This blog overcomes the attempts from those on both the left and right of the political spectrum to use statistics to impose needless changes on one of the best healthcare systems in the world.
Massachusetts Health Stats is an as-needed look at statistics about the Massachusetts healthcare delivery and insurance market and industry, including -- occasionally -- aspects of Medicare as they relate to Massachusetts seniors and the Medicare-eligible disabled.
For Medicare-specific information with nationwide implications and some how-to hints for seniors see http://byrondennis.typepad.com/theabcsofmedicare/
The article is total BS; the Medicare bureaucracy makes changes like those lied about in this Globe description of "the end of the Medicare world as we know it" all the time. The Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services will have no difficulty paying bills (that's done by private insurers anyways) and setting up the 2013 Part C and Part D choices (that's done by private insurers too) no matter what happens. Worse comes to worse, the bureaucracy can delay open enrollment a month. It does it all the time for invididual insurance companies.
The article is part of a series of articles that appear on the Boston Globe website and its affiliated sites and blogs that are totally misleading to senior citizens. The Globe and other Obama-reelection-campaign journalists (called Journolisters) are targeting senior citizens for scare tactics and misinformation because seniors voted strongly for the Republican party in the 2010 Congressional elections. There is a law pending in the U.S. Senate that would make it easier to prosecute the Obama election campaign and the Globe for this collussion and deceit. Write to Senators Kerry and Brown supporting the Fair Elections law sponsored by the Senator from Maryland.
Politifact claims that a recent Obama re-election advertisement about Medicare Part D saving seniors billions is true (and I agree at least in the sense that everyone knows that an ad is self-serving) but the Politifact article itself has some problems with the facts and could be misleading to senior citizens. The article claims:
"As president (Obama) signed the Affordable Care Act ... and reduced the cost of prescription drugs for nearly 3.6 million Americans in 2011."
That's true but it's at least a little misleading not to point out that this 3.6 million number is only about 8% of all the people on Medicare; only about 8% fall into “the hole” in the first place. No low income seniors (on what is called Extra Help/LIS) can fall into the hole no matter how high their drug costs.
Recently I gave a very egregious example of the lying and deceit practiced by the Boston Globe and the journalists it hires or strings when it comes to furthering its political causes. The example had nothing to do with Massachusetts or health care or statistics but was so biased that it made it easy to explain the Globe's tactics. In fact it was so biased that the reporter had to go into the comments section and explain his or her spurious reason for deceiving the readers.
Most of the deception on RomneyCare is much less obvious and therefore much harder to spot. But the lead story in the Boston Globe on March 25 (might require subscription), which was all about Massachusetts and health care and statistics, was equally misleading and deceitful. For example:
The article said individual premiums went down 40% under RomneyCare. Individual premiums did not go down because of the individual mandate as this biased Globe reporter says but because the individual and small group markets were coincidentally merged at the same time as RomneyCare. This 40% claim has spread because the brilliant MIT economist Jonathan Gruber did not carefully read an AHIP study that says don't compare any state from one year to another year (because of the AHIP research methodology) and that specifically says don't put any stock in Massachusetts' results (because the markets are being merged).
In addition, the biased Globe reporter completely ignores the fact that that drop in individual rates only affected 40,000 (0.5%) out of 6,500,000 of us anyways, was for only one year, the state estimates that the rates went down only 20% rather than 40% the Obamacare/Romneycare-profiteer Gruber claimed, and the individual and the small group rates have since skyrocketed up almost twice as fast as large group rates.
But it also includes the standard Democratic Party propaganda that PPACA will be great because RomneyCare is great in Massachusetts. Kerry is so wrong about that assertion on so many levels... but just hitting the high points from his ode to Obamacare (Kerry quote in italics followed by the facts with a link to more detail):
The following has nothing to do with Massachusetts or health care... or even statistics. But if you live in Massachusetts and read the Boston Globe, there is a great example of the way it deceives readers -- cheats them of their $4 paid for the Sunday paper (which includes Internet access to the daily paper) -- in the March 25 Sunday Globe. The story headline reads:
(Subscription required but since the article first ran under the above photo in a Washington Post story that ran March 18, the text probably appears elsewhere on the Internet for free.)
Read the story carefully and you find that climate has nothing to do with the flooding on this back road in Louisiana bayou country.
One of the more ridiculous story lines from the left as it falls over itself to criticize Representative Paul Ryan's latest budget proposal is the Associated Press (AP) idea that Ron Wyden and Paul Ryan "stole" the idea of an exchange from ObamaCare. I'm not going to make the obvious point -- as the Washington Post did in the link -- that Obama "stole" the idea from RomneyCare. The background of the lefty media's nutty story angle is more circular and long-running than just going back to 2006.
Very quietly over the last year, President Obama -- primarily through his press secretary but also through other surrogates -- has announced his Medicare reform proposal. This is his reponse to bipartisan Congressional and think-tank proposals and ideas from his own budget commission. This stealth process counters the Republican charge that the Democrats do not want to change anything about Medicare.
Under the Obama plan for Medicare:
Original Medicare -- Medicare Parts A and B -- will be managed by private insurers (Original Medicare is also often called traditional Medicare or "Medicare as we know it" by the President and the Democrats)
It will have lifetime limits (no catastrophic coverage)
If hospitalized and admitted under the Democratic plan for Medicare, seniors will pay up to $6000 a year in deductibles
The Democratic reform of Medicare "features" unlimited 20% co-pays if inpatient in a hospital but not admitted or if outpatient or visiting a doctor
The plan will include no vision/dental/annual-physical/drug coverage
There are very rigorous geographic restrictions.
Fees to doctors for Medicare services -- already set well below market prices -- will be cut 30% more beginning January 1, 2013
There will be fewer and fewer accountable care organizations in Medicare (currently about 20% of Medicare beneficiaries belong to one) despite the fact that they are the lynchpin of the President's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act designed for those under 65
Private Medigap plans, used to make up for the gaping holes in the above "features" of the President's reform of Medicare would be restricted in such a way as to pass more costs to seniors
There is a lot of talk these days about shadowy SuperPACs somehow skewing rational public debate. They actually don't seem that shadowy:
Gingrich's guy in Las Vegas (by way of the Dorchester, MA ghetto of the 1940s and the toney left-wing Newton, MA of the 1980s) seems to be well known.
Obama's pals in Hollywood all seem to be proud as heck to stand with their man.
Santorum's guy is always standing right behind him (although I admit I still don't know his name).
The Service Employees Union seems pretty straightforward about its agenda and even still seems sorry to have seen Acorn fold.
Yet no one mentions that odds are half* of what you read anywhere or see on TV about Medicare, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, abortion, and any other health care issue is prepared by sort of SuperPACs...
The left is lathered up again about yet another academic research paper that proves RomneyCare is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Such research papers are coming out at a pace of one a week now that it's a sure thing that Romney is going to oppose President Obama. Every college professor wants a job like the healthcare-insurance-profiteer Jonathan Gruber consulting to someone about how well RomneyCare works and how it will affect the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). These guys are starting to make the academics who brought you Climategate look like serious scholars.
