Medicare news, articles and information:

Health insurance 'coverage' is not the same as healthcare 'access'

10/31/2016 - Often lost in the debates over reform to the United States' broken healthcare system is a subtle but critical point: Providing people with health insurance coverage is not the same thing as providing them with access to healthcare. This issue has come to the forefront in the debate over the merits...

Obama's Medicare 'reform' blocking seniors from accessing important services including knee replacements; hospitals rewarded for spending less per patient

7/5/2016 - Remember when the liberal left accused us all of being paranoid racists for reading senior citizen death panels between the lines of Obamacare? It turns out that these hysterical Democrats were wrong once again, as new Medicare reforms issued by the Obama administration are reportedly stripping aging...

Newest Medicare proposal promotes Big Pharma's money-making scam by encouraging doctors to choose more costly brands over others

4/13/2016 - The Department of Health and Human Services is proposing to test new methods of reimbursing cancer doctors for chemotherapy and other drugs, but it is facing furious pushback from oncologists and others who are demanding that the Obama Administration drop the plan. As reported by The Associated Press,...

Medicare pays Big Pharma for prescription drugs up to 32 days after patient is dead

1/25/2016 - American taxpayers are being taken out to the woodshed by the federal government's Medicare program, which was recently exposed for reimbursing drug prescriptions for dead people. Reports indicate that the fraudulent system currently allows payments for prescriptions filled up to 32 days after a patient...

Top-earning doctors milk their patients for every dollar possible, research shows

12/30/2014 - After examining what Medicare was billed versus what it paid to clinicians, researchers from the UCLA Department of Urology and the Veterans' Health Administration discovered what has been described as "very surprising." Based on their findings, it would appear that they've stumbled upon the reason...

Obama's executive action, opposed by 62% of Americans, allows illegal immigrants to receive Social Security, Medicare, other taxpayer-funded benefits

12/4/2014 - A number of political and social issues were important to voters who cast ballots in the Nov. 4 midterm elections -- jobs, the economy, national security, healthcare... But one of the issues that received a great deal of attention as well was immigration and, specifically, illegal immigration. According...

Medicare fines record number of hospitals for excessive readmissions

10/27/2014 - Medicare is public insurance that covers some or most, but never all, medical expenses for folks 65 and over. One has to enroll with Medicare Part A, which helps cover most hospital expenses, and there is no premium involved. One has to request Medicare Part B and make small premium payments to extend...

Release of Medicare data reveals massive fraud, drug company collusion and bilking of taxpayers

4/15/2014 - Do you know what happens to your earnings after they are swept up and tossed into the Medicare black hole? A massive, new Medicare data release has uncovered a multimillion-dollar scandal that has been growing through the years. Consumer groups have been pressuring the government to release recent...

Top recipients of Medicare money are also top contributors to Obama White House

4/10/2014 5:05:03 PM - A pair of Florida physicians who were recipients of the country's highest Medicare reimbursements in 2012 are both major donors to Democratic Party causes, and they've turned to the political system in recent years in an attempt to defend themselves against suspicions that they may have submitted fraudulent...

It's not just patients; thousands of doctors now being dropped from Obamacare coverage networks

12/13/2013 - Don't look now, America, but another very predictable consequence of Obamacare is beginning to play out. Not only are customers losing their insurance plans - the plans Obama said they could keep - but now, insurance companies are dropping physicians from coverage plans as well. As reported by...

Federal govt. spending tens of millions on prescription drugs for illegals

11/16/2013 - Americans, by and large, are compassionate and charitable, but when others begin to take advantage of that compassion, Americans understandably tend to resent it. Which is what makes so many of our government entitlement programs increasingly hard to accept, let alone feel good about. Tens of...

U.S. government may force doctors to accept Obamacare and Medicare patients, eventually at gunpoint

11/4/2013 - The primary tool of socialism is force, and while that force usually begins with good intentions codified into law, it inevitably ends up with the kind of force used by Mao Zedong to murder millions of his own citizens. "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun," he famously stated, and Obama-supporting...

Study shows nutritional supplements can cut hospital readmission rates

10/27/2013 - Eleven years of groundbreaking research and data analysis on hospitalized Medicare patients is to be presented at the 35th annual meeting of the Society for Medical Decision Making in Baltimore, Maryland. The analysis has found positive evidence showing how nutritional supplements effectively lower...

Cancer care rationing begins in America as cancer clinics turn away thousands of Medicare patients

4/11/2013 - Federal sequestration measures that came into effect on April 1 are making it impossible for many cancer clinics across the country to administer conventional care to patients, and particularly to those on Medicare. Consequently, thousands of cancer patients with taxpayer-funded insurance coverage are...

Dieticians are monopolizing hospital nutrition through Medicare manipulation

3/8/2013 - The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND), formerly known as the American Dietetic Association (ADA) has evidently managed to insert enough input into the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to ensure only registered dieticians with the ADA have ultimate power in hospital care diet prescriptions. Apparently,...

