CMA Health Policy Blog

Stop Bleeding Medicare By Wasting Money on Private Plans

May 15, 2013 at 6:19 pm Judith Stein Leave a comment

And we quote:

“Private insurers’ Medicare Advantage plans cost Medicare an extra $34.1 billion in 2012
Instead of being more efficient, private insurers have cost Medicare almost $300 billion more over the life of the program

A study published online today finds that the private insurance companies that participate in Medicare under the Medicare Advantage program and its predecessors have cost the publicly funded program for the elderly and disabled an extra $282.6 billion since 1985, most of it over the past eight years. In 2012 alone, private insurers were overpaid $34.1 billion.
That’s wasted money that should have been spent on improving patient care, shoring up Medicare’s trust fund or reducing the federal deficit, the researchers say.
The findings appear in an article published in the International Journal of Health Services by Drs. Ida Hellander, Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein titled “Medicare overpayments to private plans, 1985-2012: Shifting seniors to private plans has already cost Medicare US$282.6 billion.”
Hellander is policy director at Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), a nonprofit research and advocacy group. Woolhandler and Himmelstein are professors at the City University of New York School of Public Health, visiting professors at Harvard Medical School and co-founders of PNHP.”

Entry filed under: Access to Health Care, Deficit Reduction, Fiscal Responsibility, Fraud, Medicare, Medicare Reform, Public vs. Private Health Coverage, Uncategorized, Wastes. Tags: Corporate Greed, Deficit; Medicare, Fact and Fiction, judith stein, Medicare, Medicare Reform, Private Plans.