CMS Cuts PAP Reimbursement in Nine Competitive Bidding Areas

I hope my overriding concern, and what I believe is the overriding concern of most of you, is not forgotten. That concern is that everyone who takes their condition and therapy seriously will be able to afford a data-capable machine.

As far as Medicare and the Federal government, isn't it the case already today that 99.9% of machines coming out of government funds, are non-data-capable machines? For private insurance, the percentage of non-data-capable machines seems to also be quite high.

It would be of interest to me to know if any of you have good data-capable machines paid for by Medicare. I am talking to some elderly CPAPers with problems and would like to know when they are due a new machine through Medicare, if there is a possibility to get a good machine.

I have not been in the market for a new machine for myself in the last three years. I have three machines all paid for 100% by private insurance. But it took some persistent bullying of my DME to get the two data-capable machines. In the future, I am planning to pay for my own machines.

So Well wrote:So where are all those members that argued here for socialized medicine????

What do you think of this?

Where do you think we are headed with Obamacareless?

America can no longer afford decent Medicare, much less Obamacare.

You put your faith in a big Federal government to take care of you. The writing is on the wall. Obamacare will lower the level of medical care. Innovation in the medical field will decline. America will become second-rate.

You better plan on making arrangements for your own medical care. But where will we turn? There are going to be a large number of suppliers, hospitals, clinics, doctors and other medical professionals exiting the market. Doctors are going to retire earlier at an alarming rate. We will be crowding around a smaller "medical trough" and waiting in line.

Growth of a big powerful centralized government is very bad for my beloved USA.

I wholeheartedly agree. It's already begun.


Den

Medicare paid for my Resmed S8 Elite w/EPR in 2006 but my script was specifically for it. Medicare again paid for my Resmed VPAP Auto when I was switched to a bi-level, but again, my script was specifically for it.

However, I have been able to advise several friends on Medicare how to convince their local DME provider to supply them w/a fully data capable CPAP and they were successful. Some of them had a good secondary insurance, some didn't. They were all diplomatic, BUT FIRM in INSISTING on a CPAP w/access to Leak, AHI and AI. Only one had his sleep doctor add "access to Leak, AHI and AI to his script. The rest did it on their own w/o the assistance of their sleep doctor. One had to resort to having her family doctor re-write the script her sleep doctor originally gave her. All were fortunate to have the option of more than one local DME provider which gave them the bargaining/negotiating room. But then we are NOT in a rural area w/no good size towns w/in reasonable distance.

During the last 9 years of the wars that so-called conservative anti-socialists gave us ... it cost the taxpayers $1.05 trillion ... and that does not include the lives lost, and associated broken families and wounded vets and costs for their care.

So wha'choo think?

Is it better to socialize anti-socialist wars against people that hate us no matter what we think or do for just over a $trillion per decade ...

... or to socialize healthcare (as imperfect as it may be) for our own people many of whom may actually need it and appreciate it for just under a $trillion per decade?

I too have 3 machines (ones I selected and not forced on me by my dme/insurance duo) ... all paid for out-of-pocket with unsocilized $$$. Yes, the whole idea behind insurance is socialism too except that there are middle men who skim profits off the top.

DreamStalker wrote:During the last 9 years of the wars that so-called conservative anti-socialists gave us ... it cost the taxpayers $1.05 trillion ... and that does not include the lives lost, and associated broken families and wounded vets and costs for their care.

So wha'choo think?

Is it better to socialize anti-socialist wars against people that hate us no matter what we think or do for just over a $trillion per decade ...

... or to socialize healthcare (as imperfect as it may be) for our own people many of whom may actually need it and appreciate it for just under a $trillion per decade?

I too have 3 machines (ones I selected and not forced on me by my dme/insurance duo) ... all paid for out-of-pocket with unsocilized $$$. Yes, the whole idea behind insurance is socialism too except that there are middle men who skim profits off the top.

RIGHT!!!
Unfortunately, no matter WHO runs the insurance conglomerate.....whether it be a "single-payer" (government-run) or "for profit" (separate companies), there is going to be those who take advantage of the system.....fraud, corruption, over-use, etc.


Den

I see you edited your post after I quoted it......so I had to re-edit mine.


.

Is it better to socialize anti-socialist wars against people that hate us no matter what we think or do for just over a $trillion per decade ...

Those drones cost a lot of money! This is from John Boehner:

"Ensuring there's enough money to pay for the war will require reforming the country's entitlement system, Boehner said. He said he'd favor increasing the Social Security retirement age to 70 for people who have at least 20 years until retirement"

Guess we can't keep the cost of the wars off of the books forever! Time to pay up.


The old "guns or butter", help people or kill people. That is the net cost of all these angry old macho men with their warped proselytizing.

conservative anti-socialists

big powerful centralized government

Some kids prefer to be looked after from a distance by an uncle who mostly lets them do what they want all day, unless something life-threatening comes up. Other kids prefer to live with Mama, even though she has very strict rules and assigns a lot of chores, because she makes them feel well-taken-care-of with all the snacks and games she arranges. But whichever kind of place all the kids end up living, hopefully they can learn to play nice.

I guess I was one of the lucky ones, sort of. I was on Medicare and my original DME gave me a Remstar "M" Series Pro and at the time I did not know what a data capable machine was. Took me almost a year to find this board and get the software to read my rersults and take charge of my therapy. The DME I changed to after 2 months (because of fragulant double charges) did not have the program to read my machine.

Jerry

Wulfman wrote:

DreamStalker wrote:During the last 9 years of the wars that so-called conservative anti-socialists gave us ... it cost the taxpayers $1.05 trillion ... and that does not include the lives lost, and associated broken families and wounded vets and costs for their care.

