And the Chutzpah Award of the Year Goes To…
This is from California Healthline:
HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in a letter last week warned insurers not to increase premiums or co-payments for beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare Advantage (MA) programs… On Monday, insurers that offer MA plans are required to submit their 2011 bids to the government (Janet Adamy, Wall Street Journal, 6/7).
Agree with your headline. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. These people must think everyone outside the Washington Beltway is an idiot.
First they take away $200 billion from Medicare Advantage plans. Then they say don’t you dare cut benefits or raise premiums? Do they think we are stupid?
I think Sebelius is the one who is stupid.
The Health Reform law reduces Medicare Advantage plan payments from the government to about equal with Medicare fee-for-service. These payments have been so lucrative in the past that MA plans tended to provide enrollees with benefits worth about $1,000 more than Medicare fee-for-service plans.
The insurers who sponsor the plans are now they’re being ordered from Secretary Sibelius’ bully pulpit to not make up for the lost revenue in reduced benefits. That just shows how out of touch with reality (and economics) the political appointees at HHS and their bosses in the Obama Administration really are. If the government reduces reimbursement for MA plans to Medicare fee-for-service levels, the only two feasible responses from plan sponsors is to drop their respective plans or reduce the benefits to levels consistent with fee-for-service Medicare.
This is from Chris Jacobs (RPC):
The President just claimed that so-called overpayments to Medicare Advantage plans were being re-directed to insurance company CEO salaries and profits. That mis-states the law, which provides that 75% of rebates to Medicare Advantage plans MUST be used to provide extra benefits to seniors, with the remaining 25% returned to the Treasury. And those rebates HAVE provided extra benefits to seniors – the non-partisan Government Accountability Office found that seniors in MA plans saved an average of $804 annually. Those benefits will be significantly reduced under the new health law – or, if MA plans leave the program, eliminated entirely.
The continuing war on private anything.
Chuzpah? You’re being too kind.
I’m sure all they need to fix this problem is another layer of legislation ; )