Medicare rationing has begun

In an action that, strangely, did not make even the watchdogs of medical quality flinch, if there are any left, the "Readmission Measures Project Team", a new branch of the (Federal)Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, the CMS, promulgated a policy that is certain to ration care to the elderly in Medicare, and presumably the poor in Medicaid.

In an unbelievable directive, the CMS blithely declared, upon what authority, who knows, that ANY re-admission to a hospital within 30 days of a discharge will not be reimbursed...at all! This holds true, NO MATTER what the cause of re-admission.

Assume you are on Medicare, and just got discharged after a bout of pneumonia. On the way home, you are hit by a runaway bus, and are taken back to the hospital, where you are operated on for a broken femur, a collapsed lung, and spend 2 days in Intensive Care. The hospital will recieve for the care exactly NOTHING.

If you are unable to see how many ways this insane directive rations and negatively affects the quality of healthcare, you can probably qualify as a passenger screener at Schipol Airport. What is so cute about the directive is the fact that your Government is not RATIONING health care, they are forcing the medical facilities to do it for them in order to survive!

This is just the another salvo in the attack on the entire Medical Profession under the oh-so concerned-about-the-QUALITY-of-health-care-Socialists.There will be many more if the Government can further and further insinuateitself into the fabric of Amarican Medicine.

Pray for the Republic
Suggested Reading for today: "Liberal Fascism", by Goldberg

Happy New Year, Avagadro602