The contradictions keep piling up in the $3.5 trillion (more like $5 trillion) budget bill, and one of the biggest concerns is Medicare. The hospital trust fund is set to run dry in 2026, and Democrats worry that expensive drugs aren’t affordable. But then why do they want to add hugely expensive new coverage for dental, hearing and vision care?

Democrats claim that half of Medicare recipients have no dental insurance, but they’re overstating the coverage gap. Nearly nine in 10 low-income seniors have access to dental coverage through Medicaid. AARP sponsors dental plans with low premiums, and many graduate dental schools offer charity care for low-income seniors.



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Seniors can also get dental, vision and hearing benefits through privately managed Medicare Advantage plans. Bill Clinton and Republicans in Congress established Medicare Advantage in 1997 to reduce wasteful spending under the program’s traditional fee-for-service payment model and increase competition with the goal of improving care.

The government pays a lump sum for each enrollee to private insurers, which have flexibility to design benefits, premiums and provider networks. The program has become increasingly popular with enrollment more than doubling over the last decade to 24.1 million, or about 40% of the Medicare population. Insurer competition has reduced average premiums by 34% since 2017 even as most have added benefits. About 74% of Medicare Advantage enrollees have access to dental benefits and 79% to vision care including eye exams and glasses. Some 72% get help paying for hearing aids.



Democrats dislike Advantage because it reduces government control over healthcare. So they want to require that traditional Medicare cover benefits that seniors are already getting elsewhere. Talk about wasteful spending.

This expansion would also import Medicare’s healthcare price distortions to dentistry and optometry. Because Medicare reimburses hospitals below the cost of care, privately insured patients get charged much more to compensate. The Medicare expansion could result in privately insured Americans paying more for contact lenses and dental crowns.

The Health and Human Services secretary would set provider payments rates. Dentists and optometrists could refuse to participate in the program if the government pays too little, as many doctors already do with Medicare. But they will lose money either way if their current privately insured patients switch to traditional Medicare.

The cost of the expansion is estimated at $81 billion a year when fully phased in, or more than $800 billion over a decade. So Democrats are disguising the real cost by delaying the phase in of the dental plan until 2028. This saves $60 billion a year and helps squeeze the expansion into their 10-year budget window. But the full cost will explode in the future.

The hearing-aid benefit also contradicts President Biden’s executive order in July to expedite rule-making to allow the devices to be sold over the counter. That could cut hearing-aid costs by 80%. Creating a new Medicare benefit would merely boost business for specialists who mark up the cost of the devices.

Democrats are flogging polls that show the Medicare benefit expansion is popular. But few voters know any of these fiscal or other facts because the press doesn’t report them and Republicans duck the subject. They also don’t know that the Medicare Board of Trustees recently reported that the hospital trust fund faces a $578 billion funding gap over the next decade.

All of which proves that when it comes to entitlements, looming bankruptcy is no barrier to expansion. Bernie Sanders wants Medicare for All on the installment plan, and the reconciliation bill is one giant step. The surprise medical bill will come later in rationed care and higher taxes for the middle class.


link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/n...84?mod=hp_opin_pos_1

Physicians are unhappy over these proposals as well as the suggested expansion of Medicare to those younger than 65. I have not heard a peep from dentists who are likely to get screwed if these proposals become law.

One can go crazy trying to chase all of these lizards through the weeds or one can simply - and regularly - inform one's congressweasels that ANY increases in spending under ANY guise are utterly unwelcome. Trust physicians and dentists to raise hell when their own particular ox is being gored.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:

Democrats claim that half of Medicare recipients have no dental insurance, but they’re overstating the coverage gap. Nearly nine in 10 low-income seniors have access to dental coverage through Medicaid. AARP sponsors dental plans with low premiums, and many graduate dental schools offer charity care for low-income seniors.

The poor are taken care of as far as healthcare coverage goes. And the rich can well afford it. It's the middle that really have to live on crumbs or do without because they have to pay for their care and it's not cheap for them.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
Physicians are unhappy over these proposals as well as the suggested expansion of Medicare to those younger than 65. I have not heard a peep from dentists who are likely to get screwed if these proposals become law.

I just received an email from my dentist a few weeks ago stating they were separating from all insurance companies. The bottom line was that the ever increasing restrictions placed on them by the insurance companies were making it difficult to provide the care they feel their patients need; and that the Dr., not the insurance company should establish the standard of care. My dentist is fantastic so I will be sticking with him, but I haven't done the math to see how this will affect my wallet yet.

He's not the only one doing it, my parents told me my childhood dentist no longer takes any insurance either for much the same reasons. I expect a lot of healthcare providers will be forced to make similar decisions in the future.

They're really two separate issues.

#1. Tweaking Medicare for the seniors it was designed to care for at an age where traditional medical insurance would become completely unaffordable for most.

#2. Mixing the entire population together to create the one type fits all healthcare insurance system they couldn't get past a decade ago for a variety of reasons.

Bernie's approach is to try to get senior votes for government controlled healthcare by offering to pay for some of the areas that aren't covered on Medicare now and hoping seniors and others will be so short sighted they will agree while the Democrats have control of the three branches.

I wouldn't underestimate the stupidity and short memory of voters and unfortunately this type of approach has a good chance of eventually passing.

Once they start refusing health care to the unvaccinated the costs will start coming down.

Edit: I am not agreeing with the concept, but the commies are now suggesting that health care is a human right, but at the same time the unclean should be denied.

^^ Proof positive that they don't consider anyone but commies human - and therefore worthy of rights.

quote:

Originally posted by TSE:
Once they start refusing health care to the unvaccinated the costs will start coming down.

Edit: I am not agreeing with the concept, but the commies are now suggesting that health care is a human right, but at the same time the unclean should be denied.

Unfortunately, that's the goal.
Socialism/communism fails every time it's tried, but that won't keep them from trying.
It's a means to power.

quote:

Originally posted by TSE:
Once they start refusing health care to the unvaccinated the costs will start coming down.

Edit: I am not agreeing with the concept, but the commies are now suggesting that health care is a human right, but at the same time the unclean should be denied.

I haven't seen or heard anything about that and I'm interested.

Got a link?