The first baby boomer became eligible for Medicare this past Saturday. If you thought the system was already in financial trouble just wait. Now a baby boomer will qualify for Medicare every 8 seconds! By the year 2030 the Medicare ranks will swell from 47 million today to 80 million.

Another problem is that the baby boomers are healthier as a whole than earlier retirees and thus will be in the system longer and require more money as they age. Trying to keep pace with the sheer numbers and the expensive advances in medical care that further prolongs life will greatly strain the system.

There will be more pressure for the government to reduce Medicare benefits but groups like the AARP and the very vocal baby boomers won’t stand for that and will put up quite a fight. Whomever suggests reducing benefits or making Medicare recipients pay more will be committing political suicide.

No doubt it will be fascinating to watch. bjmdjd

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baby boomers · Medicare · reduce Medicare benefits

I may be cynical but in my opinion rarely does the government do anything sensible and in the order in which it should be done. For instance, Medicare in the past has only covered smoking cessation counselling if the patient had already been diagnosed with a tobacco related disease or already had symptoms of such a disease. Seems a bit backwards to me.

But alas, the Dept. of Health and Human Services has announced that Medicare will now begin covering counselling for smoking for all Medicare patients! They must have done this by mistake but we’ll all hope that they don’t notice. This will be an excellent partner to the fact that Medicare Part D prescription drug plans already cover prescription smoking medications. bjmdjd

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Medicare · Medicare Part D · smoking cessation

If you are a Medicare patient you need to know that a Medicare disaster is on the verge of occurring. The Senate adjourned before approving a bill that would prevent a 21.2% physician pay cut from becoming effective on Monday March 1, 2010.

To their credit (for once) Democrats have tried for months to pass legislation that would prevent this from happening but once again this past week they were thwarted by Republican Senator Jim Bunning from Kentucky. He stated that he just could not support this bill with all of it’s other expensive attachments because the Democrats had not figured out a way to pay for it and thus it would increase the deficit.

The bill was going to delay the pay cut for 30 days until something more permanent could be studied and possibly passed. Most physician groups have supported passage of a bill that permanently fixes this recurring pay cut problem.

If physicians are to be believed, it may be hard to get a doctor’s appointment as early as next week. I don’t think I am going out on a limb by saying that if the pay cut occurs, a primary care physician will LOSE money every time a Medicare patient walks in their office. NOT make less money, LOSE money! The average Joe may not believe it but it’s true!

I have no doubt that something will be done. Medicare payors have already informed physicians that if the pay cut occurs they will hold all Medicare claims for 10 business days starting Monday giving the Senate time to fix the problem and make it retroactive to March 1st.

If the physician pay fix doesn’t become a done deal, woe to those (including me) who need a doctor and their payor is Medicare!  bjmdjd

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Medicare · Medicare physician pay cut · Sen. Jim Bunning · Senate Democrats