Posts filed under ‘Cost-sharing’
Quick!
Stop paying anything more to Medicare Advantage plans than to traditional Medicare. Listen to the GAO and stop all bonus payments to private Medicare plans. Start negotiating what Medicare pays for prescription drugs. Then recalculate Medicare’s fiscal solvency and begin serious discussions about Medicare’s future.
Constant calls for changing Medicare into a Voucher system will simply increase privatization of Medicare. Once again we’ll give taxpayer dollars to the insurance industry, increase costs to older people, disabled people, and their familes – and do nothing to address the needs of tomorrow.
Change the conversation. Insist on real solutions.
Let Health Care Reform Work!
Hello, Supreme Court:
Since the Affordable Care Act became law in 2010, significant progress has been made to enhance access to health care for all Americans. The health care reform law is strengtheing Medicare, helping families, and saving taxpayers money. This progress touches the lives of millions of Americans — of all ages, from every state, and every walk of life. That’s why the Constitution authorizes the FEDERAL government to implement this kind of law for the general welfare.
The Affrodable Care Act will help millions more Americans if it is fully implemented.
Let it work!
Affordable Care Act’s 2nd Anniversary: So Far, So Good
We are happy to celebrate the second anniversary of health care reform. Since the Affordable Care Act (ACA) became law in 2010, significant progress has been made to enhance access to health care for all Americans. This progress touches the lives of millions of American families.—from every state, and every walk of life. We look forward to the law’s full implementation in 2014.
Health care reform has already improved and strengthened Medicare. It’s helping older and disabled Americans in many ways, including:
1. Adding Medicare preventive health care services, usually at no cost, including an annual wellness visit, many cancer screenings, vaccines, smoking cessation and dietary counseling. This means people with Medicare can work to maintain their health and can recognize problems early, when treatment is most effective.
2. Increasing Medicare coverage for prescription drugs for people with the highest medication costs, by providing more coverage during the “Donut Hole” coverage gap. These benefits will continue to improve every year through 2020, when the “Donut Hole” will end, ensuring continued cost savings for older and disabled people.
3. Insisting that private Medicare Advantage plans provide real value to those who enroll, including appropriate Medicare coverage and quality customer service. Beginning in 2014, the law will also require these plans to spend at least 85% of the premiums they collect on medical care, rather than on excessive administrative costs and increased profits. The law also saves Medicare and taxpayers millions of dollars by ending wasteful overpayments to these private insurance companies.
These are just a few of the ways ACA insists on fair value in return for taxpayer dollars, while improving health care for older and disabled people. And this is just the beginning. If the Affordable Care Act is allowed to proceed as designed, it will continue to enhance access to quality health care, increase efficiency, and reduce costs to Medicare and taxpayers.
Spread the word about the value of the Affordable Care Act and the need to see it through to full implementation. Health care reform is good for Medicare, good for families, and good for the country. Let it work!
Protecting Medicare and the Middle Class: Themes From The State of the Union
As described in his State of the Union address, the President’s blueprint for a lasting economy is both necessary and commendable. An essential part of that blueprint is ensuring all Americans have access to high-quality, affordable health care. As the President stated, we need to ensure that Medicare “remain[s] a guarantee of security” for older Americans and individuals with disabilities. When private insurance let older people down in the 1960s, Americans embraced the President’s theme of “shared responsibility” to care for our most vulnerable citizens by creating Medicare. While the economic security of the middle class has declined for decades, Medicare has dramatically enhanced the economic and health security of hundreds of millions of older Americans and people with disabilities.
And yet, the future of Medicare hangs in the balance as members of Congress discuss ways to privatize Medicare and diminish the security it provides for middle class families.
“We applaud the President’s commitment to continuing Medicare as a community program that families can rely on,” states Judith Stein, founder and executive director of the Center for Medicare Advocacy. “Medicare is an American success story. It has served American families and adapted with the times for more than four decades. It has provided a critical economic lifeline for families” she continued. “We can not afford to risk the security of the next generation by giving Medicare away to private insurance companies.”
The Center for Medicare Advocacy also echoes the President’s call to uphold the consumer protections and health coverage in the Affordable Care Act. “The Affordable Care Act greatly enhanced Medicare,” says David Lipschutz, policy attorney at the Center for Medicare Advocacy. “Since it was signed into law, millions of older and disabled Americans with Medicare have received more help in paying for their prescription drugs, putting money back into their pockets. Among other things, the Affordable Care Act has also added no-cost preventive benefits for people with Medicare and extended the solvency of the program.”
Medicare is a tried and true American value that provides high-quality, cost efficient health care for our grandparents, parents, neighbors and friends. “Pretending to protect Medicare by shifting costs from the federal government back to older people and their families would negate Medicare’s original purpose: to protect older people and their families from illness and financial ruin due to health care costs,” said Judith Stein. “We thank the President for defending Medicare’s guarantee of security and resisting calls for a private voucher system that would further endanger the middle class and destroy the national treasure we’ve known as Medicare.”
Breaking Good News for Medicare Beneficiaries
Part B Cost-Sharing Lower Than Expected for 2012
Today the Obama Administration announced that Part B cost-sharing will be less than projected for all beneficiaries in 2012. The Part B deductible will decrease by $22 in 2012, from $162 per year in 2011 to $140 in 2012. Further, monthly Part B premiums will increase only slightly for those beneficiaries who have not had an increase in the last two years. Because there will be a cost-of-living increase for Social Security recipients in 2012, the Part B premium will increase, but only by $3.50 – from $96.40 in 2011 to $99.90 in 2012.[1] For those individuals who did have Part B premium increases in 2010 and 2011, the premium will actually decrease by $15.10 in 2012, from $115 to $99.90.
The Part B premium reductions are a result of slower Part B growth due in part to health care reform. The Affordable Care Act’s lower payment rates, reduced payments to private Medicare plans, and increased efforts to fight fraud and abuse are major factors contributing to this good news for Medicare, beneficiaries, and taxpayers. At the same time, health care reform has increased the value of Medicare – reducing beneficiary costs for prescription drugs, adding preventive care coverage, and eliminating cost-sharing for most preventive services.
In summary, between reduced Part B premiums and increased Social Security payments, the average Social Security recipient will have a net cost-of-living increase of $40 per month in 2012. Good news indeed.
_______________________________
[1] In 2010 and 2011, most beneficiaries were “held harmless” from the Part B premium increase because they did not have an increase in their Social Security.
CMA Health Policy Blog 