WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 (UPI) -- More than $500 billion in cuts from Medicare spending under a U.S. healthcare plan would slash some seniors' benefits and limit access to care, a report says.
The government report revealed the Medicare cuts, part of the healthcare reform bill approved Nov. 7 by the House, could be so costly for some hospitals and nursing homes that they would stop accepting Medicare, The Washington Post reported Sunday.
The report, released Saturday by the nonpartisan Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, also said the reform bill would increase the costs of healthcare by $289 billion in the next decade.
The report casts doubt on whether doctors and hospitals could handle the expected 32 million people who would become insured under the bill, many through Medicaid.
Healthcare providers likely would charge more or take patients with better-paying private insurance over Medicaid recipients, the report said.
"It is reasonable to expect that a significant portion of the increased demand for Medicaid would not be realized," Richard Foster, the chief actuary at CMMS, wrote in the report.
Republicans, who had requested the report, said it disproves claims of the bill's supporters, who said the measure would reduce costs while improving care.
"This report once again discredits Democrats' assertions that their $1.3 trillion government takeover of healthcare will lower costs, and it confirms that this bill violates President Obama's promise to 'bend the cost curve,'" Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, the House minority leader, said in a statement. "It's now beyond dispute that their bill will raise costs, which is exactly what the American people don't want."
But Nadeam Elshami, a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the report shows the bill would extend the life of the Medicare trust fund by five years and result in 10 percent more of the population being insured through a 1.3 percent increase in national healthcare expenditures.
"That illustrates a bending of the cost curve," Elshami said.
