Sunday, July 20, 2008
Government at Work - Wasting our money
I have to wonder whether our politicians even know about things like this.
After all, nobody in their right mind would agree to pay these exorbitant costs.
Would they?...
After all, nobody in their right mind would agree to pay these exorbitant costs.
Would they?...
Michael O. Leavitt wrote this in a recent Wall Street Journal:
"DME prices are based on a fee-schedule established by law in the 1980s and subsequently updated for inflation. But the fee-schedules weren't based on competitively determined market prices. It is a price-fixing program, and the equipment suppliers like it because they get overpaid and don't have to compete.
An oxygen concentrator, for example, is a device that delivers oxygen through a tube to patients, and it costs about $600 on the open market. Medicare beneficiaries typically rent the machines. The rental period, set by statute, is up to 36 months. The monthly rental payment, also set by statute, is $198.40. So renting an oxygen concentrator for 36 months costs $7,142.
As with most items and services in Medicare Part B, beneficiaries pay 20% of the costs, and Medicare pays the remaining 80%. The government, therefore, pays $5,714 – almost 10 times the free-market price of purchasing a concentrator outright. The patient pays $1,428 – more than twice the free-market price of purchase. Even allowing for the costs of setting up equipment, training and fitting the beneficiary, and other things, the rental fee is way out of line."
