Medicare Experimenting on Senior Citizens? No Bones About It

ST. PAUL, Minn.—A new rule in the Affordable Care Act will allow Medicare to “experiment” on the nation’s senior citizens by forcing bundled care payments for some hospitals and doctors. The rule will “test whether bundled payments to acute care hospitals for episodes of care will reduce Medicare expenditures while preserving or enhancing the quality of care for Medicare beneficiaries.”

The rule says it’s OK to test “innovative payment and service delivery models to reduce program expenditures in Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP,” under the Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement (CJR) payment model.

Says health care expert and patient freedom advocate Twila Brase, “Rationing is inevitable because the hospital is at risk under this rule rather than the government, so some of the sickest patients who happen to want or need these procedures may be avoided altogether. Hospitals have the most to lose, because if they keep costs low under the government’s ‘episode of care,’ they get paid more. But if they have excess costs ‘above the target price,’ they will have to repay the government.”

Refusal to do joint replacements, for example, on patients with chronic illnesses will be the result, Brase adds. “This rule essentially allows patients to become guinea pigs and involuntary research subjects, and also compromises the care of our seniors.”

Brase is the co-founder and president of Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom (CCHF, http://www.cchfreedom.org), a patient-centered national health freedom organization based in St. Paul, Minn., existing to protect health care choices, individualized patient care, and medical and genetic privacy rights.

Certain hospitals will be required to participate, and they cannot appeal the decision. Therefore, by extension, those patients who receive care at the selected hospitals will automatically be included in the new model for payment, and they will not have the option to opt out. The more than 50 million people under Medicare will have no idea their care is being based on payment under an experiment that will begin on April 1, 2016, and run through December 31, 2020.

For more information about CCHF, visit its web site at http://www.cchfreedom.org, its Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/cchfreedom or its Twitter feed, @CCHFreedom.

Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom, a patient-centered national health freedom organization based in St. Paul, Minn., exists to protect health care choices, individualized patient care, and medical and genetic privacy rights. CCHF sponsors the daily, 60-second radio feature, Health Freedom Minute, which airs on approximately 350 stations nationwide, including 200 on the American Family Radio Network and 100 on the Bott Radio Network. Listeners can learn more about the agenda behind health care initiatives and steps they can take to protect their health care choices, rights and privacy.

CCHF president and co-founder Twila Brase, R.N., has been called one of the “100 Most Powerful People in Health Care” and one of “Minnesota’s 100 Most Influential Health Care Leaders.” A public health nurse, Brase has been interviewed by CNN, Fox News, Minnesota Public Radio, NBC Nightly News, NBC’s Today Show, NPR, New York Public Radio, the Associated Press, Modern Healthcare, TIME, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The Washington Times, among others. She is at the forefront of informing the public of crucial health issues, such as intrusive wellness and prevention initiatives in Obamacare, patient privacy, informed consent, the dangers of “evidence-based medicine” and the implications of state and federal health care reform.