Medicare Debate and Nursing

[DoGoodThenGo]

Not sure where to put this so if the mods have a better area of the group please feel free...

Today's NYT had an interesting piece regarding the current political debate regarding Medicare and it's funding. Noise on this matter is only going to grow larger as both parties in Washington DC must come to grips with the vast sums the plan consumes, amounts that are only going to grow over the coming years.

Professional nurses are impacted in several ways from Medicare and Medicaid funding. First as current or potential consumers of either program, and secondly in that via funding of hospitals and healthcare each program affects nurses wages to some extent. Thsu any changes in funding or whom runs them (giving more private insurance companies access and or turning the whole thing over to states via block grants for instance), can and probably will have a huge affect on the profession.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/13/us/politics/13medicare.html

[WIN007]

Not sure where to put this so if the mods have a better area of the group please feel free...

Today's NYT had an interesting piece regarding the current political debate regarding Medicare and it's funding. Noise on this matter is only going to grow larger as both parties in Washington DC must come to grips with the vast sums the plan consumes, amounts that are only going to grow over the coming years.

Professional nurses are impacted in several ways from Medicare and Medicaid funding. First as current or potential consumers of either program, and secondly in that via funding of hospitals and healthcare each program affects nurses wages to some extent. Thsu any changes in funding or whom runs them (giving more private insurance companies access and or turning the whole thing over to states via block grants for instance), can and probably will have a huge affect on the profession.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/13/us/politics/13medicare.html

There is a wealth of information regarding on the HHS website.

Actually we already ARE tackling costs and outcomes with the Meaningful Use act" stuff like quality measures and outcomes, EMR's , holistic patient records, NHIN, et al.

encourage all to take a look. http://healthit.hhs.gov/portal/server.pt?open=512&objID=2996&mode=2

Yes, nurses will be impacted by EMR's and NHIN and outcome measurements and ACO's. Yes, it will annoy physicians who wish for the good old days when they could do what they want and nobody asked questions and weren't bothered by care guidelines, quality measures and responsibility of outcomes...

I suggest nurses and all clinicians will be far more impacted by repeal of medicare and throwing millions of seniors to be to fend for themselves in the private sector (ie, read, unable to obtain insurance) than not. Nothing like lack of demand to impact your job.

[herring_RN, ASN, BSN]

chastened on medicare cuts, gop takes aim at medicaid

the part of the ryan budget proposal calling for an overhaul of medicare--turning it into a voucher program for seniors to buy private insurance--did not go over well with many americans.

in fact, the outcry from seniors from both political parties was great enough that the house leadership has backed away from their insistence that raising the budget debt limit be dependent on revamping medicare.

but what about medicaid?...

http://www.healthbeatblog.com/2011/05/chastened-on-medicare-cuts-gop-takes-aim-at-medicaid.html

[OC_An Khe]

Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance are not the problem. We as a nation will figure out how to finance it just as all other developed nations have. The main problem is fee for service without regard to the quality, efficacy, necessity, or outcome of the procedures performed. This leads to unwarranted costs.

The changing of medicare to a voucher system IMHO will never happen.