End State Renal Disease (ESRD) is the only disease condition that is covered by Medicare regardless of patients’ age. This benefit was passed in 1972. One result of Section 299I of Public Law 92-603 is that Medicare pays for two-third of dialysis patients, down from 87% in 2004. When your kidney function falls by 85% to 90% your kidneys can no longer keep you alive. According to the National Kidney Foundation, the average life expectancy on dialysis is 5 to 10 years, but many people live much longer when their dialysis is tailored to their needs. This often does not happen due to the United States’ mostly one-size-fits-all approach to dialysis, which is not ideal.
Category: Health Reform
Saturday Links
- Paper straws have more forever chemical than plastic straws.
- CMS: ACOs saved Medicare $1.8 billion. That is 2/10ths of 1% of total Medicare spending. Think how much more would have been saved if ACOs were allowed to convert to become Medicare Advantage plans.
- CRFB: the federal government can save $370 billion over ten years by allowing health insurance subsidies for rich people in the (Obamacare) exchanges to expire by 2026.
- As a senator, Joe Biden voted to raise the retirement age and impose a tax on Social Security benefits.
- Should it be health care or healthcare? And why is it CMS rather than CMMS?
How Much Charity Care Should Nonprofit Hospitals Provide?
I began my career in health care working as an accountant for a nonprofit hospital. One of our senior finance executives did a case study of how much the heath care system saved compared to a for-profit system that had to pay taxes. I don’t recall all the details, but it was in the neighborhood of $100 million dollars in 1990. About that same time the accounting managers were told we could no longer write off bad debts to charity care. Charity care had to be granted to deserving patients; we weren’t allowed to decide after not getting paid that care must have been charity.
Friday Links
- Some colleges and work places have reinstituted mask mandates.
- Two speech paralyzed patients are able to speak at a rate of 70 words per minute, (slightly less than half the rate of a normal conversation) using a computer that picks up electrical signals in the brain.
- One way to fight prior authorization obstacles: Shaming the insurer.
- A surprising consequence of a higher minimum wage: more homelessness.
- How the FDA silences speech – not false speech, but true speech.
- Biden’s FDA is opposing the DeSantis plan to import drugs from Canada. (gated)
- Did you know doctors can specialize in obesity medicine? There are about 100 of them in the US. (gated)