Mon, 07/07/2008 - 8:21am — DCblogger
This would be the same Medicare Advantage that supposedly harnesses the power of the free market to operate more efficiently, yet still requires sizeable subsidies because it costs considerably more per person than good 'ol big government Medicare. What's at issue here is cutting those subsidies so that private Medicare costs only a little bit more than standard Medicare instead of the whole lot more that it costs now.
But that's not in the cards. Forcing private insurers to operate as efficiently as the federal government is apparently asking too much of the GOP's free market acolytes. Better to cut doctors' fees instead.
I think this is an attempt to sabatoge Medicare before we can enact HR 676, Medicare for All.
»
- DCblogger's blog
Printer-friendly version- Login or register to post comments
Front page
Comments
Uncle Sam gives insurers an average of $9K for every pt.
I've got two loved ones dependent on Medicare and this upcoming deadline has worried me for some time.
A 10% cut in fees is clearly aimed at forcing Medicare enrollees to jump out of the frying pan and into Advantage plans, as the wait times for pure-Medicare patients just grows longer, and available appointments harder to come by. And for your average "low-information" patient, what's not to like about an Advantage plan? Every major insurer offers a $0-premium plan, but they're sometimes barely better than the "self-insurance" of paying your own co-pays. For my own mom, her heart doctor had to be charging some $200 an office visit in order to make signing up to any $0-premium Advantage plan give her an advantage.
Problem is, for pure-Medicare pts, they tell these old people to show up with the cash in had to cover any shortfalls -- just like they did that girl who died in Hillary's villified story during the campaign, and as they've done to my Mom several times.
I say, if you're going to piss away an average of $9K/pt, set up a friggin' health savings account for them, and seed it with the $9K rather than just pay it to the horrible, horrible insurance industry to publish more pretty pamphlets.