Is the First Patient getting home care?
Is the First Patient getting home care?
Since his recent knee surgery, President Clinton has been recuperating in the White House, not the hospital. A team of doctors and physical therapists regularly attend the First Patient as he tries painfully to get back on his feet.
Recuperating where? Doesn’t this sound like home care to you? And this is the same patient whose plan to save the Medicare Part A Trust Fund from bankruptcy calls for a shift in the home health benefit from Part A to Part B.
White House spokeswoman Pat Lewis acknowledges that the president is being visited twice daily by physical therapists at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue since the surgery, but says, "Does it qualify as home health care? I’m not sure."
After all, she adds, the president works there too.
"As Commander in Chief," Lewis says, "the president gets medical care through the military, the naval medical unit, and the first family has private insurance also."
Bethesda (MD) Naval Hospital, where the president underwent knee surgery, does not have a home health care unit. Somebody is making those PT visits to the White House, however. And somebody, either taxpayers or the Clinton family’s insurance company, is saving money because of it.
Suppose the shift in the home health benefit passes Congress. If, years from now, a 65-year-old former President Clinton falls and injures his knee again, will he be in favor of copayments for Medicare beneficiaries?
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