Posts filed under ‘Medicare Reform’
Save Medicare From Private Vouchers
Once again, Rep. Paul Ryan has reiterated his plan and commitment to “save” Medicare through priatization. (http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/2012/05/medicare-two-paths-two-futures/568246) If only the logic of his plan was as clear as his determination to change Medicare into a set of capped vouchers. If passed, the popular community Medicare program would be replaced. Instead, individuals eligible for Medicare would get an annual alloawance to shop for their own insurance coverage.
Yet again, the Ryan plan would eliminate Medicare, not save it.
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.
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!
No Medicare For Mitt
How much does Mitt Romney really care about Medicare’s solvency? A lot. So much that he has decided not to enroll or use it at all – even though he’s turning 65.
What should we take from this? One thing for sure, Mitt Romney can afford a whole lot more financial risk than most Americans. Unless he has private insurance that will pay as the primary policy even after he’s Medicare eligible, Mr. Romney is accepting a huge liability if he intends to pay for his own heath care. Either way, he’s in a very different position than the vast majority of older and disabled Americans who MUST rely on Medicare to help pay for their health care and can not obtain insurance that will take its place.
Is Romney going to lead a battallion of well-to-do Americans out of Medicare? Leaving behind those who can not afford to pay either for their own care or for preciously rare primary insurance available to people eligible for Medicare. What a shame that would be.
Mr. Romney should enroll and rely on Medicare coverage like most Americans do when they turn 65. As a would-be national leader he should experience firsthand what works and what doesn’t, what coverage is and should be available. He should be part of the Medicare community and help it stay viable for all those who look to this national treasure to help pay for health care.
If Mr. Romney really cares about Medicare he should vote for it with his feet.
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.”
Perhaps Someone IS Listening
The NY Times editorial of 12/18/2011, “Working with Medicare,” picks up on some ideas the Center has been espousing for years:
- Negotiate drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries.
- Let the Affordable Care Act do its job.
- Be careful regarding private plans, premium support and too much cost-shifting to beneficiaries.
- The REAL solution to Medicare costs lies in addressing health care costs in general.
CMA in the New York Times: Don’t Privatize Medicare
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/opinion/medicare-and-private-health-insurance.html
Medicare “Reform” – Beware the Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
This week, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) outlined yet another effort to privatize Medicare; a twist on Rep. Ryan’s voucher plan from earlier this year.
The new proposal would supposedly “preserve” the traditional Medicare program, but force it to compete with private plans. Similar to the earlier Ryan voucher plan, which the Congressional Budget Office estimated would cost Medicare beneficiaries twice as much as traditional Medicare, this one is based on the flawed assumption that private plans will save Medicare money through competition and innovation. The belief that privatization will drive down costs is not based in fact.
On the contrary, private plans have not saved Medicare money, and often cost more than traditional Medicare. In fact, traditional Medicare — not private plans — has been the leader in innovations to keep health costs down and increase quality.
Under the latest Ryan privatization plan, beneficiaries would have a voucher to purchase a health plan (including traditional Medicare), and there would be a cap on the overall amount of Medicare spending per beneficiary. If a plan (including traditional Medicare) cost more than the voucher amount, then the beneficiary would have to pay the difference between the actual price and the voucher.
If traditional Medicare is forced to compete with private, for-profit plans, as Ryan proposes, private plans will work to minimize their spending, and woo the least costly beneficiaries. If beneficiaries that are more expensive to treat remain in traditional Medicare, it will be at a built-in competitive disadvantage, and might well become unsustainable.
The math is pretty simple. If beneficiaries pay more for health care, the federal government will save money. That’s where these federal savings come from. But this approach won’t do anything to reduce overall health care spending, which is the real problem. Instead, it will likely lead to reduction in benefits and increase cost-sharing for Medicare beneficiaries. Don’t be fooled into thinking this proposal protects and preserves Medicare – it eliminates a unified program.
Traditional Medicare has changed dramatically since its inception in 1965. It has been a cost-effective health care insurance model leading to innovation, access to care and economic security. But Medicare has been complicated and made more expensive by adding layers of private options. Further, as Medicare becomes more and more fragmented and traditional Medicare loses enrollment, it loses its bargaining power over health care costs and its ability to create innovations in the broader health system.
Untethered from the overspending and complexities that have been foisted on Medicare by private plans and non-negotiable drug prices, it could once again be a model, for affordable health insurance. Traditional Medicare needs to be strengthened with fewer, not more private options.
CMA Responds to the NY Times: Don’t Privatize Medicare!
Dec. 4, 2011
The New York Times
620 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10018
To the Editor:
Your December 4, 2011 editorial (”What About Premium Support?” ) about changing Medicare into a voucher system wisely states many of the problems with public subsidies of private health insurance for Medicare beneficiaries. All such experiments have cost more and provided less value to those in need of coverage.
I have been an advocate for Medicare beneficiaries for almost 35 years. I’ve seen numerous forays into privatizing Medicare. Clinton-era plans, Medicare Plus Choice, Medicare Advantage: none of them have provided better coverage more cost-effectively than the traditional Medicare program.
I don’t recommend a private plan to my mother. That should be a good test for anyone championing premium support.
Additionally, ever-increasing private options have made Medicare too complex, especially given the very limited number of advocates available to help beneficiaries understand, choose and navigate the system.
Call it what you will, ”premium support” is the latest jingle for privatizing Medicare. It’s not a new or creative idea, and it will only add more costs and confusion. What we need is an objective look at what’s needed to encourage participation and cost efficiencies in traditional Medicare, not further adventures in privatization.
JUDITH STEIN
Executive Director
Center for Medicare Advocacy
CMA Health Policy Blog 