No organization in the United States sows more misinformation about Medicare than the New York Times. Most often it is intentional political posturing by NYT but this week I think the misinformation is just because the journalist does not understand what United States Medicare does.
The issue is that the Times has run articles and editorials with headlines similar to this:
"Medicare Star Ratings Allow Nursing Homes to Game the System"
But United States Medicare is only peripherally related to nursing homes. The star ratings mentiond are probably being gamed by the nursing homes. But it is a Medicaid star rating system, not a Medicare star rating system.
I didn't pay much attention to the fuss until I noticed that other media such as NPR were picking it up. Even now I have only quickly looked at the scoring system that the government explains on its web site. The key words on the relevant web page are
- "Medicaid Program Differences: There are also differences in state licensing requirements that affect quality, and in state Medicaid programs that pay for much of the care in nursing homes."
The key word is Medicaid. In general, Medicaid -- through the 50 states -- pays nursing homes, not Medicare. If a nursing home is also a skilled nursing facility, then Medicare gets involved for a limited amount of time. But this is not a "Medcare star rating system."
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