On February 17, 2016, a group called the Coalition for Medicare Choices (CMC) announced it was launching a digital advertising campaign to ͞save Medicare advantage retiree coverage͟ and a coast to coast mobilization of its 2 million Medicare Advantage beneficiaries who are contacting their elected representatives and urging Washington to protect their coverage from further cuts.
Members of Congress were warned, ͞Heading into the November election, seniors are making this a priority voting issue.͟
Medicare Advantage was approved by Congress in 2003 allowing insurance companies to sell private individual plans to eligible Medicare beneficiaries. About 32 percent or 17 million beneficiaries are enrolled in these plans while the remaining 68 percent are enrolled in Original Medicare’s fee for service program.
Nationwide T.V. commercials urging seniors to ͞Stop the new cuts͟ have been aired by major media outlets during the month of March.
The advertising implies Medicare Advantage member benefits’ were cut under legislation passed in 2010 under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). But, according to (factcheck.org) there were no guaranteed benefit cuts to Advantage members.
Refer to Title III, Part III Subtitle G-Protecting and Improving guaranteed Medicare benefits Under the Affordable Care Act. See section 3602: ͞Nothing in this Act shall result in the reduction or elimination of any benefits guaranteed by law to participants in Medicare Advantage plans.͟
$716 billion which included $156 billion of projected outlays for Medicare Advantage overpayments to insurance companies were scheduled to be discontinued under the ACA to extend the life of the Medicare hospital trust fund to 2030.
A May 10, 2013 study published in the International Journal of Health Services revealed that ͞shifting seniors to private Medicare plans already cost Medicare $282.6 billion of extra tax payer expense since 1985, most of it over the past eight years.͟
Brian Biles, professor of health policy at George Washington University testified in Feb 2014 before the Senate Committee on Aging that ͞Medicare has paid private plans more than the costs of traditional Medicare since 1997 when Congress authorized extra payments to entice private plans to operate in rural areas. In 2003, these extra payments were extended to just about all private Medicare plans.͟
Biles said, ͞The extra payments averaged 13% more or $1,100 per enrollee in 2009 than what Original fee for service members received.͟ The Congressional Budget Office projected that year excess payments would total more than $150 billion over ten years.
The Center for Media and Democracy, who spotlight front groups and corporate spin, reported the health insurance companies’ benefit financially from the overpayments in federal subsidies to provide extra services like vision, dental and gym club memberships for its Medicare Advantage beneficiaries which are not made available to those enrolled in Original Medicare.
Wendell Potter, a former Cigna executive and now investigative reporter for the Center for Public Integrity said, ͞A provision was inserted by lawmakers in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) legislation to get rid of the overpayments.͟͞
Alarmed, the American Health Insurance Programs lobby (AHIP), who represent the interests of more than 1300 companies that sell health insurance has been at work ever since trying to figure out how to keep the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) from carrying out that provision of the law.͟
Instead of reducing the Medicare Advantage payments as enacted under the ACA legislation, excess funding was increased during the past two years using the same lobby tactics, and awaits a final decision on April 4th for another 3.55 percent increase for 2017.
In February of 2016, upon the urging of the Coalition for Medicare Choices, 369 members of Congress (61 senators and 308 House members) signed letters addressed to Andrew Slavitt, Acting Administrator for (CMS),asking to ͞establish payment and regulatory policies for 2017 that avoid further payment cuts to the Medicare Advantage program.͟
Since there were no guaranteed benefit cuts under the ACA to Medicare Advantage beneficiaries , the insurance companies may be forced to reduce ͞perk programs͟ like silver sneakers, dental and vision͟ first used to attract new members using the excess subsidies, but now refers to them as benefit cuts.
The Coalition for Medicare Choices labels itself as a grassroots organization but is a project of America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) and shares the same physical address at 601 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Suite 500, in Washington DC.
