A Step Closer to Death Panels

[Greenbeard]

Efficient at what? Getting ripped off? To be labled as effcient means you would have to do something productive.......

Here is one of the many cases of Medicare Fraud from the NY Times 10/13/10:

An Armenian-American crime syndicate stole the identities of doctors and thousands of patients and used them and more than a hundred spurious clinics in 25 states to bill Medicare for more than $100 million for treatments no doctor ever performed and no patient ever received, the federal authorities announced on Wednesday.

Prosecutors said the case represented the largest Medicare fraud operation ever carried out by a single group that resulted in criminal charges. The group succeeded in stealing $35 million in Medicare reimbursements, officials said, before the charges were leveled and arrests were made on Wednesday.

Yeah that administrative group down at Medicare there right on top of it......

Thank goodness private insurance was immune from fraud from these guys...

The Multi-Million-Dollar Private Insurance Fraud Scheme

Members of the Mirzoyan-Terdjanian Organization also operated a multi-million-dollar scheme to defraud insurance companies in the New York area by submitting millions of dollars in claims for medically unnecessary treatments. According to a second indictment, the Chervin Indictment, at least two members of the organization carried out a wide-spread and sophisticated fraud for at least a decade. Specifically, the schemers bribed a hospital employee to steal the names of patients for the schemers. The organizers then recruited these patients, sometimes by posing as a hospital referral service charged with helping accident victims.

In some cases, the defendants allegedly staged auto accidents to generate fake patients who would then undergo unnecessary and expensive treatments that would be billed and reimbursed. Patients were provided medical treatment, including painful nerve-conduction examinations, without reference to their actual medical need. After insurance companies paid for these unnecessary medical costs, the fraud proceeds were laundered through multiple accounts, including the escrow account belonging to an attorney. An attorney, as well as several doctors, were among the 18 individuals charged and arrested in connection with this scheme.

 

[Gadawg73]

Government will not give you all the health care you want, no matter the party affiliation of the government. Deal with it.

Funny, you advocate "all the health care they want" for seniors paid for by government all the time.
You claim they paid for it. We all pay taxes.

Government has already made many promises it cannot keep, for fractions of the population like seniors and the poor.

What is government's promise of universal health care worth?

We have universal health care now in most cases. Government pays 75% of all prescription costs now.
I oppose the Obama plan as it is more of the same. I favor the current system with more options and more regulation on insurance companies to open up competition.
As long as someone else is paying the bill and you andI are not the customer it gets worse.
The current system where insurance companies and the government are the customer IS VERY BAD.
Large group health insurance care has ruined health care and run the price up.
Do you make a claim for an oil change on your car insurance.
Do you make aclaim when you paint your house?
Co-pays and deductibles of 5K on average have priced most all middle class self employedout of the health care insurance receiving benefits at all in the insurance model where the average premium per family is 12K a year and rising 15% a year for the last 24years.
Tell me good man, what middle class family can afford health care insurance at 48K a year in 14 years?
That is what it will be under the current system.Do the math. It doubles every 6-7 years for the last 24 years.
Facts are a real bitch aren't they?

 

[Revere]

14 year projections for the cost of anything are worth nothing.

And government certainly has no track record of slowing down the cost of anything.

 

[RDD_1210]

It's priceless the way to take the side of hitler. So how many SS do you have?

Wait...what??

Did I mis-spell anything?

I'm just confused where the Hitler reference is coming from and why you didn't answer my simple question. I thought we were having a mature conversation. No?

 

[Gadawg73]

14 year projections for the cost of anything are worth nothing.

And government certainly has no track record of slowing down the cost of anything.

Respectfully, you have no clue what you are talking about.
Think real hard Revere.
I own 3 businesses, 1 of them for 31years.
When your health insurance premiums are approaching 40K a year to run that business, and mine is a small operation, you better believe you are thinking 7-10years down the road.
If you do not know that health care insurance has risen an average of 15% a year for over 24 years straight then you are in complete denial.

What did you pay for health insurance in 1985?
In 1992?
What were the premiums per month for you this year that YOU PAID?

I am very healthy and I paid the average in 1985, about 3K
Paid 6K in 1992
Paid 12 K in this year.
Expect to pay 24K in 7 years.
I have to expect that. ALL BUSINESSES HAVE TO PLAN FOR THAT.
Doesn't your business plan for that?
Or do you even own your own business and pay allof your health care costs?
My health care costs for this year for my healthy family:
12K premiums
6K HSA
18K for one year with 90% of the HSA used.
And that is the average for an American family self employed healthy family.
Ad you claim that is a good thing? Worst value in the world for health care. Best value in the world for disease care which is what we are set up forinsurance wise.