Doctors billing Medicare for patients' unneeded, expensive tests

11/21/2012 - With all the outcry by politicians and the public over skyrocketing healthcare costs, maybe it's time to take a look at how some doctors are running up patients' bills for unneeded tests. A new study just published in Online First by Archives of Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication, concludes...

Feds charge more than 100 individuals, including doctors, in $452 million Medicare fraud sweep

5/8/2012 - The government-run healthcare programs Medicare and Medicaid are wrought with fraud, a fact that was once again made apparent in the latest string of busts carried out by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). According to Reuters, 107 individuals -- many of whom are doctors and nurses -- were recently...

Texas doctor accused of largest Medicare, Medicaid fraud scheme in US history

3/10/2012 - Medicare and Medicaid, the two largest government-run health care programs that cover health services for elderly, disabled, and low-income individuals, cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars a year just in fraudulent claims. And an ongoing crackdown on such fraud being undertaken by the U.S. Department...

Report: Medicare has spent more than a quarter billion in taxpayer dollars on penis pumps for elderly

12/19/2011 - Taxpayer-funded health care spending continues to rise, particularly in the government's Medicare program, which now disburses more than half a trillion dollars every year for 49 million elderly and disabled Americans. But a new report compiled by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)...

Hospitals raking in cash from unnecessary surgery for dying seniors

10/29/2011 - Doctors and hospitals in the United States have a financial incentive to perform surgery on dying seniors because Medicare is guaranteed to pay for it, and most of the procedures fail to improve the patients' lives at all. Several colleagues from the Harvard School of Public Health recently reported...

Exposed: Out-of-control Medicare program subsidizing drug habits of tens of thousands of abusers, drug dealers

10/14/2011 - One of the primary reasons why prescription drug abuse in the US has become so rampant is that milking the government's corrupt Medicare system for a virtually unlimited supply of prescription drugs is relatively easy. The New York Times (NYT) reports that, thanks to lax accountability standards by...

Medicare announces it will continue to cover drugs even if the FDA bans them as dangerous for humans

7/20/2011 - Officials with Medicare say the government health care program will continue paying for drugs even if the Food and Drug Administration revoke their safe-and-effective status. According to Don McLeod, a spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, the health care programs will continue to...

Medicare bankrupt by 2024, says government

5/19/2011 - - Almost every American who has read a newspaper, watched T.V. or signed onto the Internet in the past few years knows that Medicare, one of the government's largest entitlement programs, is in financial dire straits and is heading for insolvency. What you may not know is that Medicare bankruptcy is...

Medicare illegally spends millions on Viagra for seniors

3/15/2011 - In what officials are now claiming was a computer error, the US government's Medicare program illegally spent more than $3 million in 2007 and 2008 on erectile dysfunction (ED) drugs like Pfizer Inc.'s Viagra, according to a recent report issued by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)....

Your Medicare Contributions are being Pilfered by Sick Care

11/11/2010 - If you've looked at your paycheck stub lately, you may have noticed that a generous portion of your hard-earned wages goes to Medicare. Perhaps you get a warm fuzzy feeling thinking that Grandma is being given the best healthcare in the world, and that, one day, you will too when you need it. But what...

After Medicare slashed payments to doctors, doctors simply "treat" more patients to make up for the shortfall of revenue

10/30/2010 - When Congress cuts Medicare reimbursements to doctors, doctors may simply respond by ordering treatments for more patients, according to study conducted by researchers from Harvard University and published in the journal Health Affairs. "Hospitals and doctors will respond to changes in how they are...

Dead doctors still making millions from Medicare billings

5/10/2010 - Medicare issued as much as $92 million in payments between 2000 and 2007 for medical procedures or devices ordered under the names of doctors who had already died, according to a 2008 Senate committee report. Prescriptions written in the names of deceased doctors are only one of the fraudulent techniques...

Dead Doctors Paid Millions by Medicare to Practice Medicine Beyond the Grave (satire)

7/9/2008 - Conventional medicine has a brilliant new career strategy for ambitious professionals: Earn money even after you're dead! As revealed in a new congressional investigation, Medicare has paid out 478,500 claims on health services to doctors who died before they performed such services. Say that again?...

Big Pharma Whistleblower Awarded $1.6 Million for Exposing Cancer Drug Medicare Fraud

7/2/2008 - A federal judge has awarded a whistleblower $1.6 million for tipping off federal prosecutors to a scheme by pharmaceutical company Cell Therapeutics to illegally promote unapproved uses of the cancer drug Trisenox. Prosecutors argued against granting whistleblower James Marchese any portion of the...

U.S. drug companies defrauded Medicare with price fixing scheme, rules judge

3/13/2008 - A federal judge has ruled that three pharmaceutical companies artificially marked up their prices in order to defraud Medicare and encourage doctors to prescribe their drugs over those of competitors. The decision came in a class-action lawsuit against AstraZeneca, Bristol-Meyers Squibb, Johnson...

