Posted on 04/07/2014 2:28:01 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
April 07, 2014, 05:15 pm Healthcare cuts canceled after Dem complaints
By Jonathan Easley
The Obama administration announced Monday that planned cuts to Medicare Advantage would not go through as anticipated amid election-year opposition from congressional Democrats.
The cuts would have reduced benefits that seniors receive from health plans in the program, which is intended as an alternative to Medicare.
Under cuts planned by the administration, insurers offering the plans were to see their federal payments reduced by 1.9 percent, which likely would have necessitated cuts for customers.
Instead, the administration said the federal payments to insurers will increase next year by .40 percent.
The healthcare law included $200 billion in cuts to Medicare Advantage over 10 years, in part to pay for ObamaCare.
The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) on Monday said changes in the healthcare market meant it did not need to make those cuts to Medicare Advantage this year.
It cited an increase in healthy beneficiaries under Medicare, which it said has lowered projected costs for that program.
CMS separately is delaying a risk assessment proposal that was set to take affect under ObamaCare.
The announcement comes after insurers spent millions on a public relations blitz seeking to head off the cuts, and after dozens of Democrats joined Republicans in calling on the administration to keep MA rates flat to avoid cutting benefits for seniors.
Monday’s announcement is “significantly better for health plans” than the initial proposal in February, CMS administrator Jonathan Blum said in a conference call with reporters.
“The policies announced today will provide improved benefits in Medicare Advantage and the Prescription Drug Plans while keeping costs low for Medicare beneficiaries,” Blum said. “We believe that plans will continue their strong participation in the Medicare Advantage program in 2015 and beneficiaries will continue to have access to a wide array of high quality and affordable Medicare health and drug plans.”
America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the nation’s largest health plans industry group, was among the most vocal critics of the proposed cuts, backing ads reminding Washington that “seniors are watching.”
The rates are also a victory for insurers and Republican lawmakers who lobbied hard to ward off any changes to MA payment rates, and for vulnerable Democrats, who flocked en masse to oppose the cuts, even though many of them have opposed the program in the past.
In February, the Obama administration argued that the proposed cuts would help strengthen the program -— an increasingly popular private alternative to traditional Medicare — and guard against waste.
White House officials had pushed back at criticism of the pending cuts, noting that Medicare Advantage’s enrollment has spiked to an all-time high since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, and that premiums under the plan have fallen by 10 percent.
Let me get this straight... We now have a piece of legislation we cannot afford, originally less unaffordable by way of cuts to an otherwise overburdened healthcare entitlement program, but now being made even more unaffordable by cutting out the cuts that were in the original POS? And, we are doing this at the behest of the very folks who passed this crap? And, we are doing it without the legislative process, again?
OK. I think I’ve got it.
It sucks. And, we are still going to pay for it.
So they were going to cut a healthcare program to fund a healthcare program.
Anybody else want to jump down the rabbit hole with me?
DIMs/LIBs are subhuman insects who don’t appreciate the Rule of Law or the Constitution. They are for the LIB/DIM collective...that’s it. Freaks of nature, I’d say.
Let the party continue!
As long as the markets allow the govt to create 40% fake money, it feels good....
Can you imagine if Nixon had tried this?
Love your tagline!
Romney and the other Rep presidential wannabes all pointed this out in 2012. The majority of the American electorate are already down in that rabbit hole.
Thanks.
In Florida Advantage plans provide ALL the medical care for a senior for a year on this... operations, doctors, silver sneakers and usually a drug plan... No way they could do that on $1,200 per year.
That said, a hundred grand seems high. Too bad we don’t have a few newspapers in this country or a press that would cover something other than what dems feed ‘em.
Maybe Hannity?
Was Dubya able to simply say, "we're not gonna do that this year" with a law he didn't approve of?
I'm guessing not.
Have no fear, the GOPe will fix this. They’ll boldly tinker with it around the edges.
Has Congressional authority been usurped?
Si, El Guapo!
What’s the matter, Peggy Noonan. Do you no longer love the majic Negro?
Wow, just wow. Which laws are real laws?
The following stunning insight made me forget all the things I didn't like about Noonan.
"Pelosi's urgings inspired Democrats, who for the next three years would carry on like blithering idiots making believe they'd read the bill and understood its implications. They were later taken aback by complaints from their constituents. "
The White House, on the other hand, seems to have understood what the bill would do, and lied in a way so specific it showed they knew exactly what to spin and how.
"Keep your plan" of course was the president, misrepresenting the facts of his signature legislative effort. Your existing policy had to pass muster with the administration, which would fight to the death to ensure that 60-year-old women have pediatric dental coverage.
Yeah, those Dems complaining about the cuts are like Obama on an open mic with Medvedev, get back to them after the election when they have another six years to screw the people.
I don’t understand it Sub-Driver, anyone. Are they trying to get through just ONE MORE ELECTION before healthcare is utterly destroyed? Are they trying to make sure that they are still in their seats when the pitchforks come out? I just don’t get it.
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