Al, you need to read the introduction to the report, notably the following two paragraphs which provide context for the entire report:
"The Board assumes that the various cost-reduction measures the most important of which
are the reductions in the annual payment rate updates for most categories of Medicare providers by the growth in economy-wide private nonfarm business multifactor productivity
will occur as the ACA requires. The Trustees believe that this outcome is achievable if
health care providers are able to realize productivity improvements at a faster rate than experienced historically.
However, if the health sector cannot transition to more efficient models of care delivery and
achieve productivity increases commensurate with economy-wide productivity, and if the provider reimbursement rates paid by commercial insurers continue to follow the same negotiated process used to date, then the availability and quality of health care received by Medicare beneficiaries would, under current law, fall over time relative to that received by those with private health insurance."
As you can readily see, the trustees said NOTHING like your excerpt, and in fact, they said ONLY if assumptions which would appear to be unlikely to be fulfilled were, in fact, fulfilled, might this happen. |
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The critical phrase is:
" . . .and if the provider reimbursement rates paid by commercial insurers continue to follow the same negotiated process used to date, then the availability and quality of health care received by Medicare beneficiaries would, under current law, fall over time relative to that received by those with private health insurance."
That is, over time, Medicare recipients will get lower quality care. Which they will. Because government is lopping off payments arbitrarily.
As a young accounting student I learned, "Never read financial statements without reading the footnotes, because that's where the interesting stuff can be found." The interesting stuff in the Trustee's Report is ALWAYS found in the Introduction and Summary. |
