75% of Hospice and Homecare Unviable by 2017 Due to Obamacare

The National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC) has researched the impact of Obamacare on their operations and have estimated that 75% of Hospice and Homecare will be unviable by 2017. The negative health care margins are given state-by-state at the link. It's all in the red. Some really big numbers.

YIKES .. with my health situation and age, this could be a factor for me in the not too distant future. And considering how the general population of this country is aging ... it's going to be a HUGE issue. Those 'death panels' that the left says aren't going to be there ... you all might want to take another look at that. Looking at the numbers, I don't see how Obamacare could avoid it (assuming they'd even want to .. and I'm not so sure about that).

75% of Hospice and Home Care Unviable by 2017 Due to Obamacare Researcher Says

Hospice and home care - often used by seniors and those recovering at home - may be subject to the hardest hits from the Affordable Care Act, also known as "Obamacare." The National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC) estimated that by 2017, nearly three-quarters of these specialized care centers will be operating at a loss.

"Medicare payment rate cuts will make the industry unstable," Bill Dombi, vice president at the NAHC, told The Christian Post in an interview this week. "By 2017, 72.9 percent of all home health will be paid less than the cost of care," he predicted, based off of data from 2011 and 2012.

Due to Obamacare cuts in Medicare, hospice and home care providers will receive less reimbursement and fewer seniors will be able to use the program, Dombi explained. "We just basically got straight Medicare cuts," he explained, referring to the home health industry. "Home Health has a huge rate cut – the maximum cut that the law committed."

Dombi cited the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which admitted that 43 percent of providers will be paid less than cost. CMS estimated that many of the providers already operate at a loss and so can continue to do so. "That position is illogical," Dombi declared, arguing that "the longer a business is in the red, the more likely it will close."

I am looking for information that counters this article. Googling and googling ....
I'm not finding it. If anyone can counter it ... please post. thank you.

I don't believe Obama will be in office in a year, 81% want him out according to polls, and the majority want this health care catastrophe repealed, and various people including congress, looking at ways to impeach. I don't think he's going to last out another year myself. And the medical catastrophe needs to be revamping other models, like Canada's, Englands, minuse their euthanasia, Frances, Norways, really recommend Norways, New Zealand, Australia's, etc. Not revamp US.

I have known a few that in their last days used Hospice and without exception everyone concerned was very pleased with the care and drugs they were able to provide for the pain and suffering. Maybe by 2017 we will have a singe payer source which has probably been the plan all along or we will get a new set of politicians who can fix this mess. I was talking to a guy (lawyer) from Denmark a couple of nights ago at a social function. If I remember he said his taxes were over 50% in Denmark. Nothing is free someone always has to pay.
A company I sold a while back is paid by the government for placing mental health providers into long term healthcare homes, (nursing homes). The company was doing quite well about 10 years ago but with all the changes in reimbursement fees (new expensive software every 1 to 2 years) the owner is about ready to shut it down. I had five office employees at one time with several facility contracts and we actually turned down work because we could not train/hire enough people fast enough . The owner has ate the loss in revenue twice instead of cutting the salaries of the workers and has had to let go of 4 secretaries. This last go around everyone got cut and there appears to be no good future for the business. Nothing new in many sectors of the economy but still sad nonetheless. The owner was my office manager and she is a one girl (72 years old) show now with less than 5% of the providers of mental health care the company once had..

Small minded dreamers took on a 20% segment of one of the largest economies in the world....and it's gone badly. They took a system that had, slowly and by need or issue, grown and adapted in a thousand little ways to work and get people what they needed ....and they figured they could second guess and improve those thousands of little adaptations over time.

The small minds which approached it, did just what might have been expected. They dumbed down an infinitely complex system so *THEY* could understand it ...not being doctors OR administrators of ANY kind...and in so doing, they've gutted and destroyed what made the system work. The intangible things that morph into any big system over time...and again, a thousand little adaptations on all levels to plug gaps over the years. All that..... destroyed.

It would have been dandy if the people doing it had the historic level of vision on personal leadership ability to lead the charge for a new, bold and effective system. However... We have wimps, weak men and followers...essentially following each other in a big game of CYA.

I'm not surprised to hear now that even the most helpless and hopeless will likely see care issues at the very end of their hard roads. How pathetic.

About 5 years ago (can't remember for sure), my husband and I bought long term health care insurance. Genworth. It was priced reasonably because we bought it young. We got the 6 year plan. I'm VERY glad we got it. God only knows what will be there for the general public with this Obamacare mess going through ....

After all this, we might be better to look at something more like the Singapore system. It seems that the big insurance companies are going to be more or less destroyed by this anyhow, and for one, am in no way, shape or form going to want the government to take over any part of the health care system after this. This all could be a blessing in disguise.

Get both the insurance companies and government well clear of the system and let us start to take control of our own health again without the expensive middle man monopolies.

My Father died of lung cancer last year (he was not a smoker - never was).
Hospice came in during the last couple of weeks and allowed him to pass at home peacefully and in not in pain with his entire family by his side.
If death must come it was surely what he and our entire family would have wanted.
I cannot put a price tag on something of such value.
To think these services will be even harder to obtain breaks my heart.
The repercussions of this will be even more pain, misery and financial hardship on those already suffering.
Hospice is one of best things to ever come to health care.

This, if true, will be a travesty. Hospice is invaluable to those with a terminally ill loved one. While, at first, I resisted putting my loved one into hospice care, after she was given a short time to live from terminal breast cancer, I came to realize the value of and wonderful, loving, care they provided during her final three days. Hospice care is as much for the patient...as it is for the patient's family.

For other stricken patients and families to lose the service of this valuable and comforting experience due to some insensitive political power grab by ego-maniacal liberal politicians...is simply criminal.

But, then, what aspect of Obamacare HASN'T been criminal?