So wha'choo think?

Is it better to socialize anti-socialist wars against people that hate us no matter what we think or do for just over a $trillion per decade ...

... or to socialize healthcare (as imperfect as it may be) for our own people many of whom may actually need it and appreciate it for just under a $trillion per decade?

I too have 3 machines (ones I selected and not forced on me by my dme/insurance duo) ... all paid for out-of-pocket with unsocilized $$$. Yes, the whole idea behind insurance is socialism too except that there are middle men who skim profits off the top.

RIGHT!!!
Unfortunately, no matter WHO runs the insurance conglomerate.....whether it be a "single-payer" (government-run) or "for profit" (separate companies), there is going to be those who take advantage of the system.....fraud, corruption, over-use, etc.


Den

I see you edited your post after I quoted it......so I had to re-edit mine.


.

That's why I said "imperfect" ... corruption and greed are part of the human experience.

So as unadog stated in fewer words ...

Spend a $trillion to kill people and train their kin to hate us or spend the $trillion to help people and allow them to be more productive?

Killing and helping people are also part of the human experience ... what do you prefer?

Argument for federalized socialized healthcare is being exposed as fraudulent, so throw in a war. Lame attempt at cover up.

DreamStalker wrote:
Spend a $trillion to kill people and train their kin to hate us or spend the $trillion to help people and allow them to be more productive?

Killing and helping people are also part of the human experience ... what do you prefer?

Take a basic course in logic!

How long would it take to figure out that we should choose to do neither?

BTW, "the $trillion to help people and allow them to be more productive" illustrates a fundamental flaw in leftist thinking. Socialized federalized healthcare will lead to poorer healthcare. Additionally, the "poor" that it is supposed to help always end up suffering the most.

(It is also not healthcare. It is medical care or more aptly lack of medical care.)

who wrote:

conservative anti-socialists

big powerful centralized government

Some kids prefer to be looked after from a distance by an uncle who mostly lets them do what they want all day, unless something life-threatening comes up. Other kids prefer to live with Mama, even though she has very strict rules and assigns a lot of chores, because she makes them feel well-taken-care-of with all the snacks and games she arranges. But whichever kind of place all the kids end up living, hopefully they can learn to play nice.

I am happy to let the Mama boys live as they wish and be nice to them (by ignoring them).

However, you missed one thing in your analogy. The big problem is the kids who want to live with Mama, insist that all the rest of us have to live with Mama! They don't play nice. They send Mama with her guns and prisons after us if we try to cut Mama's apron strings from around our necks.

I fear this headline may constitute yet another blow for Medicare, only time will tell though I guess.


Navigate: POLITICODonald Berwick appointed to head Center for Medicare and Medicaid ServicesMain Content
Donald Berwick appointed to head Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services


Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/07 ... z0t6yUsYge

akcpapguy wrote:I fear this headline may constitute yet another blow for Medicare, only time will tell though I guess.


Navigate: POLITICODonald Berwick appointed to head Center for Medicare and Medicaid ServicesMain Content
Donald Berwick appointed to head Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services


Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/07 ... z0t6yUsYge

Well at least the leftist Ivy-Leaguer Berwick speaks some truth:

Berwick’s statement that Britain’s National Health Service is an “example” for the United States

Britain is an example of how low our system will sink!

ak, Don't worry about who they put in charge. Medicare is bankrupt, our country is bankrupt, these leftists can't do any worse. The so-called "conservative" Republicans also did nothing about the problem except run up the national debt and increase the size of the Federal government. Obama was happy to have a running start that Bush gave him to add to the spending and debt level.

Sad. Hunkering down here and looking for tax shelters and thinking about my kids and grandkids future. Gotta keep moving. At least the times are interesting. Over and out.

So Well wrote:Argument for federalized socialized healthcare is being exposed as fraudulent, so throw in a war. Lame attempt at cover up.

DreamStalker wrote:
Spend a $trillion to kill people and train their kin to hate us or spend the $trillion to help people and allow them to be more productive?

Killing and helping people are also part of the human experience ... what do you prefer?

Take a basic course in logic!

How long would it take to figure out that we should choose to do neither?

BTW, "the $trillion to help people and allow them to be more productive" illustrates a fundamental flaw in leftist thinking. Socialized federalized healthcare will lead to poorer healthcare. Additionally, the "poor" that it is supposed to help always end up suffering the most.

(It is also not healthcare. It is medical care or more aptly lack of medical care.)

Having the most expensive health system (or medical care or lacky care or whatever you want to call it), does not make it the best http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0505/p02s01-uspo.html

Perhaps my logic is "fundamentaly flawed" but your argument for that is found considerably wanting.

Such as helping the poor leads to making them suffer .... Hmmmm, I have to think about that logic a bit more.
(You don't happen to have a grandmother who taught you that poor people are poor because they want to be poor do you?)

It is quite easy for you to let the poor deal with their own problems when you're doing SO WELL collecting "Social Security" checks.

Hypocrtie.

Regarding the wars, it is not logical to start foriegn wars and nation building without the means to pay for it .... especially if there are already unaffordable domestic issues to deal with.

My logic may be flawed but it is certainly not your forte either.

Grandmother I don't remember so well (that is not a pun), but mother held your political views. She believed we need the guv'mint to take care of us. I believed it for thirty years. Then the hard knocks of life began to settle in and I saw more clearly what was going on. Turned my life around personally and also changed what I did in the voting booth. With the personal I was quite successful, but in the voting booths the choices were poor.

So you don't want me to take Social Security when (and if) my time comes? That goes right along with your leftist politics.