Studies Say Private Medicare Plans Have Added Costs, for Little Gain

[DogPoundPup]

Source: New York Times

WASHINGTON — Private health insurance plans, which serve nearly a fourth of all Medicare beneficiaries, have increased the cost and complexity of the program without any evidence of improving care, researchers say in studies to be published Monday.

The studies, questioning the value of some private plans for Medicare beneficiaries and taxpayers, were issued as President-elect Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats take aim at the plans and consider cutting the payments they receive.

Enrollment in private Medicare plans has nearly doubled in five years, to 10.1 million.

In one study, Marsha Gold, a senior fellow at Mathematica Policy Research, says that private Medicare Advantage plans “are now widely available nationwide,” even in rural areas, as Congress intended when it revamped the program in 2003.

But the study, to be published in the journal Health Affairs, says that 48 percent of the additional enrollment comes from a type of plan that mimics traditional Medicare and generally does little to coordinate care. Enrollment in these “private fee-for-service plans” has shot up to 2.3 million, from 26,000 in December 2003.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/24/business/24medicare.html?_r=1&ref=politics

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From article;

“Medicare’s solvency is now threatened by overpayments to private insurers,” Mr. Daschle said in a book published this year.

[Cleita]

1. Most people join for the generous pharmaceutical benefits.

They don't realize that they are giving up most of their other health care. In my county there are no doctors who take new patients in these programs. If your private Medicare plan fails you, you have no recourse to traditional Medicare and yes the system is being undermined with the tube bleeding cash from Medicare to the parasite private companies.

[asp64064]

8. Corruption At It's Finest Hour:

http://www.medicalsupplychain.com/pdf/Medicare%20Part%20D%20Reform%20&%20Coruption%20Issues.pdf

[Hawkeye-X]

2. I'm on medicare, and I refuse to join Plan D

I'd like to see Plan D included for free, and co-pay the regular amount that everyone else pays.

I will NOT pay through the nose for my meds.

Oh and reduce the annual premiums from SSDI so people CAN have a decent check for once.

I'm getting a little over a thousand a month, but have bills to pay, and it BARELY covers it.

I get a $52 jump on my SSDI next year. Whoopdi-doo.

Hawkeye-X

[Cleita]

9. Me too. I was going to join this year but

whoopdi-doo you get penalized for each year you didn't. Also, I couldn't find any savings there. It's just a grand giveaway to the PHRMA companies and I believe one of the reasons drugs have gone up so dramatically in cost. These are a real bunch of crooks.

[PSPS]

3. "increased the cost and complexity of the program"

Private health insurance plans, which serve nearly a fourth of all Medicare beneficiaries, have increased the cost and complexity of the program without any evidence of improving care, researchers say in studies to be published Monday.

But I'm willing to bet is sure has improved the profits to these crooks! That's all that matters to them. This whold Part D charade was just an exercise in obscuring more looting of the treasury by imposing ridiculous and unnecessary complexity.

[Selatius]

4. Medicare Advantage is simply corporate welfare for health insurance companies.

It should be junked with extreme prejudice.

[Waiting For Everyman]

5. Private only adds profit into it, with no oversight. n/t

[aquart]

6. What a surprise. Adding a middleman adds costs.

How stupid do you have to be not to get that?

[boomerbust]

7. Medicare D

SCAM

[pattmarty]

10. It's time to cancel this stupid fucking plan designed with no.......

.....other thing in mind than to enrich the insurance & pharmaceutical companies.


MEDICARE FOR ALL, THE TIME IS NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Maineman]

11. Hold on, here.

I just signed up for a private fee for service plan that meets my needs very well. I have a plan that does NOT include drug coverage because I am an herb, supplement, health food, no-junk-food person. I get much better coverage for the services I might actually need, and I do not pay for other people's drugs. (It is Anthem Smart Value Enhanced). This is the kind of plan I have been trying to get for 15 years.

[Doctor_J]

12. Little gain, except to Smirk's cronies in Pharma & Insurance

Destroy Big Pharma and Big Insurance, and we will be on the road to recovery