Quoted from CICERO

Quoted from Box A Rox

Government IS The Problem To All Cicero's Views...
Without Government, Cicero Would Have No One To Blame
But Himself!

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which is EXACTLY what people need to do....blame is not the correct word, however.

3 generations have learned that the government and all it's legislative lawyers will keep peeling the onion to make sure
you do NOT take responsibility for yourself because if we did, they would be threatened....stockholm syndrome

Quoted from senders

it cost everyone with a job more $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.....you have no idea what you just voted for...you just voted
to have government actuarial 'science' give you your value......


that's not freedom nor is it pure access........you....are....clueless

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Senate Republicans got into the spirit of the season by voting 52-47 to take healthcare
away from 17 million Americans.
The vote was party line with only moderate Republicans Sens. Susan Collins and Mark Kirk
voting against the bill.

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Prices of health care services have risen just 0.7 percent over the past four quarters,
extending the recent period of exceptionally slow health care price inflation, while expanding
coverage has driven faster growth in aggregate utilization of health care services. Prior to
2015, an increase in health care services prices as low as the 0.7 percent increase over the
most recent four quarters had not been seen since 1961.

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More evidence health-care costs are rising

By Jeffry Bartash
Published: Dec 15, 2015 2:16 p.m. ET
  
There’s little evidence Obamcare is holding down health-care costs.

Obamacare promised to lower the cost of health care in the United States, but it doesn’t appear to be working out that way.

The price of medical care rose from November 2014 to November 2015 at a 3.1% pace, the fastest 12-month increase in a year and a half, according to the consumer price index released Tuesday.

The increase in health-care costs has been reflected in other reports.

Earlier this month, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reported that U.S. spending on health care rose 5.3% in 2014 to $3 trillion. From 2009 to 2013 health costs had risen less than 4% each year. It’s important to note that the spending growth isn’t just price but also volume.

And indeed, the centers attributed the increase in spending last year to more people being covered under Obamacare as well as bigger increases in prescription drugs. The cost of prescription drugs surged 12.2% in 2014 after a much smaller 2.4% increase in 2013.

While consumers aren’t typically directly billed these rising costs, it’s usually passed on by insurers in the form of higher premiums.

The Obama administration argues that health costs will recede in coming years, but the evidence to support that view is lacking.

Many companies have had to spend more to bring their own health-care plans into compliance with Obamacare and insurers that participate in the federal program have sought big premium increases in 2016 to cover their own rising costs.

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Doctors question timing of Medicare cuts by Health Minister Sussan Ley
Date
December 28, 2015
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Heath Aston
Heath Aston
Political reporter
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The 23 items facing the axe are claimed 52,500 times a year.
The 23 items facing the axe are claimed 52,500 times a year. Photo: Peter Braig
Doctors have criticised the Turnbull government for using the Christmas-New Year holiday period to reveal the first tranche of items to be dropped from the government-subsidised Medicare Benefits Schedule.

But Health Minister Sussan Ley insisted the established taskforces were always due to report back in "late 2015", accusing the Australian Medical Association of "misleading Australians" on the matter.

Ms Ley announced on Monday that 23 services had been earmarked to be cut from the MBS, including seven diagnostic imaging services and nine related to ear, nose and throat surgery.

AMA president Brian Owler.
AMA president Brian Owler. Photo: Andrew Meares
The services cost the government $6.8 million – a drop in the ocean of the $21 billion annual Medicare budget – and are being characterised by the government as the lowest hanging fruit of the 5700 items currently on the benefits schedule.

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The first 23 items facing the axe are used 52,500 times a year, according to Health Department figures.

AMA president Brian Owler said the proposed cuts would make the common tonsillectomy procedure marginally more expensive due to fewer individual parts of the operation being funded by Medicare.

The government has proposed to no longer subsidise the injection of local anaesthetic during the removal of tonsils, for example.

The review found that more than half of local anaesthetic injections during a tonsillectomy were administered in Western Australia, with surgeons elsewhere in Australia using them far less.

"We need to make sure this is not going to adversely affect patients and make procedures more expensive for them," Dr Owler told Fairfax Media.

"Our concern is that patients don't go without services due to these changes."

He said the AMA hoped that Ms Ley was not trying to avoid scrutiny by choosing a time when many families were on holiday and out of touch with the news cycle to release the first results of the two-year review into the 5700 items on the schedule.

The first recommendations are from six working groups, but there are up to 80 working groups scouring the MBS to find out-of-date services still being supported by the public purse.

The review will cost an estimated $32 million, indicating there is much more to be trimmed from the MBS than the initial list worth $6.8 million.

"It's odd that the minister would put out a press release on the first things to be cut from the MBS in the heart of the quietest time between Christmas and New Year. We've seen that thing before, making announcements when people are away," Dr Owler said.

Ms Ley's office pointed to a statement made in April in which the minister said "each taskforce [is] expected to report back with key priority areas for action in late 2015".

"The AMA is busy telling everyone they have been involved in this process since day one, so the public should at least be told the truth about the fact the AMA has known this interim report was due late 2015 for months," she said.

"It's really disappointing for patients and government that the AMA continues to say one thing privately and another publicly."

Ms Ley said the first target list had been put together by a "clinician-led taskforce" and that 93 per cent of health professionals surveyed agreed parts of the MBS were out of date and required review.

She denied that cost savings were the main motivator for the Coalition.

"I don't view it as a cost-cutting exercise at all. I view it as realising where there is inefficiency," she said.

"This is taxpayers' dollars going into the health system and effectively not leading to health outcomes for people. That needs to be changed."

Ms Ley said that in diagnostic imaging, invasive tests to diagnose blood clots in the lower leg or gall bladder problems had already been replaced by non-invasive ultrasound technology and should not be on the MBS.

The government was already under fire from the AMA amid claims Canberra was seeking to impose a new "co-payment by stealth" by slashing incentive payments to encourage bulk-billing of pathology and diagnostic imaging tests – saving the government $650 million.

Ms Ley said the proposed MBS changes would be open for public comment and response from medical and patient groups until February 8.

"Further advice from the taskforce will not just focus on the removal of items from the MBS altogether, but also maintaining clinically relevant MBS items, the addition of new MBS items where appropriate, and more intricate changes around the rules governing the eligibility and use of an MBS item for a particular patient cohort," she said.

Categories of 23 items to be cut from MBS

Diagnostic imaging: seven items

Ear, nose, and throat surgery: nine items

Gastroenterology: five items

Obstetrics: one item

Thoracic medicine: one item