Seniors Gouged By Hospitals Hiding From Medicare Auditors

"Under Observation" - Surprise Hospital Bills Hit Seniors!

An unintended glitch in Medicare rule is hitting a growing number of seniors with thousands of dollars with non-reimbursed hospital bills, according to a recent article in Bloomberg Business Week.

Medicare expanded a pilot program in December 2008 aimed at conducting audits to cut fraud.  Since then, the number of patients nationally who placed in long-term observation has increased and therein lies the problem. Under Medicare rules, patients who are listed "under observation" face 20% co-payments that they would not if actually admitted to the hospital.  Furthermore, expensive aftercare is not covered at all!


The "under observation" classification was to be designed when there is not an immediate diagnosis, or if it is determined the condition is not normally treated under "inpatient" care.

The problem is that hospitals are extending the the use of the "under observation status" in order to hide behind it so that Medicare auditors will not challenge them on patient admissions when cases lie between inpatient and outpatient.

Barbara Easterling, president of the 4-million grassroots senior activist organization, Alliance for Retired Americans is calling on Congress to clean up the problem.  "In the past, hospitals and physicians were on their honor, but no more" she said.  "Congress needs to make it clear that anyone who is in a hospital for 24 hours or more is considered an inpatient.

Click HERE to read more.about this critical problem.

Seniors Beware: You Did Not Cause The Deficit!

Fiscal Commissioners Demonize Senior Programs

Despite the obvious and readily verifiable proof that our current budgetary deficit is the direct result of George W. Bush's tax breaks for wealthy individuals and greedy, unregulated, international corporations; two wars of invasion and occupation fought on the national credit card; and a near bottomless chasm of recession and unemployment with diminished real earnings and property and 401k values, America's seniors, its disabled, its widows and its orphans are being targeted as helping cause the deficit.

Recently, the co-chairmen of President Obama's Fiscal Study Commission, while calling the current budget deficit a "cancer" that will destroy America from within, (damn, sounds almost McCarthyesque doesn't it--The Enemy Within) unless Washington takes tough action.

The two leaders of the fiscal commission issued their ominous forecast singled out Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid as "consuming" more than their share of revenue.  Well there are liars and god-damned liars, I'll leave it to you to decide which category fits Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles the two co-chairs of the commission.  But, without any doubt, each is some sort of liar.

Social Security does not "consume" revenue!  Each of these men know this.  Social Security is funded by contributions from workers and their employers and has somewhere around a trillion dollars "in reserve".  That is fact, and to suggest otherwise is a bald-faced lie and an attempt by both politicians to launch an inter-generational war by suggesting that Social Security is a tax burden for future generations.  It is not!  And that suggestion, is within itself another lie!

They are floating other "trial balloons", hinting that Social Security should be "privatized" and handed over to Wall Street thieves and mendicants.  The very same hellish fiends that gave us the current recession, unemployment, bail-outs, derivatives, and the swap markets.  Right!  Just the very people we could trust to make things wonderful.

Another of their ploys is to suggest that increasing the retirement age to 70 would "save" Social Security and reduce the deficit----and watch their hands closely enough and you'll see which shell hides the pea!  Or, and I like this one, phase out or end the Cost of Living Adjustments....there's the pea, there's the pea!

Alright, I will concede that unless something is done, in a decade or two, the Social Security Trust Fund will face some challenges.  But, clearly, and oh so simply and so utterly fairly, the answer to that is raise the cap on earnings.  Did you know that as it is right now billionaires such as Bill Gates pay no more into Social Security than some average Joe or Jane making around $120-thousand a year.  Hardly seems right does it?

The Center for Economic and Political Research (CEPR) has released an in-depth analysis that shows that if the draconian measures suggest by Simpson and Bowles were adopted the effect on low and middle-income families would be devastating. You can find it HERE.

The truth is that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid have helped generations of deserving Americans to stay healthy and out of poverty and to attempt to balance the budget on the backs of older people, widows, orphans, and the disabled is heinous.  And when that notion is based on lies, it rises to the level of a crime against humanity!

Raise Retirement Age to Age 70 - A Bad Idea!

No Blog Today!

NO BLOG TODAY! TRAVEL DAY TO D.C.

Republicans Just Don't Get It About Social Security Privatization!

SOCIAL SECURITY PRIVATIZATION--A STUPID NOTION!

What the hell is it with these damned Republicans?  To me they appear to be the sort that if they had brains they would take those brains out of their brain pans and roll them in the dust giggling and drooling at the fun of it all.


We are in what many are calling the "Great Recession"; trillions lost on wall street, housing values and equities dropping faster than Aunt Maggie's panties at the drive-in movie, 401K accounts mere shadows of the promise they once offered, five people chasing every available job, and long-term unemployment protection tossed under the bus for political expediency.  Got it?


Well sure you do, unless you happen to be a Republican.  If you're one of them, likely you're all for another run a privatizing Social Security...yeah, hand over to the mendicants, thieves, liars and cut-purses of wall street the most effective and best managed social safety net program in America. Just give the notion a moment's reflection, would you: Our Social Security Trust Fund in the hands of the very (nary a damned one of them is jail where they should be) people who gave us the worldwide economic crises we now are floundering about in.

Don't take my word for it.  Here from the Alliance for Retired Americans weekly report to members.

"House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) stated this week that he is unsure whether the Republican Party will revive their 2005 movement to privatize Social Security. Recently, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), a member of the president's Fiscal Commission on addressing the national debt, released a budget blueprint that included dramatic cuts to Medicare and Social Security before effectively privatizing both systems.


Boehner has distanced himself from Ryan's blueprint without mentioning where he stands, leaving many advocates for seniors uneasy about the fate of these programs should Republicans return to power. "Representatives Ryan and Boehner must not have seen what I saw when we put unbridled faith in the markets and Wall Street," said Barbara J. Easterling, President of the Alliance. "We need to continue our work to protect Social Security.  It is a valuable lifeline which has kept millions of retirees out of poverty."


At least, in this sole instance, bar-hopping Boehner recognizes a truly bad notion!   But, all that proves is that a stopped clock gives the correct time twice a day.