Taxpayers Spend 22% More Per Patient to Support Medicare Advantage

Medicare Advantage was supposed to find efficiencies, but instead is costing taxpayers an extra $83 billion a year

The Medicare Advantage program enrolls over half of Medicare beneficiaries. However, the $83-billion-per-year overpayment of plans, which amounts to more than 8% of Medicare’s total budget, is unsustainable.
The Medicare Advantage program enrolls over half of Medicare beneficiaries. However, the $83-billion-per-year overpayment of plans, which amounts to more than 8% of Medicare’s total budget, is unsustainable.
Dragos Condrea/Envato
Share
The Medicare Advantage program enrolls over half of Medicare beneficiaries. However, the $83-billion-per-year overpayment of plans, which amounts to more than 8% of Medicare’s total budget, is unsustainable.
The Medicare Advantage program enrolls over half of Medicare beneficiaries. However, the $83-billion-per-year overpayment of plans, which amounts to more than 8% of Medicare’s total budget, is unsustainable.
Dragos Condrea/Envato
Taxpayers Spend 22% More Per Patient to Support Medicare Advantage
Copy

Medicare Advantage – the commercial alternative to traditional Medicare – is drawing down federal health care funds, costing taxpayers an extra 22% per enrollee to the tune of US$83 billion a year.

Medicare Advantage, also known as Part C, was supposed to save the government money. The competition among private insurance companies, and with traditional Medicare, to manage patient care was meant to give insurance companies an incentive to find efficiencies. Instead, the program’s payment rules overpay insurance companies on the taxpayer’s dime.

Read the full article on The Conversation.

After months of hearings and deliberation, the New Bedford Board of Health voted against granting South Coast Renewables permission for the project
The U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division argued in court filings that excluding white teachers from the loan-forgiveness program violated anti-discrimination laws
Roller coaster may continue for NIH-funded program that supports students in the biomedicine or engineering fields
The $510,000 package will fund on-demand transit in five communities, expand commuter vanpool subsidies, and offer free bus passes to visitors, as part of Rhode Island’s climate strategy
Trinity Rep presents the world premiere of a new play by Brown MFA playwright Ro Reddick, directed by Aileen Wen McGroddy
At a packed Westerly hearing, residents, activists, and property owners clashed over whether a historic right-of-way guarantees public access to a pristine stretch of coastline long treated as private