Like most such panels, including the Affordable Care Act’s Independent Payment Advisory Board, the Oregon Health Evidence Review Commission, or HERC, claims to be merely concerned with what supposedly works and what doesn’t. Their real targets are usually advanced, costly treatments. That’s why HERC, for example, proposed in May that Medicaid should not cover “treatment with intent to prolong survival” for cancer patients who likely have fewer than two years left to live. HERC presents an example to show their reasoning for such a decision: “In no instance can it be justified to spend $100,000 in public resources to increase an individual’s expected survival by three months when hundreds of thousands of Oregonians are without any form of health insurance.”...The cost of end-of-life care is particularly problematic for Medicare. Most people who die in America, no surprise, are elderly Medicare beneficiaries and the program is grappling with its long-term financial viability. Care at the end of life is far more expensive for Medicare than spending on a typical beneficiary. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services estimate that more than 25 percent of Medicare spending goes towards the five percent of beneficiaries who die each year. This results in spending for decedents (persons who are in their last year of life) that is six times greater than the cost for a survivor. For example, in 2006 Medicare spent an average of $38,975 per decedent compared to $5,993 for other beneficiaries (survivors), health care researchers Gerald Riley, of the CMS, and James Lubitz, of the Urban Institute, found. washingtonexaminer/article/2534125#.UgZGzulSvVQ.twitter
Posted on: Sat, 10 Aug 2013 18:41:52 +0000
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