Medicare bidding competition in danger: Our view - USA Today
.. Tea Partiers in Congress are mounting an effort to kill competitive bidding requirements in the purchase of medical equipment (like electric scooters, uh-huh) by Medicare. The law which requires competitive bidding for such purchases by Medicare is being slowly expanded to more states and it is saving us BILLIONs in otherwise fraudulent over-charges due to outrageous over-pricing.
This is certainly an effort that deserves an aggressinve response from citizens with emails, telephone calls and letters to representatives in DC.
Here's a thought: Since Medicare saves and extends lives, defrauding Medicare reduces its ability to save lives and therefore, should be a capital crime. Further, anyone aiding and abbetting such activity, such as lobbyists and representatives who pass laws to stop competitive bidding requirements for such purchases by Medicare, are guilty of conspiracy to defraud medicare. This would therefore, also be a capital crime.
[font size="3"] If removing the requirement that Medicare use competitive bidding in purchases of medical equipment seems a crime to you, please email or call you Congressman and Senators about this.[/font]
(emphasis my own)
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/03/17/medical-suppliers-seek-to-pull-plug-on-program-our-view/1995411/
In 2010, Medicare spent more than $14 billion on oxygen devices, mobility scooters, diabetes test strips and other "durable medical equipment" and supplies that patients use at home. For taxpayers, and for beneficiaries with a 20% co-pay, that was about $5 billion too much.
Everyone overpaid because for years, Medicare bought or rented things like this on a fee schedule set by Congress, for prices that had nothing to do with normal market competition.
Now a competitive bidding process is starting to produce big savings and has the potential to cut costs even more — unless the industry and its allies in Congress manage to derail it.
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Under the new system, for example, oxygen equipment that used to go for about $177 a month will now cost $93. A hospital bed that cost $1,376 under the old rules will now go for $738. Diabetes test strips that used to cost almost $78 a month will now cost less than $23 a month — a discount of more than 70%.
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...[font color="red"]a move in the House to dump and overhaul the bid process has almost 200 co-sponsors and is led by Tea Party favorites such as Reps. Tom Price, R-Ga., and Renee Ellmers, R-N.C., both of whom have suppliers in their districts. Medicare officials fear this would undo the savings and put the process on hold for years.[/font]
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