Proposed U.S. Senate Health Care Bill: More Oversight is Needed (pgs. 181-200)

Pages 181-200 deal with oversight and regulations that will be implemented within the healthcare industry. In some cases fraud will be stopped, but in some cases, the same wheeling and dealing will continue. Let us begin perusing the next twenty pages. On page 181, more oversight will be used in monitoring nursing homes. Finally, a part of the bill that I enjoy wholeheartedly. I am fed up with nurses and custodial workers at nursing homes beating up and abusing elderly people at nursing homes; curses upon them! The HHS will put in more auditing measures to ensure that the nursing homes operate properly. People shouldn't work at nursing homes if they have a short fuse because patience is a prerequisite for working at a nursing home. The elderly do not want to be there, and they are cranky and set in their ways. The workers should know what they are getting into instead of lighting that fuse and abusing the elderly. If those idiotic abusers want to fight someone, then step up to the plate and fight me. Those scrubs who work in scrubs would get scrubbed. Moving on, page 182 states that nursing homes must notify government at all levels and residents and their families 60 days before closure. Since the oversight procedures would be implemented, the nursing homes that choose not to shape out will go out of business. Hooray! The USA would be a much better place without all of the crappy nursing homes.

On page 183, doctors would now be allowed to refer Medicare and/or Medicaid patients for X-rays, MRI's, and tomographies. This would begin on 1/1/2010. In the past, low income patients were not able to afford the extra tests, so now it will be better for the patients to have the test in order to detect a bigger problem earlier than having more people die just because they could not obtain an MRI. On page 184, all hospitals must make clear how much they charge to patients starting on 1/1/2011. The penalty for unjust charges will be $50,000. This may put some hospitals out of business because some hospitals overcharge patients knowing that the health insurance providers would have to pay the bill. For example, I was in the hospital about three years ago for three weeks and was charged over $50,000. That charge is outrageous. Please place comments below of how a hospital charged you or someone you know of exorbitantly. Pushing along, page 185 begins to detail how the Secretary of the HHS will combat fraud in the healthcare industry. The first step is listed on pages 186-187. All healthcare data would be integrated among Health and Human Services, Social Security Administration, Veterans Affairs, Department of Defense, and Department of Justice. The reason why so many things have fallen through the cracks in government is because a person's information is spread out between five different databases. To remedy that, all personal information would interlink amongst the five databases to eliminate errors. Pages 188-192 deal with oversight issues in Medicare. Non-compliant medicare providers could be fined up to ten thousand dollars. Medicare claims must be submitted to HHS within one year. Health care providers have 60 days to repay overpayments back to whichever government office gave them the overpayment in a claim approval. Pages 193-195 will increase funding to the Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control. Last year's funding was 376 million dollars; that amount would be inreased ten million dollars per year for the next ten years. That increase will not be enought to fight against fraud because Pfizer was recently caught defrauding consumers out of $2.3 billion dollars for false marketing claims earlier this month. This company placed more money into defrauding the masses than what the government placed into defending against fraud for the past seven years. Make sure that you continue to protect yourself from health care swindlers in the future. Providers also must comply with the HHS by not overcharging their policyholders by 2016 by offering competitively-bid rates, which means that you will not see relief in your pocketbook in regards to health care expenses until 2016. Pages 196-200 talk list the laws concerning excise tax. If you want to know what the law is concerning taxes in the healthcare arena, then I recommend that you read those five pages to obtain a better understanding of how outrageous those taxes are. For example, you could be taxed if you have better health care than the average person. There is a 35% tax upon the value of your health care coverage minus the threshold amount ($8,000 per person, $21,000 per family). For example, let's say that your family health care covers up to $31,000 per year. Then, you would be taxed 35% of the difference between $31,000 and $21,000, which is 35% times $10,000, which equals $3,500. Like I said in the title, more oversight is needed, but the government would need more oversight in this scenario for taxing the people of this nation too much. The government should not be allowed to tax someone for doing what is need to protect his or her family.