Karl Denninger points out that President Trump has to deal with US government overexpenditure right now, or risk bankrupting the nation. Medicare/Medicaid is undoubtedly the principal culprit. Emphasis in original.
$296 billion in all revenues and $603 billion spent last month; all of which was with President Trump in office.
This, while Speaker Johnson (and Trump) both want to continue this insane level of spending beyond revenues -- more than a 50% deficit last month -- until the end of September.
. . .
Note that Social Security, which people will try to lump in, is not the problem. It takes in a huge amount of tax (and pays out a huge amount); in contrast Health and Human Services spent $145 billion last month which is more than all income tax receipts deposited from individuals and more than 14 TIMES that deposited from corporations and yet the total deposited from Medicare tax was $28 billion -- or just nineteen percent of what was spent.
. . .
In total CMS has spent $1,030 billion thus far this year or one third of the total $3,039 billion spent by the Federal Government and yet it has received only $164 billion in taxes against that, or sixteen percent of what it has spent.
In addition prescription drug spend in Medicare has risen a stunning 80% over last year's run rate -- that currently stands at $74 billion against $41 billion this time last year while the entire last year spend was just over $100 billion.
Hospital payments are up 20% over last year and physicians payments are up 31%.
There's more at the link.
Mr. Denninger's solution is to enforce existing laws, which have not been applied to medical costs and entities despite having been on the books for years, even decades. He makes a strong case for his position, and I can't disagree with it in theory - except for the practical consideration that if we did so tomorrow, the medical infrastructure of the entire country would grind to a halt, because no organizations such as hospitals, medical insurers, etc. would be able to take the hit in the short term.
That said, I don't see any other way to avoid it either. If anyone is dependent upon Medicare or Medicaid for one's health care, they face a very uncertain future, because the money simply isn't there to sustain the current level of care and/or pay for future increases in cost. It's a nightmare scenario for many of us, yet as the figures show, it's just landed right on our front lawns. It might be punted a short way down the road by printing more money and spending against borrowings, but that's just reached a point where it's no longer sustainable. The efforts of D.O.G.E. to cut government spending are laudable, but even they can't touch this sort of deficit between income and expenditure. An axe has to be taken to the root of the problem - but all of our politicians are terrified to do so, because they know the backlash from voters will be savage and extreme. They simply dare not do what has to be done, because if they do, they'll be voted out of office at the next available opportunity.
It's as simple - and as complex - as that. We've reached a point of no return. A solution has to be found, and one is available: but to implement it, our politicians have to be willing to "fall on their swords" in electoral terms, and few of them are willing to do that - so they'll do nothing, by default, and pretend that it's beyond their control. It's not, of course, but they will pretend otherwise.
Folks, good luck with this one. We're all going to be facing it, and it's going to cost most of us a great deal of money over the years unless something drastic happens. We should already be making plans to prepare for that, as far as it's possible to do so.
Peter
9 comments:
Medicaid and Medicare should be 85% of the price paid by the lowest private insurance company's payment for any drug or service.
Don't ya just hate it when an acronym of which you are unfamiliar appears but without definition or explanation?
If you're going to edit, be sure not to edit away definitions.
A good article is one where you don't need to go elsewhere to find what is missing.
All I see in this article is; "Tweet, Tweet, Danger Will Robinson, The sky is falling...." Yeah, yeah, the spending of money is terrible. Or should I say the wasteful spending of money is terrible. If you want to help get the budget under control you have to pinpoint the obvious "holes in the bucket" and plug them first.
Thats what DOGE is doing with the "grants". Now they need to identify the 150 year old MEDICAID recipients. And I betchya there are a few of 'em. Ending that outflow is a start. Secondly you need to identify the illegals that are getting Medicaid. And there are a slew of them also. Thirdly, you need to identify the citizens that are getting Medicaid for "ailments" that are suspicious; like migraines and back pain.
Once those areas are identified and the outflow stopped; I bet you will have enough left over that Medicaid won't go insolvent for quite a few years.
I presume you're referring to "CMS". That wasn't defined by Mr. Denninger either. I've updated the article to link to its definition in Wikipedia.
Denninger and I would both love to see MANDATED PRICE TRANSPARENCY. Meaning that all healthcare providers must post online their cash-up-front, paid-in-full prices for every item or service they provide.
For instance, you were out hiking, stumbled on a boulder, and injured your ankle. Now you're limping, you think it may just be a bad sprain, but the degree of pain and swelling has you concerned about a broken bone. You know you're likely to need an x-ray to rule out a fracture. So you go online and find the price of an ankle x-ray at your nearby urgent care center. There, you see options for 1-, 2-, or 3-views of the ankles. You don't know how many views you need, so just pick 2-views (2 x-rays, one from the side and one from the front). Boom, there's the price: $200. Then you could shop around at other urgent care centers, clinics, and emergency rooms. You will easily find the price of those x-rays ranging from $100 to $1500 depending on the facility.
Many folks have yearly high-deductible health insurance, meaning they have to pay $1000 to $3000 out of pocket before insurance starts paying anything. Mandated price transparency would created millions of price-conscious healthcare shoppers, which would pressure the outlying providers to lower their prices. As with most everything else we buy.
Medicare is SSN coverage (Pensioners). Medicaid is the government aiding people who cant afford insurance (Poor people and illegals). I would like to see a break down between the two programs and see where the money goes. CMS is the clearing house between the two programs and the people covered.
back in the 1990's I was doing out patient MRI.
across the hall was a "ortho" shop. he was always busy too. but a few months later he was hit by the LAW for medicare fraud, like to the sum of a few million bucks. ANYWAY.
he wiggled his way out of it with a small fine and some "good works" or some other bullshit.
I worked in healthcare long enough to seen and KNOW that there is massive amounts of fraud done in medical billing.
BTW. medical billers, if any good. make a damn good living. until they start enforcing the law and punish the bad guys. not much is going to change. 8 out 10 times, the "judge" will go easy on them (?) but really, they are stealing from all of us.
...And anyone who thinks that illegal aliens aren't getting Medicaid, they need look no further than the once-great state of California, where Newsom gave illegal aliens access to MediCal, California's rendition of Medicaid. "OH, but that's CALIFORNIA," you say. Yes, it is, but Medical IS Medicaid, and is BACKFILLED by FEDERAL FUNDS. That's right, Mr. and Mrs. Mainstreet. You're paying for ILLEGAL ALIEN HEALTHCARE!
Be a pain in the ass. CALL your "representatives" and let them know how you feel about this!!!!
Much of the money that could have/should have gone to Medicare was diverted to aid, abet and fund the invasion of illegals that the US has had to suffer from for a LONG time. There are no easy answers. Part of the problem is modern medicine has gotten very good at keeping people from dying, but not keeping them healthy. A lot of people live a LONG time but do so at great expense medically. And there are no easy pleasant answers to this reality.
Post a Comment