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Center For Medicare Advocacy Statement
The
President’s Medicare Executive Order Expands Bias Toward
Private Medicare Advantage Over Traditional Medicare -
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 3, 2019
Today
the Trump Administration issued an Executive Order (EO) entitled “Protecting
and Improving Medicare for Our Nation's Seniors.” Since the President’s
speech announcing the EO lacked policy specifics, we looked to the
administration’s telephone press conference to discern the intentions behind
the EO. As expressed by Administration officials on the call, the EO is
continuing to promote private Medicare Advantage insurance plans over
traditional Medicare. This is part of an ongoing drive to privatize the
Medicare program.
In
outlining some of the provisions of the EO during the press call, Secretary
of Health and Human Services Azar stated a goal is to “ensure that, as much
as we can, our Fee-for-Service Medicare program is not advantaged or promoted
over Medicare Advantage with respect to its administration.” Referring
to the traditional Medicare program as “fee-for-service,” Secretary Azar
responded: “So the executive order commissions us to examine all
practices, regulations, guidance to
just make sure that we’re not steering people into Fee-for-Service, as
opposed to giving them a genuine choice of Medicare Advantage or
Fee-for-Service.” [Emphasis added].
He
continued: “So we’ll be looking at all of those issues: how does the
enrollment process work when new people come in; how the annual enrollment
process work; are we providing adequate information through the various
plan-finder tools to ensure people can make informed choices, make sure
there’s no financial disincentive to being in MA versus
Fee-for-Service. So really, across the board that’s -- the executive
order is the initiation of the process now of examining all of that […]”
In
fact, the Center for Medicare Advocacy (the Center) has documented that this Administration has been
promoting Medicare
Advantage over
traditional Medicare through various means, including the
program’s outreach and enrollment materials, marketing policies, and
benefits.
Scales Already Tipped in Favor of
Medicare Advantage
The
Center continues to draw attention to the Medicare Advantage (MA) program’s growing imbalance with traditional Medicare.
A number of legislative and regulatory policy changes have tipped the scales in favor of
MA. For example, coverage expansions such as the ability to provide new
supplemental benefits have been advanced in MA, but not in traditional
Medicare. In recent years, this has been exacerbated by a concerted effort on
the part of the Medicare program to steer beneficiaries toward enrollment in
private MA plans rather than providing objective, neutral information about
coverage options.
Despite
provisions of the Affordable Care Act that reined in excessive overpayments
to MA plans, there is still evidence that MA is costing the Medicare program
more than traditional Medicare spends per individual, with mixed health
outcomes.
At
the very least, there must be payment parity between traditional Medicare and
private MA plans. As we have stated elsewhere, wasteful spending on MA should be
reinvested into the Medicare program to the benefit of all people with
Medicare, not just those who choose to enroll in private plans.
The President Should Work to
Improve Health Care for All Rather than Attacking Proposals to Expand
Coverage
Instead
of focusing on policy proposals that would improve people’s health care now,
the President’s speech announcing the EO relied on tired tropes about the
threat of “socialism” without a hint of irony relating to the red scare
tactics used to try to defeat the original passage of the Medicare
program. As noted by the Washington
Post’s Health 202
in September 2018, “Medicare as it exists today – a government-run service
for all elderly Americans – is the closest thing America has to socialized
medicine. And there's nothing in Democratic proposals that indicate that
expanding it would make the program less available for current recipients.”
Further,
as noted in today’s Health 202,
“the president will promise to strengthen Medicare Advantage as a way of improving
health-care coverage for millions — even as his administration refuses to
defend the Affordable Care Act in a high-stakes lawsuit in which a ruling is
expected any day now.”
Only
about one-third of Medicare beneficiaries are
enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans; the rest choose traditional Medicare.
Proposals that only help those enrolled in private MA plans leave behind the
vast majority of older adults and those with disabilities who rely on
Medicare, while building a path to a private, HMO-like Medicare program. The
Center for Medicare Advocacy has developed a Medicare Platform that outlines various
proposals that would improve the program for all, including parity between
traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage plans.
As
Judith Stein, Executive Director of the Center for Medicare Advocacy, notes,
“This Executive Order is designed to bolster the insurance industry by
steering beneficiaries into private Medicare Advantage plans, at the expense
of most beneficiaries and Medicare’s future. If the Administration truly
cares about improving access to Medicare and health care, it will work to
improve quality coverage for all
Medicare beneficiaries, including those in traditional
Medicare.”
The Center for Medicare Advocacy (http://www.medicareadvocacy.org), established in 1986, is a national
nonprofit, nonpartisan law organization that provides education, advocacy,
analysis and legal assistance to help older people and people with
disabilities obtain fair access to Medicare and quality health care. We focus
on the needs of Medicare beneficiaries, people with chronic conditions, and
those in need of long-term care. The organization is involved in writing,
education, and advocacy of importance to Medicare beneficiaries nationwide.
The Center is headquartered in Connecticut and Washington, DC, with offices
throughout the country.
Center for Medicare Advocacy, Inc. • www.MedicareAdvocacy.org •
PO Box 350, Willimantic, CT 06226 • 1025 CT Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20036 |
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