{"id":40312,"date":"2013-12-02T06:45:04","date_gmt":"2013-12-02T12:45:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=40312"},"modified":"2013-12-02T06:45:04","modified_gmt":"2013-12-02T12:45:04","slug":"the-left-hand-doesnt-know-what-the-farther-left-hand-is-doing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=40312","title":{"rendered":"The Left Hand Doesn’t Know What The Farther-Left Hand Is Doing"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was one of the stories that got no play last session,\u00a0in spite of the fact<\/del> because it highlights the bizarre schizophrenia of using politics to allocate human capital, but while on the one hand AFSCME was working to unionize home-child-care providers – who are independent contractors and don’t have “management” – it was instituting full-day kindergarten, reducing the number of kids who’d be in daycare at all.<\/p>\n

Which wasn’t entirely incongruous, if you think about it; to the DFL, racket money from daycare providers and union dues from a doubling of Kindergarten teachers are both just revenue streams.<\/p>\n

But this<\/a>?<\/p>\n

The final rule, for the most part, confirmed a proposed rule, issued in July, which will cut the Medicare home health benefit by $22 billion over the next four years.<\/p>\n

\u201cCongress asked [Center for Medicaid Services],\u201d Halamandaris said, \u201cto do a comprehensive evaluation of the home health benefit, to isolate what works and what needs improvement, how to increase access and efficiency, and how to reduce costs while improving the quality of care. CMS did none of this. Instead, all they did was look to impose the largest possible cut \u20143.5 percent a year \u2014 on the Medicare home health benefit. This adds up to 14 percent over the next four years, or a total of $22 billion.\u201d<\/p>\n

The National Association for Home Care & Hospice has produced studies showing that the Medicare home health benefit has already endured more than its fair share of cuts. The benefit has been cut a disproportionate $78 billion since 2009. Add in the newly imposed cut and $100 billion in cuts will have been taken from the most popular and most-needed Medicare program. And as a result of these cuts by the end of 2017, 75 percent of Medicare-certified agencies will be forced under water with profit margins of zero or less.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe clear conclusion is that saving money is more important to CMS than serving those who are so sick they cannot leave home without assistance,\u201d Halamandaris pointed out. \u201cIt is obvious that they turned a deaf ear to our pleas on behalf of aged, infirm, disabled, and dying Americans.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, while the SEIU was working<\/del> calling in markers with the DFL to unionize home-care workers, President Obama was working to shut the industry down completely.<\/p>\n

Good job, guys.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was one of the stories that got no play last session,\u00a0in spite of the fact because it highlights the bizarre schizophrenia of using politics to allocate human capital, but while on the one hand AFSCME was working to unionize home-child-care providers – who are independent contractors and don’t have “management” – it was instituting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,66,64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy-and-the-market","category-health-care","category-president-obama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40312"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40314,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40312\/revisions\/40314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}