A major change is coming to Medicare

First the truth. Do you think active and retired senior senators and congessmen and presidents DON'T get whatever care they or their family members need?

Doesn't  logic show that a senior cared for in their home by a trained, well paid care giver is tremendously LESS expensive then care in a hospital? Billions less! over the next 10-20 years. Would not training these care givers create hundreds of thousands of jobs?  In the next 10-20 years over 1/4 of our citizens will be over 65.

Now the real truth, where are the compassionate, republicans and democrats that believe that all Americans deserve the dignity and care. We all know someone in our family, a friend, who does or will need care.

My Father is in a Skilled Nursinf Facility and as great medical insurace but it won't pay for his skilled nursing because he has alzheimers and doesn't show emouh improvement with the physical and occupational therapy. So his savings is now being drained at a rate of over $200 per day for his care until he qualifies for medicaid.

 Such a shame to worek for everything and pay for good insurance to be denied coverage for a stupid rule of interpitation.

Skilled nursing care and physical therapy should be covered under your heath insuance, but it isn't jsut because the insuance companies don't want that responsibility.

Skilled nursing is heathcare, cover it.....

My Mother-in-Law was denied skilled nursing care (unless the difference was paid out of pocket), but fortunately we were able to get her covered under Hospice Care, a much better solution and more dignified way to be treated

Where has the author of this piece been?  If she isn't knowlegeable about Medicare policies, why is she chosen to present an article on this policy, which has been in place for years, and is, like most Medicare policy, a complex issue.  There are clearly rationale, and humane benefits from this change in policy. Maitenance of function and prevention of further decline are desirable objectives, but because of the "self-pilot" nature of much of Medicare's payment methods, this change will lead to much abuse. People who view therapy as a paid-for exercise club or social event will try to take advantage of the new policy.  Medicare will have to design policies that require evidence the therapy helps achieve these desirable objectives, just as it now requires that evidence of improvement is present.  This will not be easy, as EVERYONE in my age group (78) is declining in one way or another. By the way, my wife is an amputee in a wheel chair (routine knee replacement gone bad) who has had lots of therapy in the past two years.  This new policy will surely raise Medicare costs further, just when how to reduce those costs is central to the political debate.  I am a retired health policy analyst, if you couldn't tell. 

The government already covers Long Term Care. State Medicaid begins after the personsl assets are used up because the government can't afford $3500 per month on the low side per beneficiary until the that person has used up their own funds. And the State programs are funded or subsidized by the Federal Government. Doing the math at 10,000 known denied claims means an additional 35 million dollars per month from the tax coffers, and that's before opening the flood gates for the mass population. Medicare just can't afford that, and the tax payers can't support it.