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A $600 Billion Swindle: Study Makes Case to 'Abolish' Medicare Advantage [View all]
https://www.commondreams.org/news/medicare-advantage-cost"The time has come to declare MA a failed experiment," write the authors of a new paper.
Jake Johnson Jun 10, 2024
A new academic analysis published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine details the enormous sums that privatized Medicare Advantage plans have cost U.S. taxpayers in recent years and calls for the abolition of the program, which has been massively profitable for the insurance giants that dominate it.
Citing the nonpartisan Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, the paper notes that Medicare Advantage (MA) plans have overcharged the federal government to the tune of $612 billion since 2007—and $82 billion last year alone.
MA plans—now used by more than half of the eligible Medicare population—utilize a range of tactics to reap larger payments from the federal government, which provides insurers a lump sum for each Medicare Advantage patient. The size of the payment depends on the enrollee's health, which MA plans are notorious for portraying as worse than it is in order to receive heftier government payments.
"Paradoxically, despite those overpayments, MA plans spend 9% less on medical services than [fee-for-service] Medicare spends for comparable enrollees," reads the new study. "If MA plans pay for less care, where do the overpayments go? Some pay for supplementary benefits, although plans do not disclose how much they spend on them, and MA enrollees do not get significantly more dental care or incur lower out-of-pocket dental costs than those in FFS Medicare. Instead, overhead and profit eats up the lion's share."
The study's authors estimate that MA plans' overhead from 2007 to 2024 was $592 billion, which is "equivalent to 97% of taxpayers' $612 billion overpayments to them during that period."
SNIP
Citing the nonpartisan Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, the paper notes that Medicare Advantage (MA) plans have overcharged the federal government to the tune of $612 billion since 2007—and $82 billion last year alone.
MA plans—now used by more than half of the eligible Medicare population—utilize a range of tactics to reap larger payments from the federal government, which provides insurers a lump sum for each Medicare Advantage patient. The size of the payment depends on the enrollee's health, which MA plans are notorious for portraying as worse than it is in order to receive heftier government payments.
"Paradoxically, despite those overpayments, MA plans spend 9% less on medical services than [fee-for-service] Medicare spends for comparable enrollees," reads the new study. "If MA plans pay for less care, where do the overpayments go? Some pay for supplementary benefits, although plans do not disclose how much they spend on them, and MA enrollees do not get significantly more dental care or incur lower out-of-pocket dental costs than those in FFS Medicare. Instead, overhead and profit eats up the lion's share."
The study's authors estimate that MA plans' overhead from 2007 to 2024 was $592 billion, which is "equivalent to 97% of taxpayers' $612 billion overpayments to them during that period."
SNIP
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Medicare Advantage, aka PRIVATE insurance needs to be GONE!!! We need our social safety net and Medicare Advantage yanks away that net.
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