Straight Up Fraud': Data Confirms Private Insurers Use Medicare Advantage to Steal Billions [View all]

[Gaugamela]

Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), which has has no connection with Kaiser Permanente, wrote on social media that "the move to privatize Medicare" has "been very profitable, in part because insurers are good at making their patients seem sicker."

Journalist Natalie Shure concurred, tweeting: "Privatized Medicare plans cherry pick healthier enrollees, fudge medical records to make them look as sick as possible, coax doctors into tacking on extra sham diagnoses to bill for, and pay themselves a profit on top of it. Medicare Advantage shouldn't exist."

"For all its faults, Medicare is a (nearly) universal program for 65+, with overhead hovering around 2%—far lower than its private counterparts," Shure added. "What inefficiencies did anyone think MA would be solving exactly[?]" she asked.

…….

Matt Bruenig, founder of the People's Policy Project, a left-wing think tank, argued that the notion that private insurers would "provide more benefit for less money" than traditional Medicare "while taking a profit" is insane on its face.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/10/09/straight-fraud-data-confirms-private-insurers-use-medicare-advantage-steal-billions

We need universal healthcare like every other OECD country has, countries that all pay half per capita what we do, and get better results.