Friday, June 6, 2014

Remember How Obamacare Was Promised To Reduce Rising Medical Costs?

The theory was that all those emergency room costs that hospitals were getting stuck with by uninsured patients were being cost-shifted to people with insurance.  Great theory.  So what explains this?
(NEWSER) – Over the course of a single year, hospitals charged noticeably more for a range of standard procedures, the New York Times finds. Medicare data show that for 91 of 98 common ailments, hospitals' 2012 prices increased more than the rate of inflation from a year earlier: Chest pain charges jumped 10%, while digestive procedures jumped 8.5%. At the same time, Medicare boosted payment rates by 1%, and inflation was 2%, theTimes reports. Meanwhile, amid a push for hospitals to focus on cheaper outpatient care, the number of Medicare patients hospitalized for these 98 ailments fell from 7.5 million to 7.2 million.
Just think of how bad this would have been without the Unaffordable Care Act!

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