DrewM @ Ace of Spades HQ:
One of the debates during the ObamaCare fight and the recent campaign was the impact of Medicare cuts on recipients. ObamaCare supporters denied that the cuts would affect seniors since the cuts were on “providers” and not on “benefits”.
The Washington Posts’ healthcare writer Sarah Kliff last August.
The Medicare Advantage cut gets the most attention, but it only accounts for about a third of the Affordable Care Act’s spending reduction. Another big chunk comes from the hospitals. The health law changed how Medicare calculates what they get reimbursed for various services, slightly lowering their rates over time. Hospitals agreed to these cuts because they knew, at the same time, they would likely see an influx of paying patients with the Affordable Care Act’s insurance expansion….
It’s worth noting that there’s one area these cuts don’t touch: Medicare benefits. The Affordable Care Act rolls back payment rates for hospitals and insurers. It does not, however, change the basket of benefits that patients have access to. And, as Ezra pointed out earlier today, the Ryan budget would keep these cuts in place.
(Emphasis mine)
See, cutting payments to providers doesn’t affect benefits, apparently because providers will make it up in volume by seeing more loss leading patients or something
That sounds ridiculous to most people with any real world experience but that was the case ObamaCare supporters made. Now, if only there were a real world way to test who is right.
And thanks to the very same Sarah Kliff on the Post’s website we do have a real world test case. Shockingly, the ObamaCare promises fall apart when faced with reality.
