Free Republic

Joe Biden's re-election campaign is repeating the naked lie, over and over again, that President Trump wants to cut elderly people's Social Security and Medicare. Some of those elderly voters believe him, as recent polling has shown. But he's already played Mr. Slasher on Medicare Advantage, the immensely popular supplemental health insurance program favored by more than half of seniors, and he plans to cut it more. Democrats hate this program because it allows its buyers choice in what kind of coverage they would like to have on their policies. According to an important op-ed on RedState from the Heartland...

Shares of U.S. health insurers fell after the Biden administration didn't boost payments for private Medicare plans as much as the insurance industry and investors had hoped...The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services late Monday said that government payments to Medicare Advantage plans are expected to rise 3.7% year over year...That is effectively a 0.16% decline after stripping out certain assumptions baked into that rate, according to insurers and analysts.

(Reuters) -Insurer Health Care Service Corp said on Wednesday it would buy Cigna's Medicare business that manages government-backed health insurance for people aged 65 and older for $3.3 billion in cash. The sale consists of Cigna's Medicare lines, including Medicare Advantage, Medicare supplement and Medicare drug plans, as well as a unit called CareAllies that works with physician groups and other healthcare providers.

Medicare Advantage provides health coverage to more than half of the nation's seniors, but a growing number of hospitals and health systems nationwide are pushing back and dropping some or all contracts with the private plans altogether. Among the most commonly cited reasons are excessive prior authorization denial rates and slow payments from insurers. Some systems have noted that most MA carriers have faced allegations of billing fraud from the federal government and are being probed by lawmakers over their high denial rates. "It's become a game of delay, deny and not pay,'' Chris Van Gorder, president and CEO of...

President Joe Biden and his supporters in Congress are positioning themselves as the protectors of entitlement programs, especially Social Security and Medicare. "So tonight, let’s all agree to stand up for seniors," he said in the State of the Union address. "Stand up and show them we will not cut Social Security. We will not cut Medicare." Notwithstanding the fact that the Biden administration is spending us into the poor house — making long-term entitlement appropriations impossible — but Biden is indeed planning a Medicare cut. And in the worst possible area of the program: Medicare Advantage.

An analysis found that cancer patients with privatized, cost-saving Medicare Advantage were more likely than those with traditional Medicare to go to hospitals with physicians less experienced at performing complicated surgeries, and that they were more likely to die within the first 30 days after the removal of their stomach, pancreas or liver. With traditional Medicare, beneficiaries typically may go to any doctor or hospital in the U.S. that takes Medicare, whereas in most cases, Medicare Advantage beneficiaries can see only doctors and providers who are in the plan's network and service area. They found that cancer patients who had...

Medicare Part A and Part B, also known as Original Medicare or Traditional Medicare, cover a large portion of your medical expenses after you turn age 65. Part A (hospital insurance) helps pay for inpatient hospital stays, stays in skilled nursing facilities, surgery, hospice care and even some home health care. Part B (medical insurance) helps pay for doctors' visits, outpatient care, some preventive services, and some medical equipment and supplies. Most folks can start signing up for Medicare three months before the month they turn 65. It's important to understand that Medicare Part A and Part B leave some...

Coverage for eligible, necessary care is denied each year to tens of thousands of seniors with private Medicare Advantage plans, U.S. federal investigators say. In a report released Thursday, the team from the inspector general's office of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said Medicare needs to improve oversight of these plans and strengthen enforcement against those private insurance companies with a pattern of improper denials of coverage. About 28 million older people have Medicare Advantage plans, which offer privatized versions of Medicare that are often cheaper and provide a greater range of benefits than the traditional government...

It's no surprise that someone who went out of his way to avoid paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in Medicare taxes would agree to jeopardize the Medicare coverage of 27 million beneficiaries.Twelve months after Joe Biden claimed at the final presidential debate that “not one single person, private insurance, would lose their insurance under my [health] plan,” Democrats stand on the precipice of turning Biden’s statement into a reprise of Barack Obama’s “If you like your plan, you can keep it” Lie of The Year. The effort could cost millions of seniors their private Medicare plans, as Democrats raid...

Hi FRiends, Happy Thanksgiving I hope you are having good weather and a relaxing time. I have a Question on Medicare Plans. My Wife and I are thinking about Advantage Plans to replace Traditional Medicare. We are 81/83 now and active. We currently have Traditional Medicare with a Gap Policy. The latest offerings from United Healthcare Advantage Plans seem to have taken care of out-of-network services with their Passport which create instantaneous in-network charges in most States that we visit. Emergency care is Covered in any State. Our current Doctors accept this Advantage Plan. Our Saving would be about $5000./year...

