Silver Buzz Cafe

One of the proposed ways of reducing Medicare costs that is being considered for inclusion in the health reform bill is to eliminate the subsidies paid to private insurance companies who sell Medicare Advantage plans. The savings will amount to $177 billion over the first ten years. The insurance companies have mounted a huge campaign to scare people, especially seniors, into believing that this will result in drastic cuts in benefits and increased premiums. Remember that independent assessments of the Medicare Advantage program say that it costs the government (i.e. the taxpayer) about 14% more to provide health care service through that plan rather than through basic Medicare and other channels. That extra government money goes into the health insurers’ coffers, not to seniors. We’ll look at how Medicare Advantage came about, how it works, the benefits offered, the potential effect of cuts and what the government and seniors can do to counteract the potential effects of cuts in subsidies. We’ll also look at how you can decide whether or not to enroll in a Medicare Advantage program and how to avoid the many scams that use them to defraud seniors. [...]

In the past couple of days we’ve looked at how Medicare receives and spends its money and some of the many proposals for changes to the system. Today we’re going to summarize the ideas that are currently on the table and their potential effect. Remember that the annual Medicare budget will start showing at a loss in 2010 and is projected to result in a $72 billion deficit in 2016. The Medicare trust funds won’t be depleted until around 2019 or 2020, but we need to act now to avoid a meltdown. [...]

Yesterday we looked at how Medicare is funded, their current and projected budgets and their assets. If no savings are found, Medicare will run at a loss from 2010 onwards and the trust funds will be depleted in 2019 or 2020. In today’s article we’ll first look at the cuts that President Bush and presidential candidate John McCain proposed and then look at the ideas being debated for inclusion in the health reform bill. In a previous article – “Scams That Target Seniors – Part 2 – Health Care Related Scams” we noted that ” Scams centered on health care cost the nation around $250 billion in 2008, with about $50 billion of it directly increasing the cost of our health care.” If most of that $50 billion and a substantial amount of the overspending can be saved we’ll have covered a substantial amount of the projected $72 billion shortfall in 2016. In 2008 Medicare paid the private insurance companies $177 billion in subsidies to support the Medicare Advantage program. All of that could be saved. [...]

Now is a perfect time to look at how Medicare finances work. As the health care reform bill moves to its next phase the industry is closing in on the decision makers. America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) has just launched a highly misleading, multi-state, million-dollar advertisement campaign that claims that seniors will see their Medicare benefits cut under Democrat-crafted legislation. Did you know that we subsidize the health insurance cartel to the tune of $17 Billion a year and get nothing in return? We’ll come back to that later. First, let’s look at how Medicare is funded and where its money is spent. [...]

Back in February 2008, President Bush was about to air a program that would shave the budget of Medicare and Medicaid by $196 billion over five years. Presidential candidate John McCain had a bright idea in June 2008. He promised to balance the federal budget by the end of his first term, in part, through reductions in Medicare and Medicaid. During the recent health insurance reform debate we’ve all heard people mention that Medicare will “go broke” in about eight years unless something is done. There are lots of accusations, rumors and straight lies flying about concerning Medicare and many seniors are becoming very worried, so we’re going to devote three Silver Buzz Cafe articles to looking at the subject. [...]