Insurers to Get 10.6% Increase From Medicare (From Bush Admin)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/20/politics/20MEDI.html

President Bush will increase Medicare payments to health maintenance organizations and other private health plans by a record 10.6 percent in an effort to persuade them to enter the Medicare market and increase benefits for the elderly, administration officials say.

Federal officials and members of Congress said they hoped the increase, five times as large as the typical annual increase in recent years, would reverse the exodus of private plans from the Medicare program. The administration, trying to enhance competition and efficiency in the Medicare marketplace, wants to triple enrollment in private plans within three years.

With Medicare payments to H.M.O.'s rising 2 percent annually in recent years, many insurance executives decided that they could no longer do business with the program because their Medicare-related costs were rising about 10 percent a year.

From 1999 to 2003, health plans dropped more than 2.4 million Medicare beneficiaries. Some pulled out of Medicare entirely, while others curtailed their participation by withdrawing from specific counties.

[xray s]

1. Bush is throwing away more taxpayers dollars to corporations

This is incredible. Private health insurers administrative expenses run 30%. Medicare's administration expenses run about 3%. Bush's answer is to use taxpayers money to try to bribe private insurers to continue to offer plans to the elderly even though the private insurance programs are highly inefficient, and unprofitable because the elderly get sick!

Stop this give away of tax dollars to inefficient private insurance companies. Stop lining the pockets of private insurance company executives with our hard earned money. Stop this failed experiment in privatizing the Medicare system.

[SoCalDem]

2. And the "kickback" is temporary..

It will last long enough for seniors to opt out of the medicare insurance, and for a while they will get decent coverage..Remember Secure Horizons??? $5 co-pays and it was very cheap.. Then they pulled the rug out from under the oldsters..

Once the "kickback" runs out, they will drop them like a hot potato..and by then there will probably be a huge penalty to get back into medicare..if they even CAN..

This is smoke & mirrors.. and during the time that the subsidy is in place, the insurance companies will continue to raise the prices for those of us UNDER 65, in anticipation of the end of their subsidy.. They will get it TWICE, and no one will get any better care than they already do..

[xray s]

4. Some info

We spend 1.5 trillion on health care in this country, and about 450 billion of that is spent on administration costs. Costs run up mostly by the private sector. Money spent on forms and bureaucracy and huge executive salaries that could be spent on actual medical care.

That is an outrage.

[The_Casual_Observer]

3. Bush is pulling out all the stops for this address

This is a rather bold proposal from the chimp. You just know that there is a huge downside to this, right under the surface. There ALWAYS is.