How much of our hard-earned tax money are Republicans throwing away simply because of their Obama(care) Derangement Syndrome? According to a new study by the Urban Institute and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation — a shit-ton. Yeah, that's a technical term.
Illinois medical regulators have indefinitely suspended the medical license of psychiatrist Michael Reinstein, who prescribed more of the most powerful and riskiest antipsychotic drug clozapine than any other doctor in the country. The board determined that Reinstein received "illegal direct and indirect remuneration" from the maker of generic clozapine; did not consider alternative treatments for his patients; and disregarded patients' well-being because of potentially life-threatening side effects of the drug.
Medicare and Social Security are in even better fiscal shape than we previously realized. Let's take a look at this Conservative kyrptonite: the massive success of Social Security and Medicare. (Added bonus: Affordable Care Act seems to be helping stabilize both!)
To grasp Medicare's staggering bill for ambulance rides in New Jersey, just visit the busy parking lot of the DaVita St. Joseph's dialysis clinic in the town of Paterson. More than 20 ambulances and a handful of wheelchair vans were parked outside on a recent morning there. Emergency medical technicians wheeled patients in and out on stretchers. As soon as one ambulance departed, another took its place. For each one-way ride, Medicare pays ambulance companies nearly $200, plus $6 a mile.
The death panels are real and they’ve been found! Back in 2009 when the healthcare debate was at its most crazy, Republicans warned us that once Obamacare was passed, government officials would get to ration health care, and as a result, have control over the life and death of millions of Americans. They called the group of bureaucrats who supposedly got to make these decisions “death panels.”
The word 'entitlement' is ambiguous. For working people it means "earned benefits." For the rich, the concept of entitlement is compatible with the Merriam-Webster definition: "The feeling or belief that you deserve to be given something (such as special privileges)."
Ten years after Medicare’s vaunted prescription drug program was signed into law, the Obama administration and Congress are re-evaluating whether it does enough to stop inappropriate prescribing and fraud by physicians. Until now, the program’s top priority has been getting drugs into the hands of its elderly and disabled enrollees, earning it high praise from consumers and politicians. Medicare is now putting in place changes that would give greater priority to targeting fraud and curbing waste.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt understood that when times were tough a safety net was desperately needed to soften the fall. The New Deal allowed families a reprieve from the very worst of the Great Depression, but Republicans have been trying - and, unfortunately, succeeding - in undoing much of what FDR accomplished.
House Republicans signaled support Wednesday for a budget deal worked out a day earlier, a plan narrowly drawn but promoted as a way to stabilize Congress' erratic fiscal efforts, avert another government shutdown and mute some of the partisan rancor that has damaged Americans' attitudes about their lawmakers.
With open enrollment for 2014 drawing to a close this Saturday, there’s little time for delay for 36 million Medicare patients to choose a drug plan. Even those happy with their plan from last year need to re-evaluate dozens of choices, as changing costs can double or even triple a person's annual prescription costs.
