Its funding overpayments are sunsetting as planned by GWB in 2003. I posted this back in March:
Medicare Part C (AKA Medicare+Choce) was conceived in 1997 so that insurance companies could compete on a level playing field with traditional Medicare. Private sector insurers were given the same per capita amount that was being spent in the public sector (Parts A & B). The efficiencies of the private sector would drive down costs while providing enhancements to beneficiaries, or so the theory went. The problem was, this ideology is not consistent with reality.
These companies couldn't compete with traditional Parts A & B. "We need subsidies", they whined. "Then after we get established, we'll be able to function better than the public sector."
The GWB administration and his GOP lapdog Congress came to their rescue in 2003 by authorizing an unfunded per capita subsidy that is 14% greater than the one going to traditional Medicare. Part C was renamed as Medicare Advantage.
The insurance companies have predictably whined to keep their subsidies forever. Obama told them to shove it. Their overpayments will be phased out until the cost of Medicare Advantage is in line with that of traditional Medicare.
As in Greek mythology, the insurance companies are getting just what they said they wanted: a level playing field. I think 15 years is plenty of time for them to get their act together. But it just might be that every single thing does not work better in the private sector after all.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022494090#post7This is proper. It was never right to throw extra money at Medicare Advantage to plaster over economic ideology that has clearly failed in this case. Medicare and its privatized counterpart should be funded at the same levels. To accomplish this, Medicare funding needs to be increased or Medicare Advantage funding needs to be decreased. The later scenario has been chosen.
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