Rick Foster, Chief Actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, wrote in a report last Friday that the Senate's proposed plan to cut Medicare in order to pay for health reform could hurt hospitals and nursing homes throughout the next decade.
According to the report, 20 percent of "institutional medical providers" could become unprofitable within the next 10 years. Foster said that by reducing Medicare payments to facilities in an attempt to foster efficiency, those facilities could in turn drop the program altogether.
"While such payment reductions would provide a strong incentive for providers to maximize efficiency, it is doubtful that many could improve their own productivity to the degree achieved by the economy at large," Foster writes. "Providers for whom Medicare constitutes a substantive portion of their business could find it difficult to remain profitable and, absent legislative intervention, might end their participation in the program [possibly jeopardizing access to care for beneficiaries]."
White House spokesman Reid Cherlin disagreed, saying that larger savings in Medicare implemented by Congress in prior years haven't resulted in any "access problems."
To learn more:
- check out this Washington Post article
- read Foster's report