If you have traditional Medicare, you are paying higher Part B premiums to cover higher costs in Medicare Advantage. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is paying Medicare Advantage plans substantially more than it is spending in traditional Medicare. Congresswomen Katie Porter, Rosa DeLauro and Jan Schakowsky, along with Senator Elizabeth Warren, are leading an effort to end these overpayments in Medicare Advantage.
In total, 19 members of Congress signed onto a letter to Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, urging her to end overpayments in Medicare Advantage, which are bolstering insurer profits at significant cost to the integrity of the Medicare program, taxpayers, and people with Medicare. The letter recommends that payments to Medicare Advantage be on a par with payments in traditional Medicare. And, it calls on CMS to increase transparency in Medicare Advantage.
Overpayments in Medicare Advantage not only drive up costs for people in traditional Medicare, but threaten the Part A Hospital Insurance Trust Fund. Even though Medicare Advantage plans spend significantly less on enrollees’ care than traditional Medicare, they are allowed to pocket huge profits at great cost to the Medicare Trust Fund as well as taxpayers. The Congressional letter explains that “Unless CMS addresses overpayments, public funds will continue to finance private profits at the expense of taxpayers, as well as older adults and disabled individuals on Medicare.”
Traditional Medicare remains more cost-effective than Medicare Advantage. When launched, Medicare Advantage plans were expected to cost no more than 95 percent of traditional Medicare. “But Medicare Advantage has failed to achieve savings in any year since its inception,” the letter goes on to say.
The members of Congress seek to work with CMS to achieve greater savings, transparency and value in Medicare Advantage.
Warren, DeLauro, Schakowsky, and Porter were joined by Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), and Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Representatives Mark Pocan (D-WI-02), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA-07), Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ-03), Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL-20), Judy Chu (D-CA-27), Jesús G. “Chuy” García (D-IL-04), Jahana Hayes (D-CT-05), Debbie Dingell (D-MI-12), Cori Bush (D-MO-01), Mondaire Jones (D-NY-17), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI-13).
Social Security Works, Just Care USA, Center for Medicare Advocacy, Indivisible, Physicians for a National Health Plan, and Public Citizen endorsed the letter.
To read the full text of the letter, click here.
Here’s more from Just Care:
- One in four Medicare Advantage plans engage in misleading marketing
- To strengthen the Medicare Trust Fund, Congress cannot allow Medicare Advantage overpayments to continue
- Four things to think about when choosing between traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage plans
- Your right to buy a Medigap policy when you enroll in traditional Medicare
- If you want easy health care access and good quality care, you probably want traditional Medicare
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