Medicare Trustees Report

Posted on April 23, 2012 by novahockey

Here’s all you need to know about the 2012 Medicare Trustees Report, which was “released” in the sense that press releases have been issued and talking points have been distributed. Have not seen the actual report language, but will post a link when I do.

The spin is that the ACA is working and will save money. And then CMS Richard Foster will speak.

Somewhere in the back of the report, Foster will write something to the effect of “these projections are based on current law and will not be viable” long term. He’ll reference the doc fix.

Count on it. So, are those pointing to the savings “wrong”? No. Are they lying bastards? Yes.

Update: Here’s the actual report.

Yep. Foster writes:

“Further, while the Affordable Care Act makes important changes to the Medicare program and substantially improves its financial outlook, there is a strong likelihood that certain of these changes will not be viable in the long range. Specifically, the annual price updates for most categories of non-physician health services will be adjusted downward each year by the growth in economy-wide productivity. The best available evidence indicates that most health care providers cannot improve their productivity to this degree—or even approach such a level—as a result of the labor-intensive nature of these services.
Without unprecedented changes in health care delivery systems and payment mechanisms, the prices paid by Medicare for health services are very likely to fall increasingly short of the costs of providing these services. By the end of the long-range projection period, Medicare prices for hospital, skilled nursing facility, home health, hospice, ambulatory surgical center, diagnostic laboratory, and many other services would be less than half of their level under the prior law.”

He goes on:

For these reasons, the financial projections shown in this report for Medicare do not represent a reasonable expectation for actual program operations in either the short range (as a result of the unsustainable reductions in physician payment rates) or the long range (because of the strong likelihood that the statutory reductions in price updates for most categories of Medicare provider services will not be viable).

Filed under: Affordable Care Act, healthcare, Medicare | 2 Comments »

Morning Report

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Brent Nyitray

Vital Statistics:

Last Change Percent
S&P Futures 1360.7 -14.5 -1.05%
Eurostoxx Index 2254.9 -56.4 -2.44%
Oil (WTI) 102.8 -1.1 -1.07%
LIBOR 0.466 0.000 0.00%
US Dollar Index (DXY) 79.52 0.321 0.41%
10 Year Govt Bond Yield 1.92% -0.04%
RPX Composite Real Estate Index 173.4 0.5

Kind of a soggy tape this morning to go along with our soggy weekend in the Northeast. Political woes in Europe seem to be the main culprit. A split in the Netherlands over austerity measures is causing Dutch credit default swaps to richen. Purchasing Manager Indices in France, Germany, and the Netherlands all came in below expectations. While there have been some worries over Spanish banks, EURIBOR / OIS (a measure of stress in the banking system) is still falling after peaking in early December. So at least one indicator is telling us these fears are overblown.

In the US, stock index futures are down about a percent and bonds are stronger. Bonds have had a remarkable turnaround in the last month, as the 10-year bond futures broke down and fell out of their range in mid-March, only to rally again on euro fears. The contract is now challenging resistance at 144. Incredible turnaround. MBS are up small.

In US earnings, Chevron and Kellogg both disappointed. So far, earnings have been strong overall. Homebuilder DR Horton reported better than expected sales, the question will be whether this was weather-related.

Merger Monday is back, with a couple big deals in the pharma space and a couple of old British titans – Vodafone and Cable and Wireless – are partying like it is 1999.

Speaking of Prince’s apocalyptic party song, a venerable investment bank from that era is re-launching. Smith Barney manager Frank Campanale is bringing back E.F. Hutton. Given that E.F. Hutton is a recognizable name and was not involved in the financial crisis, it makes some sense to resurrect it. One possible way to break up the big banks would be to have them spin out their non-commercial banking units – Citi could spin Smith Barney and Travelers, Chase and JP Morgan could split again, and you would basically re-establish the money center bank. Maybe the foreign banks could get involved, with Credit Suisse spinning out First Boston and DLJ, UBS spinning out PaineWebber, and Deutsche Bank spinning Bankers Trust.

Filed under: Morning Report | 39 Comments »