according to the analysis by the chief actuary for the agency that administers Medicare and Medicaid. That would wipe out a big chunk of the financing for the health-care reform package, which is projected to cost $1.05 trillion over the next decade.
On the up-side, at least the bill wonโt reduce costs. From The Hill:
CMS: House health bill will hike costs $289B
However, the CMS analysis clearly states that the House bill falls short in attaining a key goal of the Democratsโ effort to reform the nationโs healthcare system: โWith the exception of the proposed reduction in Medicareโฆ the provisions of H.R. 3962 would not have a significant impact on future healthcare cost growth rates.โ
The House-approved healthcare overhaul would raise the costs of healthcare by $289 billion over the next 10 years, according to an analysis by the chief actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The CMS report is a blow to the White House and House Democrats who have vowed that healthcare reform would curb the growth of healthcare spending. CMSโs analysis is not an apples-to-apples comparison to the cost estimate conducted by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) because CMS did not review tax provisions, which help offset the price tag of the Democratsโ measure.






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