What They’re Saying
April 19, 1999 2 minutes read
What They’re Saying
• The crackdown in Congress that addresses soaring healthcare costs and industry fraud is also making it difficult for people to receive Medicare benefits, reported the Los Angeles Times. The new, much-stricter payments system delivers "a powerful incentive to avoid the costly cases, the ones that might run into thousands of dollars a year." A 96-year-old woman who was injured in a car accident and could not lift her arms above her shoulders had her benefits terminated when the agency told her that she was stable and didn’t need further care. If the home health agency terminates treatments, patients are entitled to a written notice of non-coverage. Agencies must supply the notices in order to be in compliance with Medicare rules, the Times reported.
• Pushing seniors and persons with disabilities into HMOs, part of a plan by Sen. John Breaux (D-LA) and Rep. Bill Thomas (R-CA) to save Medicare, will have a detrimental effect on millions of people, stated an editorial in the Chicago Sun-Times. Privatizing Medicare is not quite what President Johnson and Congress envisioned in 1965. "Medicare participants now have the peace of mind of knowing that healthcare decisions are made on the basis of sound medical science and not on the financial needs of stockholders and managers." The plan would only hurt seniors who live on fixed incomes, the editorial said.
• Two proposals approved by the Connecticut Human Services Committee would allow older citizens to maintain their independence rather than go into a nursing home. The proposals came as a result of 90-year-old Ida Tonkan’s situation. She unexpectedly began earning $2.18 over the $1,500 monthly limit that qualifies her for a few hours of home healthcare each day paid for by the Medicaid program. If she does not receive the care, she will be forced to enter a nursing home, which will cost the state as much as $36,000 a year. At the maximum, home healthcare for her costs about $14,000 a year, the editorial stated. One bill would allow people to refuse income that puts them over the cap if it meant the person had to enter a nursing home when it was medically unnecessary.
• Non-profit home care agencies are being driven to extinction by legislation aimed at stopping economic injustices of the past, wrote Michael Scheinert, executive director of Circle of Care (Toronto) in The Toronto Sun. Scheinert acknowledged the good things that have come recently: Canada’s creation of a separate ministry to care for the aged, ill, and disabled and the government’s restoration of billions of dollars in healthcare money to the provinces. But, Scheinert wrote, non-profits are trapped because they must pay employees more than commercial agencies due to the 1987 Pay Equity Act. It is making it difficult for non-profits to compete because wages and benefits account for more than 80% of agency costs. "For my agency, time is running out," Scheinert wrote.
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