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THE QUESTION
Will Cuts to Medicare Advantage Hurt Beneficiaries?
The Senate Finance Committee is debating a bill this week that would trim $113 billion from the privately-run Medicare Advantage plans over the next decade, a move that proponents say will bring its funding in line with traditional Medicare coverage. Do you think such a move will hurt beneficiaries?
Posted by Rachel Saslow on September 29, 2009 11:04 AM
FROM THE PANEL
A Suspicious Assertion
I am highly suspicious of any assertion that the government can achieve significant cost savings by scaling back the Medicare Advantage program without harming patients.
Posted by Michael Critelli, on October 2, 2009 3:14 PM
Leveraging Health
I hope that in Congress' haste to pass something, they not lose sight of the true goal of health-care reform: aligning the incentives of all the actors in the health-care drama such that our ultimate outcome - a healthy U.S. population - emerges above the entrenched interests of those who would wish to see us remain mired in the sale of units of health-care delivery.
Posted by Raymond J. Zastrow, on October 1, 2009 10:22 PM
Savings at Seniors' Expense or Crucial Cost-Cutting?
If our seniors are worse off after reform than they are now, then we've failed. The health care overhaul must not inadvertently hurt those we're trying to help the most, among them retired Americans on fixed incomes who are particularly vulnerable to cost increases.
Posted by Doug Ulman, on October 1, 2009 6:03 PM
If You Like Your Coverage, You Can't Keep It
Medicare Advantage was created to give all seniors more private choices of higher quality and better benefits. Today it provides almost 11 million Americans coverage through private insurance plans--roughly 20 percent of all Medicare recipients. Recent data shows that seniors...
Posted by Newt Gingrich, on October 1, 2009 4:02 PM
Seniors Would Save Far More Than They Lose
There is no reason that the 78 percent of seniors who have stayed with traditional Medicare should be footing the bill for the 22 percent in Medicare Advantage--especially when they are paying three times what the benefits are worth.
Posted by Maggie Mahar, on October 1, 2009 3:11 PM
Les Miserables
The debate over Medicare Advantage has an eerily similar feeling to it, much like a play that I think I have seen before but cannot truly recall. It goes something like this:
Posted by Raymond Martins, on September 30, 2009 2:26 PM
Good Deal or Rip-Off?
Medicare Advantage eliminates billing hassles, keeps patients in organized systems of care and emphasizes quality and access. My patients love it, particularly since they are accustomed to HMO insurance.
Posted by Mark Kelley, on September 29, 2009 10:25 PM
A Wasteful Program
This is a case, incidentally, where Republicans have lined up in favor of a wasteful government program, where their rhetoric relies on the inviolability of current and future Medicare benefits, and where they are opposing a reform that will improve the deficit over time. It almost makes you miss the purity of the Gingrich crew.
Posted by Ezra Klein, on September 29, 2009 12:05 PM
Improvements For Everyone Else
It is by now well-established that Medicare Advantage is considerably more costly than providing coverage through the traditional Medicare program.
Posted by Ron Pollack, on September 29, 2009 11:43 AM
Go After Fraud
Why cut back on Medicare Advantage alone when there are so many other ways to find fraud?
Posted by Sue Falkner Wood, on September 28, 2009 6:16 PM
No True Harm
I am certain that there are some beneficiaries who will see any cut in government support (and, thus, the expected reduction in benefits or access; notwithstanding that much of the savings may just come out of the economic profit) as true harm. Knowing however, that the existing fee-for-service Medicare is there to greet them, I am confident that the greater good will still be served.
Posted by Howard Forman, on September 28, 2009 4:27 PM
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