UnitedHealth’s first-quarter profit soared 35 percent as the nation’s biggest health insurer slashed participation in Affordable Care Act exchanges but grew just about every other part of its business. The insurer also hiked its 2017 earnings forecast on Tuesday, and company shares started climbing shortly after it detailed results. Enrollment in Medicare Advantage plans and the state- and federally funded Medicaid coverage both swelled for UnitedHealth, which also continued to grow an Optum segment that sells several services outside the company’s core health insurance. Operating earnings from that insurance businesses climbed 15 percent to $2.1 billion, even though UnitedHealth’s individual...

Only days after Judy Hanttula came home from the hospital after surgery last November, her doctor's office called with bad news: Records showed that instead of traditional Medicare, she had a private Medicare Advantage plan, and her doctor and hospital were not in its network. Neither the plan nor Medicare now would cover her medical costs. She owed $16,622. -- snip -- Hanttula said she ignored all mail from insurers because she had chosen traditional Medicare. "I felt like I had insured myself properly with Medicare," she said. "So I quit paying attention to the mail."

Health insurance provider Colorado Access is going to cut Medicare coverage for the coming year. As a result of the move around 5,500 senior and disabled customers will have to look for alternatives. Chief operating officer of Colorado Access, Matt Case has said that the Denver-based nonprofit will also let go 83 employees who were a part of Colorado Access Medicare and its subsidiary Access Health Colorado. Besides this, extra 40 openings will remain unfilled. Case said that Colorado Access has also drawn down administrative expenses, cutting down the salaries of its executive teams. Case said, “While it's never easy...

Days spent in the hospital as an outpatient, rather than being officially admitted, can leave Medicare patients with bigger bills. It's bad enough spending three or more days in a hospital -- undergoing a barrage of medical tests and procedures. Brace yourself for even more pain at discharge if the hospital tells you that you were actually never admitted but were on Medicare "observation status." That designation could cost you big time. Hospitalized Medicare beneficiaries who are under observation are considered outpatients, even if they spend many days in the hospital. If you find yourself in this boat, there's a...

National insurance giant UnitedHealthcare plans to cut up to 700 Massachusetts doctors from its physician network for seniors enrolled in its private Medicare plan as a way to control costs, according to company officials. For elderly patients enrolled in the plan, the cuts mean they will have to find a new doctor or eventually switch to a new health plan that covers their current doctor. The move, effective Sept. 1, follows similar cuts made by the insurer to its Medicare Advantage provider networks in 11 other states... There is also pending legislation in Congress to prevent health plans from cutting...

Democrats are battling the White House over proposed cuts to Medicare Advantage, creating a new divide on healthcare just as the party had begun to rally around ObamaCare’s 7.1 million enrollees. The issue threatens the newfound momentum Democrats have on healthcare after a late surge of ObamaCare enrollees surprised and electrified a party that had been beaten down after months of bad news associated with the healthcare law’s rollout. It’s particularly sensitive during an election year, as both parties court senior voters, who make up a disproportionate percentage of the voting population in midterm elections. The issue creates another...

It's almost become a cliché: If the new health care law makes it here, it can make it anywhere. As thousands of California procrastinators try to beat Monday's midnight deadline to apply for a health care plan, they'll be joining more than 1 million others in the Bellwether State who already have enrolled through California's health insurance exchange. And another 2 million have been determined eligible for Medi-Cal, the state's program for the poor.

The problems with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act may be masking another major change in the way health care is delivered to U.S. consumers, experts believe. At a conference in Washington on Thursday, health care and business professionals said that there’s an increasing trend in the industry toward cutting insurance companies out of the process entirely, as large, regional hospital systems move into the insurance business. Dr. Kenneth L. Davis, CEO and president of Mount Sinai Health System, the largest health care provider in the state of New York, said that starting next year, Mt. Sinai will begin...

To say that President Obama is not an enthusiastic backer of the two Medicare programs that offer seniors private insurance options would be something of an understatement. Over the years, Obama has repeatedly derided Medicare Advantage — the program that lets seniors enroll in subsidized, private insurance. He once called it "wasteful," and said it amounted to "giveaways that boost insurance company profits but don't make (seniors) any healthier." Obama has been equally harsh when it comes to Medicare Part D — the drug benefit President Bush signed into law that relies on privately run plans. In his 2006 book,...

The health insurance industry fighting proposed cuts to Medicare Advantage payments argued they will raise seniors' out-of-pocket costs next year. America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), a trade group, blasted the reductions with a report Thursday finding that beneficiaries could pay as much as $900 more in 2015 if the cuts take effect. The report by consulting firm Oliver Wyman concluded that Medicare Advantage (MA) plans could see a 5.9 percent total cut to their payments next year as a result of changes proposed by federal health officials. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) floated a 2015 cut of...