Obamacare cutting Medicare home health program

Washington Examiner:

An estimated 3.5 million poor and ill homebound senior citizens will wake up on New Year's Day to discover Obamacare has slashed funding for their home health care program.

It will happen because the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services quietly issued a regulation Nov. 22 announcing a 14-percent cut over the next four years in funding for the Home Health Care Prospective Payment program.

The rule cuts Medicare payments to home health care providers by 3.5 percent each year beginning in 2014, for a total cut of 14 percent.

The program puts health care in the homes of seniors suffering from acute or chronic afflictions, or who are in need of rehabilitation therapy.

By CMS’s own calculation, 40 percent or nearly 5,000 home health companies — mainly small businesses — will experience a “net loss” in revenue due to the cuts and go into the red by 2017. That will put many of them out of business.

The National Association for Home Care and Hospice calculates the losses will be much more severe, affecting 75 percent of all home health care companies.

Nearly a half million skilled home care workers are also projected to lose their jobs over the next four years due to the cuts, according to the program’s supporters.
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There is much more.

Minorities maybe especially hard hit by the cuts.  This looks like an inevitable results to the Medicare cuts that were contained within the Obamacare legislation.