That Nagging Cost Problem
Mike Abrams, Executive Vice President of the Iowa Medical Society
Somehow, in math known only to wonkish DC types, a freeze in your Medicare reimbursement is said to cost the federal government billions of dollars that they simply cannot afford. Meanwhile, institutional providers of Medicare services (rightfully) can expect annual increases which cost the federal government zero. The Sustained Growth Rate problem is one that simply must be repaired before the country's physicians can have confidence that a federal plan can be properly administered and maintained. We enjoy bipartisan sympathy, but somehow the problem marches on, unrepaired except by an occasional temporary band-aid.
Guess what percentage of Medicare beneficiaries account for 43% of Medicare's expenditures. Select your answer from the choices below.
And as I said in last week's blog entry, we spend more treating obesity-related conditions than we spend treating all cancers combined.
Those facts argue for an aggressive plan to tackle health care costs, otherwise whatever system is put in place will have immediate cost pressures. And when a health plan experiences cost pressures, guess who gets squeezed?