Judge Rules U.S. Drug Companies Defrauded Medicare with Price Fixing Scheme

12/19/2007 - A federal judge has ruled that three pharmaceutical companies artificially marked up their prices in order to defraud Medicare and encourage doctors to prescribe their drugs over those of competitors. The decision came in a class-action lawsuit against AstraZeneca, Bristol-Meyers Squibb, Johnson...

Bush likely to veto lowering Medicare drug prices

1/25/2007 - House Democrats passed a bill January 12 that requires federal healthcare officials to negotiate lower drug prices with drug companies. However, President Bush has said he will veto it immediately. The Democrats introduced the bill aiming to reverse a non-negotiation clause that President Bush insisted...

HHS chief opposes Medicare drug price negotiation; a perpetuation of Big Pharma price fixing, says health advocate

11/17/2006 - On Monday, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said the government should not negotiate Medicare drug prices, instantly drawing fire from the incoming Democratic Congress and at least one health advocate. "The idea of the government negotiating drug prices really isn't about the government...

Bush Administration opposes Democratic plan to lower Medicare drug prices through volume purchasing discounts

11/14/2006 - This past weekend, the Bush administration stated that it would be strongly opposing a top priority of the Democratic Party -- the authorization of the U.S. government to negotiate with drug companies to ensure lower prices for Medicare beneficiaries. The Secretary of Health and Human Services, Michael...

Big Pharma fears Democratic majority, end of Medicare profiteering racket

11/1/2006 - U.S. pharmaceutical companies could face falling profits if Democrats win the majority in the House of Representatives in the upcoming November 7 elections. Campaigning Democratic candidates say they will push legislation that would allow Medicare to negotiate lower prices for its 42 million elderly...

Medicare drug plan was bait-and-switch scheme; plan prices to skyrocket next year

10/18/2006 - The least expensive Medicare drug insurance policies under cost elderly and disabled Americans 44 percent more in 2007, based on recent rate quotes published by the government. Monthly costs for the cheapest Medicare plans will rise from $9.46 to $13.58 according to information compiled and released...

Medicare drug prices based on smoke and mirrors

10/16/2006 - According to Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the leaders and main proponents of the Medicare system misled senior citizens last month when they collectively said that premiums for drug plans would start at the same level in 2007 compared to 2006. The staff of Rep. Waxman performed an analysis that showed...

Medicare drug plan is profit windfall for drug companies

9/22/2006 - After a report by J.D. Power and Associates revealed that three-fourths of more than 3,400 Medicare beneficiaries surveyed were satisfied with the new Medicare prescription drug plan that went into effect at the beginning of the year, a report by House Democrats has found that the pharmaceutical industry...

Medicare payments to doctors to be slashed; AMA panics as more doctors drop Medicare patients

9/8/2006 - A 5.1 percent cut in the Medicare fees of 700,000 doctors of geriatric medicine is on the books for Congress next year, but the American Medical Association has reported these doctors may stop taking seniors as new patients or drop out of the program altogether if the cuts go through. The 2007 reduction...

Drug industry paid for part of Medicare ads, lawmakers charge

8/29/2006 - A recent multimillion-dollar ad campaign that lends support to Republican lawmakers who support the new Medicare prescription drug benefit was partly paid for by the pharmaceutical industry, political officials say. Though the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says it paid for the ads -- which are airing...

Millions of American seniors suddenly trapped in Medicare drug plan coverage "gap"

7/31/2006 - (News Target) Under Medicare's new Plan D, seniors are maxing out their prescription drug coverage earlier, leaving them to pick up a majority of the costs or go without coverage until Medicare begins to pick up the tab again. The plan's objectives were to cover all Medicare recipients at some level...

Medicare drug benefit call centers provide wrong information to callers

7/11/2006 - A report released today by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that call centers run by private Medicare drug plans were unable to provide accurate and complete information most of the time. The report -- authored by Reps. Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif.; John D. Dingell, D-Mich.; Charles...

New Study Shows Need for a Major Overhaul of How United States Manages Chronic Illness (press release)

7/6/2006 - Staggering variations in how hospitals care for chronically-ill elderly patients indicate serious problems with quality of care and point toward unnecessary spending by Medicare. Lower utilization of acute-care hospitals and physician visits could actually lead to better results for patients and prolong...

Government's Medicare drug benefit program is an unmitigated disaster

6/15/2006 - Do you want to know what happens when a government that cares nothing about the people gets put in charge of administering a drug benefit program? You get an unmitigated disaster, and that's what we're seeing today with the Medicare prescription drug benefit program. This program, which is just legalized...

Medicare to fund obesity treatments, but which ones really work?

7/22/2004 - With the new decision by Medicare to consider obesity a disease, providers of solutions to obesity will no doubt be lining up to offer treatments. But which treatments will Medicare fund? Which treatments really work for weight loss? There's no doubt that the increasingly popular surgical procedure...

Medicare declares obesity to be a disease, stripping away patient responsibility and power

7/18/2004 - Medicare has now officially declared obesity to be a disease, opening the floodgates for obesity treatments to be covered by federal and private health insurers. To many overweight patients, it's a welcome change, since they were unable to obtain medical treatment for their obesity unless they also...

See all 72 medicare feature articles.

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