Some fact-checking, please
Reporters and editors who take our comments to heart ought to consider some fact checking, as well. I know it’s not customary for newspapers to do rigorous fact checking a la some magazines. But, geez, when it comes to Medicare, news outlets cannot afford to be wrong with a subject like this. It doesn’t hurt to send a piece to an expert for a second read.
For more from Trudy Lieberman on Medicare coverage, click here.
‘See you on the other side’ - Meet Jessica Lum, a terminally ill 25-year-old who chose to spend what little time she had practicing journalism
#Realtalk: This is the best moment to be in journalism - The old stuff isn’t coming back, but that’s okay
Streams of consciousness - Millennials expect a steady diet of quick-hit, social-media-mediated bits and bytes. What does that mean for journalism?
Sticking with the truth - How ‘balanced’ coverage helped sustain the bogus claim that childhood vaccines can cause autism
An ink-stained stretch - Can Aaron Kushner save the Orange County Register—and the newspaper industry?
What to do if you find a baby bird
Expert advice
Inside Google’s secret lab
We might deplore the practice, but posting pictures of our food online is a way to bring everyone to the table
How the ‘World’s 50 Best’ list changed the way elite restaurants do business
“Every time the restaurant switched up its format, it got plenty of accompanying media coverage that let judges know they needed to return to see what was going on”
CJR's Guide to Online News Startups
Uptown Messenger – Hyperlocal news for a neighborhood in New Orleans
Who Owns What
The Business of Digital Journalism
A report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Questions and exercises for journalism students.
I am glad to see someone mention that there is a difference between the Medicare approved price and the billed price of a medical event.
I recently had a hip x ray and the medicare approved price was say $50 (did not look it up) and the billed price was say $900. If my supplement insurance does not knock down the price to the medicare approved price and then pay say a few dollars, I would have to pay say $180(ignoring other required payments like copay and doctor's visit)So the hospitals would get $130 extra, more or less,which they could use to offset Obamacare costs. Another great way to fleece Seniors to enrich the younger set of people.
#1 Posted by Joy Benemann, CJR on Tue 19 Jul 2011 at 10:58 AM
Not paying for health care for "seniors" = "fleecing"?
See how far the culture of governmental dependency has taken this country?
#2 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Tue 19 Jul 2011 at 02:38 PM
There are a couple of misleading statements above (not sure if they were in the original story or whether Ms. Lieberman is not taking her own advice):
-- The Part B premium in 2011 is $115.40 a month ONLY for people (mostly the first of the baby boomers) signing up this year; those previously on Part B pay around $96 a month unless they signed up in 2010 (in which case they pay around $110 a month). This is all related to the Social Security COLA but look it up if you want more detail
-- You wouldn't pay a $1132 deductible for every hospital "stay," just one where you had not been admitted for over 60 days (or 61 or 59; this gets tricky; get a lawyer if they try to charge you a second $1132
-- Oh by the way, the operative word is hospital "admission," not "stay." If you are observed for a week but never admitted that has dire implications particularly if they then want to send you to a skilled nursing facility
-- And the last two points related to Part A, not Part B
-- As for the 20% coinsurance for a doctor as it relates to Medicare rate approval, make sure you understand whether you are being seen by a Medicare-contracted, non-Medicare-contracted or non-Medicare doctor; they're supposed to tell you which they are up front but if you don't get this straight ahead of time you're going to need another lawyer
It is true that "most" people get supplemental insurance. In fact, 90% of people on Medicare get additional insurance from a former employer, the state government (primarily via Medicaid), a private insurer (so-called Medigap), or Medicare itself (Part C).
As someone that just signed up, the operative information about any story that relates to Medicare is that Medicare is terrible insurance vs. anything you've ever seen before you retired. It has the high deductibles mentioned, even more costly deductibles related to extended hospital and skilled nursing facility stays, lifetime limits that would make Wellpoint of California blush and is no good outside the U.S. (I don't just mean no good in London, UK--I mean no good in London ON
#3 Posted by Dennis Byron, CJR on Tue 19 Jul 2011 at 04:59 PM