 

[Revere]

You can't project any costs 14 years out. Nothing you paid for 14 years ago has any bearing on what it costs today.

You're an idiot if you think government is going to fix this. Certainly not a Goldwater Republican.

 

[Political Junky]

Thank you for your answer. But isn't rationing placing limited value on human life? Certain drugs work on people differantly., Some women who were told they have two weeks to live before they started taking Avastan are still alive three to five years later. And those women who have little children were allowed to spend an additional few years with them.

There is a problem when you link the "value" of human life to monetary value. As I see it, they are separate and non-compatable units of measure.

Most (or many) insurance policies have lifetime maximum benefits. I am not sure if Medicare has that or not. Is that immoral? Or is that just business?

And when it comes to the practice of medicine and pharmaceuticals, we use studies and science to determine what medications can and should be used for. Of course with any medication, some people will respond very well, far better than most in the study. On the other end, some people may die from the medication. For a med to be improved, the former should be maximized and the latter should be minimized.

In the case of avastin for BC, there were some people who responded really well, but the population of the study did not. If there was some way of determining beforehand (a blood test or something) who would likely respond well to the med, you can be assured that the med would be approved for those the would be responders.

However, regardless of the approval, it is not illegal for the med to be used for breast cancer. It is just that insurance would likely no pay for it.

There is a problem when you link the "value" of human life to monetary value. As I see it, they are separate and non-compatable units of measure.

When you start rationing saying someone can or cannot have certain care on medicine because of cost that is placing monetary value on human life. It is my opinion that all medicine should be accesable to the general public. Let the people decide. I recall around 33% of people who used avastin have lived longer than expected. without it.

Which is what private insurance does every day.

 

[uscitizen]

hutoxi what is the value of life? What price is the cut off?

So why are you against socialized medicine?

So you agree socialized medicine rations healthcare?

No more than private insurance does.

 

[boedicca]

There's a difference. A health insurance company is not the government. Competition keeps health insurance companies more honest than being the sole source of power over health care would a government bureaucrat.

 

[Revere]

So why are you against socialized medicine?

So you agree socialized medicine rations healthcare?

No more than private insurance does.

Insurance is not health care.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

So you agree socialized medicine rations healthcare?

No more than private insurance does.

Insurance is not health care.

Exactly, and no one in Amerca can be denied healthcare at least they could not before obamacare.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

so why are you against socialized medicine?

so you agree socialized medicine rations healthcare?

no more than private insurance does.

as it has already been stated healthcare is not healthcare coverage.

 

[uscitizen]

sheesh, did you read what you posted?
I am done here this has deteroriated to an "I cannot be wrong" situation.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

There is a problem when you link the "value" of human life to monetary value. As I see it, they are separate and non-compatable units of measure.

Most (or many) insurance policies have lifetime maximum benefits. I am not sure if Medicare has that or not. Is that immoral? Or is that just business?

And when it comes to the practice of medicine and pharmaceuticals, we use studies and science to determine what medications can and should be used for. Of course with any medication, some people will respond very well, far better than most in the study. On the other end, some people may die from the medication. For a med to be improved, the former should be maximized and the latter should be minimized.

In the case of avastin for BC, there were some people who responded really well, but the population of the study did not. If there was some way of determining beforehand (a blood test or something) who would likely respond well to the med, you can be assured that the med would be approved for those the would be responders.

However, regardless of the approval, it is not illegal for the med to be used for breast cancer. It is just that insurance would likely no pay for it.

There is a problem when you link the "value" of human life to monetary value. As I see it, they are separate and non-compatable units of measure.

When you start rationing saying someone can or cannot have certain care on medicine because of cost that is placing monetary value on human life. It is my opinion that all medicine should be accesable to the general public. Let the people decide. I recall around 33% of people who used avastin have lived longer than expected. without it.

Which is what private insurance does every day.

Healthcare is not healthcare coverage. two diffeant things try again.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

There is a problem when you link the "value" of human life to monetary value. As I see it, they are separate and non-compatable units of measure.

Most (or many) insurance policies have lifetime maximum benefits. I am not sure if Medicare has that or not. Is that immoral? Or is that just business?

