THURSDAY, MAY 26, 2016

And Some Stuff On The Internet Is Too Easy To Believe

Yesterday in The Blower’s “Robot Replacements” E-dition, Whistleblower Senior Business Editor Merrill Forbes showed us how many people actually believed that story on the internet about a McDonald’s Restaurant in Phoenix supposedly staffed entirely by robots. It sounded real, especially if you saw that big SEIU Rent-a-Mob protesting for a $15-an-hour minimum wage in front of McDonald’s headquarters in Oak Brook, Illinois where the annual shareholders meeting was being held.

Today, The Blower was working on a really scary story sent to us by not-less-than-seven Persons of Consequence about “No Cancer Coverage for Medicare at age 76.” An item like this would really interest many of our readers, especially those planning to attend their 60-year high school reunion next Saturday.

Unfortunately, Snopes.com says this alarmist warning claims a provision of the Affordable Care Act [ACA] (commonly known as “Obamacare”) supposedly requires that a primary care physician must admit patients of age 76 and older to a hospital in order for those patients’ hospital costs to be covered by Medicare. It originally turned up as a piece tacked onto to the widely-circulated (and largely erroneous) “Judge Kithil” criticism of pending health care legislation and now makes the Internet rounds as a separate, stand-alone piece.

In short, there’s nothing to it. Nothing in the text of the Affordable Care Act requires that a primary care physician admit patients 76 or older in order for their hospital care to be treated under Medicare. Medicare coverage for hospital care is governed not by the ACA, but by provisions of the Social Security Act that establish the criteria for Medicare Parts A and B, and by rules and guidelines provided by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. None of those provisions or rules set an upper age limit on Medicare coverage: [READ MORE HERE]

And just to make sure, PolitiFact.com also says it’s not true.

It’s a really good thing we didn’t publish something like this today, or else we’d have to make a correction tomorrow.