NYT’s Ed Board Addresses Medicare Advantage & the Medicare Bill

The NYT editorial board has written a fantastic op-ed on the recent Medicare Bill and, by corollary, Medicare Advantage plans. As they say, Medicare Advantage plans (they do not mention them by name right away, but refer to them as “private plans that participate” in Medicare) are draining the resources we have available in this country to pay for senior citizens’ health care needs.

According to the op-ed, private plans now cover more than 20% of all Medicare beneficiaries. The editorial supports the move made by Congress to cut back on the subsidies private insurers make on these plans because they are more expensive for the government and have not been proven to cut costs or provide better care. As the piece states, “Medicare… pays the private plans, on average, 13 percent more” than what Medicare would pay for a service provided under the traditional plan. And why is this happening? Because of Republican political ideology that a private provider can do something much more efficiently than the government. The government is, effectively, subsidizing the private plans so that they can compete with government provided Medicare. In this case, Medicare is actually doing better as a government-run entity than the private plans are doing in terms of providing services efficiently!

I agree with the NYT — that President Bush should stop threatening to veto this bill. Private insurance companies don’t deserve to keep getting breaks such as these from the government.