And when it comes to the practice of medicine and pharmaceuticals, we use studies and science to determine what medications can and should be used for. Of course with any medication, some people will respond very well, far better than most in the study. On the other end, some people may die from the medication. For a med to be improved, the former should be maximized and the latter should be minimized.

In the case of avastin for BC, there were some people who responded really well, but the population of the study did not. If there was some way of determining beforehand (a blood test or something) who would likely respond well to the med, you can be assured that the med would be approved for those the would be responders.

However, regardless of the approval, it is not illegal for the med to be used for breast cancer. It is just that insurance would likely no pay for it.

There is a problem when you link the "value" of human life to monetary value. As I see it, they are separate and non-compatable units of measure.

When you start rationing saying someone can or cannot have certain care on medicine because of cost that is placing monetary value on human life. It is my opinion that all medicine should be accesable to the general public. Let the people decide. I recall around 33% of people who used avastin have lived longer than expected. without it.

Which is what private insurance does every day.

Why are you defemmders stuck on the coverage? Healthcare is not healthcare coverage. You cannot be denied healthcare, at least not before obam,acare now you can be denied the care you need.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

sheesh, did you read what you posted?
I am done here this has deteroriated to an "I cannot be wrong" situation.

So when did healthcare become the same as healthcare coverage?

 

[GWV5903]

Efficient at what? Getting ripped off? To be labled as effcient means you would have to do something productive.......

Here is one of the many cases of Medicare Fraud from the NY Times 10/13/10:

An Armenian-American crime syndicate stole the identities of doctors and thousands of patients and used them and more than a hundred spurious clinics in 25 states to bill Medicare for more than $100 million for treatments no doctor ever performed and no patient ever received, the federal authorities announced on Wednesday.

Prosecutors said the case represented the largest Medicare fraud operation ever carried out by a single group that resulted in criminal charges. The group succeeded in stealing $35 million in Medicare reimbursements, officials said, before the charges were leveled and arrests were made on Wednesday.

Yeah that administrative group down at Medicare there right on top of it......

Thank goodness private insurance was immune from fraud from these guys...

The Multi-Million-Dollar Private Insurance Fraud Scheme

Members of the Mirzoyan-Terdjanian Organization also operated a multi-million-dollar scheme to defraud insurance companies in the New York area by submitting millions of dollars in claims for medically unnecessary treatments. According to a second indictment, the Chervin Indictment, at least two members of the organization carried out a wide-spread and sophisticated fraud for at least a decade. Specifically, the schemers bribed a hospital employee to steal the names of patients for the schemers. The organizers then recruited these patients, sometimes by posing as a hospital referral service charged with helping accident victims.

In some cases, the defendants allegedly staged auto accidents to generate fake patients who would then undergo unnecessary and expensive treatments that would be billed and reimbursed. Patients were provided medical treatment, including painful nerve-conduction examinations, without reference to their actual medical need. After insurance companies paid for these unnecessary medical costs, the fraud proceeds were laundered through multiple accounts, including the escrow account belonging to an attorney. An attorney, as well as several doctors, were among the 18 individuals charged and arrested in connection with this scheme.

More than 61 percent of medical providers (4,319 total) banned from state Medicaid programs in 2004 and 2005 didn’t show up in the federal database of state-banned providers. This makes it easier for banned providers to set up shop in other states and continue doing business with federal health-insurance programs. (Office of Inspector General, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2008)

Increasingly, criminal groups are hacking into digital medical records so that they can steal money from the $450 billion, 44-million-beneficiary Medicare system -- making the government, by far, the "single biggest victim" of health care fraud, according to Rob Montemorra, chief of the FBI's Health Care Fraud Unit.


Granted there are problems with private as well, HHS has a terrible track record managing Medicare & Medicaid......

 

[boedicca]

The Government taking away money from people to give to other people ALWAYS creates a moral hazard.

Mo Money; Mo Hazard.

 

[xotoxi]

Exactly, and no one in Amerca can be denied healthcare at least they could not before obamacare.

Is healthcare a right?

 

[Poli_Sigh]

We Americans live in a nation where the medical-care system is second to none in the world, unless you count maybe 25 or 30 little scuzzball countries like Scotland that we could vaporize in seconds if we felt like it. Quote from Dave Barry. No offense to the Scots - those are his words.

Obviously those of you who don't think the insurance companies are death panels now have never had a member of your family suffering from a terminal illness and had their insurance pulled out from under them. Before discussing an issue, it is probably best that one has at least modicum of personal experience with it. Instead of regurgitating the words of a woman who doesn't know Africa is a Continent or what she reads.