MEDICARE CAN'T CONTROL ITS OWN COSTS ...

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that justifies it."

Frederic Bastiat

MEDICARE CAN'T CONTROL ITS OWN COSTS ...
By Neal Boortz @ October 7, 2009 8:36 AM Permalink | Comments (18) | TrackBacks (0)
... but you still expect the government to control the costs of your healthcare? According to Medicare's own auditors, it overpays for almost everything it buys. And it does so knowingly. FoxNews has some examples:

-- $7,215 to rent an oxygen concentrator, when the purchase price is $600.

-- $4,018 for a standard wheelchair, while the private sector pays $1,048.

-- $1,825 for a hospital bed, compared to an Internet price of $1,071.

-- $3,335 for a respiratory pump, versus an advertised price of $1,987.

-- $82 for a diabetic supply kit, instead of a $47 price on the Web.

So last year (under the Bush administration) the Health and Human Services Department determined that Medicare could save $1 billion in a single year nationwide, if it replaced its fixed-price fee schedule with a competitive bidding program.

But here's where Congress comes in. Congressmen Fortney "Pete" Stark and Dave Camp introduced legislation that essentially killed any chances of these changes coming to pass. So the competitive bidding programs were deferred. End of story.

And you don't think these kinds of shenanigans and politics won't happen every day when the government gets a hold of your healthcare?